Regionalism or Local Color

Became dominant between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century

Blend of romanticism’s strange/exotic settings and realism’s accurate, detailed description

Focus is on characters, dialect, customs, and other features particular to a specific region

Setting is integral to the story

Narrator is usually an educated observer
Realism
Often defined as “the faithful representation of reality” or “verisimilitude”
An accurate representation and exploration of American lives in various contexts
Became dominant after the Civil War because of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of middle class, literacy, and education
Diction is natural vernacular
Tone may be serious, satiric, humorous
Subjects are people living in society and their relationships: birth, death, money, love, courtship, marriage, childhood, adolescence, parenthood, infidelity, social problems of times
Mixed characters, not idealized -- both good & bad, strong & weak elements
Conflicts: protagonist (not “hero”) vs. antagonist (not “villain”)

Naturalism
Apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to human beings

Focus is on philosophical position – determinism, a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws

Human beings as “products” of their environment are studied impartially, without moralizing about their natures.

Narrator is objective, detached, distant, unemotional

Characters are often ill-educated or lower-class whose lives are governed by the forces of heredity, instinct, and passion. Characters struggle to retain a “veneer of civilization” despite external pressures that threaten to release the “brute within.”

Conflicts are usually “man against nature” or “man against himself” or both.

Nature is an indifferent force acting on the lives of human beings.

Human beings, affected and afflicted by the forces of heredity and environment, attempt to exercise free will, but in the naturalist’s indifferent, deterministic universe, free will is an illusion.

DATE
CLASS WORK AND ASSIGNMENTS
Monday 2/26

FCAT – READING
1ST AND 2ND Period - A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin
pp. 437-443
Questions: p.245 2,3,4
Tuesday, 2/27



FCAT – MATH
3RD AND 4TH Period - A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin
qq. 437-443
Questions: p.245 2,3,4
Wednesday 2/28



Bell Work – Grammar Phrases & Clauses
Collect Gatsby Essay and Books
Collection 9
Kate Chopin’s Biography p. (Empahsize Creole Life and feminism)
HW: Read Desiree’s Baby and Answer Questions – Story and Questions Posted on Website
Thursday 3/1



Bell Work – Grammar Phrases & Clauses
Stamp Homework Discuss Desiree’s Baby
Read Story of an Hour - Do Questions or finish for Homework
HW: Opportunity to complete Silk Stockings( if not otherwise done) and/or finish Story of An Hour Questions
Friday 3/2




Bell Work – Grammar Phrases & Clauses
Discuss Story of an Hour & “A Pair of Silk Stockings”
Discuss Freudian Theory in relation to “Story of an Hour” and motivation , feminism and ironies
HW Read Critic: Roslyn Reso Foy
Source: The Explicator 49, no. 4 (summer 1991): 222-23.
Source Database: Literature Resource Center
Posted on web site
Plan a Persuasive essay agreeing or disagreeing with Reso Foy
DATE
CLASS WORK AND ASSIGNMENTS
Monday 3/5



FCAT SCIENCE
Tuesday, 3/6
Critic: Roslyn Reso Foy
Source: The Explicator 49, no. 4 (summer 1991): 222-23.
Source Database: Literature Resource Center
Persuasive Essay w/o first person pronoun based on critique
HW: Read Mark Twains’ Biography p. 450-452 and write 10 facts about Mark Twain
Tuesday, 3/7



Bell Work – Grammar Phrases & Clauses
Collection 10
Discuss Mark Twain and his humor
Teach Words to Own pp.
Read Life on the Mississippi p. 452 ---
HW: Finish reading and Answer Questions in Reading Check p. 463
Wednesday 3/8



Bell Work – Grammar Phrases & Clauses
Discuss Life on the Mississippi
Literary Elements: Extended Metaphor, Hyperbole, Understatement, tall tale anecdote and proverbs. Teach Vocabulary “Words To Own”
Thursday 3/9



Catch up and Review
Discuss Essay due on 3/19: Comparing and Contrasting Regionalism, Realism and Naturalism
HW: Study for test on Rise to Realism pp 404-422, Desiree’s Baby, Story of An Hour and Life on the Mississippi. Class Notes (Posted) Questions and Class Discussions


DATE
CLASS WORK AND ASSIGNMENTS
Monday 3/12



Bell Work - Phrases & Clauses
Ambrose Bierce Biography p. 466
Words to Own pp.468-472
Read Ocurrence at Owl Creek pp.468-472 –
HW: Question Reading Check p.
Tuesday, 3/13



Bell Work - Phrases & Clauses
Discuss Ocurrence at Owl Creek
Literary Elements: Author’s Point of View
HW: Words to Own pp. 468-472 for Vocabulary Quiz
Read Jack London’s Biography p. Write five facts
Wednesday 3/14



Bell Work – Grammar Phrases & Clauses
Naturalism – Cause and Effect
Read To Build a Fire pp. Answer Question on p. 509

Thursday 3/15



Discuss Essay due 3/19
Discuss “To Build a Fire”
Discuss Format for Book Talk/Review
Review for Test Friday 3/16 on Ambrose Bierce and works, Jack London and works + Vocabulary
Friday 3/16




Test and Essay Question
HW: Be Ready to give book talk/review





DATE
CLASS WORK AND ASSIGNMENTS
Monday 3/19



Outline Moderns 1900-1950 pp.523-536
Book Talk – 5 (15 minutes)

HW: Read the Secret Life of Walter Mitty pp Answer Quesions

Tuesday, 3/20



James Thurber
Parody
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Lecture
Book Talk (15 minutes)

HW: Read Ernest Hemingway Biography p. Write Ten facts
Wednesday 3/21



Discuss Ernest Hemingway and work
Words to Own pp
Book Talk (15 minutes)
HW: A Soldier’s pp
Thursday 3/22



Discuss A Soldier’s
Edwin Arlington Miniver Cheevy and Richard Cory
Book talk: 15 minutes
HW: Answer questions on pp.
Friday 3/23




Teacher Workday


DATE
CLASS WORK AND ASSIGNMENTS
Monday 3/26



American Gothic
William Faulkner – p.713-714
Read A Rose for Emily pp715-722

HW: Finish Questions pp.724 (pp2-9)
Tuesday, 3/27



Bell Work: Grammar Phrases & Clauses
Discuss Faulkner’s work
Horacio Quiroga “A Feather Pillow pp. 728-731
Wednesday 3/28



Bell Work: Grammar Phrases & Clauses
Review Moderns & Catch up
Test Wednesday 3/28 (see Wednesday’s note)
Thursday 3/29



TEST : Moderns Background
Thurber’s Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Hemingway’s A Soldiers???
Robinson’s Minever Cheevy and Richard Cory
Faulkner’s A rose for Emily
Quiroga’s Feather Pilllow
Friday 3/30




Their Eyes Were Watching God
Audio Tape Chapter 1
HW: During Break read up to Chapter 4 and answer questions

"Chopin's 'Désirée's Baby'"
Critic: Roslyn Reso Foy
Source: The Explicator 49, no. 4 (summer 1991): 222-23.
Source Database: Literature Resource Center
[Foy asserts that "Désirée's Baby" is an exploration of the dark side of the protagonist's personality.]
In Kate Chopin's "Désirée's Baby," Armand's ruthlessness is more psychologically complicated than it appears on first reading. His cruelty toward the slaves, and ultimately toward his wife and child, is not simply a product of nineteenth-century racism. The story transcends its social implications to explore the dark side of personality.
Armand is a man who must deal with a demanding social climate, uphold a position of noblesse oblige, and eventually come to terms with his own heritage. Early in the story, Chopin reveals that Armand was eight years old at the crucial turning point in his life when his mother died and he left Paris with his father. She states that Armand's mother had "loved her own land too well ever to leave it"1 but intimates that there was a reason why she never served as mistress of L'Abri.
Armand was certainly old enough to remember his mother, but circumstances have caused him to suppress the past. Although Chopin offers these clues to Armand's dark side and to his psychological confusion, she leaves it to the reader to decide whether Armand's cruelty springs from social forces and prejudice or whether it is in reality a distant memory of his mother--a repressed, unconscious remembrance of his own past.
Contrasting his father's easygoing and indulgent manner toward the negroes with the strict rule of Armand, Chopin warns of a tragic outcome but does not enlighten us until the very end. With racial prejudice and psychological confusion as the sources of his cruelty, Armand has no choice but to turn from Désirée and the baby. Acting out of his passion for her and the child, Armand experiences an ironic misunderstanding of his duty that takes him to almost tragic proportions. His hatred is the opposite extreme of love. By casting out the passion, he has in a way ended the cruelty and finally must [beginning of page 2] come face to face with himself, the true source of his hatred, anger, and emotional distress. Armand hates the very thing that he is.
Although Armand is ruled by time and place, Chopin clearly indicates that there is much more disturbing this man that eventually permits him to harm his wife and his own flesh. In the brief but poignant story, Chopin delivers a flawed character whose dark side struggles to be set free. The birth of his child and the love of his wife soften him temporarily and perhaps offer him a psychological reprieve, but his actions clearly indicate that he is a man filled with torment and confusion. When Armand reads his mother's letter, he is finally purged of his painful past but is now left to face an uncertain and tragic future.
Kate Chopin stated that the only true subject for great fiction is "human existence in its subtle, complex, true meaning, stripped of the veil with which ethical and conventional standards have draped it."2 Armand moves out of the conventions that have governed his life, and Chopin strips him of the veils that have hidden his real self. In "Désirée's Baby," the complexity of human existence comes face to face with reality.
Notes
1. Kate Chopin, "Désirée's Baby," The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Ed. R. V. Cassill. New York: Norton, 1986. 221.
2. Cynthia Griffin Wolff, ed., Classic American Women Writers. New York: Harper, 1980. 2.

Work Cited
Foy, Roslyn Reso. “Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby.” The Explicator 49:4. Summer 1991: 222-23. Literature Resource Center. Thomson Gale. Buchholz High School. Gainesville, FL. 23 January 2006. <http://infotrac.galegroup.com>.