Realism Depicted in the Modern Novel In The Rise of the Novel, Ian Watt argues that the modern novel grows out of a culturally motivated shift from the collective experience to that of the individual. This development, which happens during the eighteenth century, sees many authors, in particular Daniel Defoe with Robinson Crusoe, depict the human experience on a more microscopic level. By shifting from a focus on timelessness to one that dealt with the intricacies of daily life, authors such as Defoe are able to examine what it is to be an individual in an evolving society. Using a subjective approach that realized increased individuality was parallel to this modernization of society, Defoe is able to represent daily life by new life into otherwise previously stale subjects such as time and space. This account of the particulars of the everyday from the perspective of the individual is a drastic departure from authors of previous generations in that Defoe and his contemporaries write primarily to depict the times in which they live. Simply put, the rise of the modern novel is inextricably linked to the rise of realism, and implementation, of realism in the modern novel is fueled, primarily, by the modernization of society. This cyclical phenomenon is one that allows Defoe to not only convey a world of modern reality, but to help create how people view that world as well as define it. When considering the move from older forms of writing to that of Defoe, one must first understand the differences between the two forms in the most basic of principles. “Previous literary forms had reflected the general tendency of their cultures to make conformity to traditional practice the major test of truth: the plots of classical and renaissance epic, for example, were based on past history or fable� (13). While past centuries of writers took to re-telling or re-imagining past events, with the use of recycled
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plotlines, this new form of the modern novel is one “whose primary criterion was truth to individual experience-individual experience which is always unique and therefore new” (13). By rejecting traditional plots, Defoe comes to embody the evolving society in which he is apart of. This change from the constructs of past events, represented as timeless stories, to ones focusing on individual experience is borne out of the metamorphosis of the modern society. “The novel is thus the literary vehicle of a culture which, in the last few centuries, has set an unprecedented value on originality” (13). This shift in values, which is evident by the priority given to all things new and unique, is society’s way of dealing with the litany of changes that are happening during the time period. With these changes in society comes a stark departure in how people view, and even discuss, topics. Their very way of speaking changes to fit the turbulent times. The word “original” had seen several new working definitions, starting with the Middle Ages meaning, “having existed from the first” (14). to the more recent meaning, “novel or fresh in character or style” (14). The changes in the way with which people communicate are the basis for the changes that Defoe makes in regards to the novel. Defoe’s choice to deviate from the previously accepted plots was much more than a simple jump into realism. “Defoe initiated an important new tendency in fiction: his total subordination of the plot to the pattern of the autobiographical memoir is as defiant an assertion of the primacy of individual experience in the novel as Descartes’s cogito ergo sum was in philosophy” (15). This, according to Watt, was a bold statement, and move, on the part of Defoe. This new, autobiographical, memoir sets the literary standard that makes it own, indelible, mark on the realism movement. The comparison to that of
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Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am,” brings about a new way of writing fiction as well as an entirely different way of critiquing, and imagining, the novel. Another element that Defoe employs in writing the modern novel is in the naming of his characters. “Characters in previous forms of literature, of course, were usually given proper names; but the kind of names actually used showed that the author was not trying to establish his characters as completely individualised entities” (18). By using characters with names such as Robinson Crusoe, Defoe changes the course of prose fiction as he and other early novelists, “named their characters in such a way as to suggest that they were to be regarded as particular individuals in the contemporary social environment” (19). By copying the names of people in everyday life, Defoe is able to create a more accurate landscape. Instead of convoluted, hard to pronounce names, Defoe opts for simple and common names, thus better portraying the life of those around him. The recognition, and use, of time and place in the modern novel is another tool that separates it from previous writings. “Defoe does give us such evidence. At his best, he convinces us completely that his narrative is occurring at a particular place and a particular time” (24). Defoe’s stories give an added dimension of reality when you consider his attention to time and location. This weighs down his novels, and anchors them in specifics, in the form of a fully conceptualized background. The backdrop of details grounds Defoe’s characters in the very specifics that are mimicked in the modern person’s everyday life. “And our memory of his novels consists largely of these vividly realised moments in the lives of his characters, moments which are loosely strung together to form a convincing biographical perspective” (24). Defoe creates a sense of personal identity in his characters by exploring how time and location are so intertwined
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with the individual trying to live in an increasingly evolved society. Many aspects of modern life, from the rise of urbanization, increased populations, and an acute awareness of time, are touched upon through Defoe’s use of time and location. Watt continues to delve into the significance of Defoe’s application of realism into the novel by showcasing the differences between how this new, modern novel incorporates time into their stories as compared to previous literary movements. “The novel’s closeness to the texture of daily experience directly depends upon its employment of a much more minutely discriminated time-scale” (22). This type of rendering of time, in which reality is fully conveyed by acknowledging the continuous nature, and unending quality, of time is what allows Defoe to express a more accurately realized sense of daily life. Watt continues to show the distinction between Defoe’s realism and previous literature, in terms of their application, and rendering, of time by contemplating the deficiencies within previous literature’s attempt at presenting time. “The restriction of the action of tragedy to twenty-four hours, for example, the celebrated unity of time, is really a denial of the importance of the temporal dimension in human life” (23). The belief that the complications of the everyday struggle of humanity can be properly summarized through single day intervals was inverted by the writings of such people like Defoe. This reversal allows the details of the human experience to be more maturely realized in regards to time. It’s important to note that the duality of time represented in the realism of the modern novel allows for not only the lengthening of stories, but also the detailed observations of these lengthier narratives. One could suggest that the realism depicted in the modern novel Robinson Crusoe laid much of the groundwork for modern cinema in
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that it presented life on a reel-by-reel basis, thus showcasing the often fragmented existence of many individual’s lives. The idea of place functioning as a real, and always apparent, aspect of life is apparent in Defoe’s work as well. Watt observes, “Place was traditionally almost as general and vague as time in tragedy, comedy and romance. Shakespeare, as Johnson tells us, ‘had no regard to distinction of time or place’” (26). With Defoe the reader is given mundane descriptions of the world the characters inhabit. To gloss over these representations would be ignoring his progressive nature. It is with these specifics that Defoe creates a fully realized world: “Defoe would seem to be the first of our writers who visualised the whole of his narrative as though it occurred in an actual physical environment” (26). By putting the individual inside a world, Defoe was able to more effectively convey the nuances of the individual experience. This visualization isn’t only a new way of conveying a story but serves as another vehicle to transport the reader into his created world. This creation of environment, via visual details, gives Defoe’s readers a sense of actually experiencing what the characters are going through. This, considering his work’s aim of conveying the individualized experience, is vital in gaining a more mature, and accurate, understanding of what it is to be human. “There is no doubt that the pursuit of verisimilitude led Defoe, Richardson and Fielding to initiate the power of ‘putting man wholly into his physical setting’ which constitutes for Allen Tate the distinctive capacity of the novel form” (27). The link that Defoe makes with the individual to his environment is a revolutionary one that gives the modern novel a three-dimensional flare that previous literature lacks.
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Another important aspect that came along with the rise of realism in the novel is in how Defoe accurately exposes the changes going around him. “Characteristically, this solidity of setting is particularly noticeable in Defoe’s treatment of moveable objects in the physical world…while Robinson Crusoe’s island is full of memorable pieces of clothing and hardware” (26). By further detailing the physical world with which Defoe places his characters in with such an acute attention to objects such as watches, clothing and tools, he is able to tune into a popular sentiment of the time. The rise of modernity saw the rise of attaching objects to value, giving them a life of their own. This trend of placing value, and noticing the implied value, in objects shades the modern world in a way in which previous literary movements didn’t have to contend with while attempting to portray their respective times. The manipulation, and use, of a different type of language in Defoe’s work also plays a large role in transforming the novel to its more modern ways. “The previous stylistic tradition for fiction was not primarily concerned with the correspondence of words to things, but rather with the extrinsic beauties which could be bestowed upon description and action by the use of rhetoric” (28). With previous writers focusing on the beauty that their words create, showing off their linguistic abilities much like that of a poet, Defoe and his modern contemporaries focus more on the realistic uses of their language. “We must regard the break which Defoe and Richardson made with the accepted canons of prose style, not an incidental blemish, but rather as the price they had to pay for achieving the immediacy and closeness of the text to what is being described” (29). This desire to stay truthful, and vigilantly observant, to what is being described is vital for Defoe because to get bogged down in the natural beauty of everything would
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undercut his ability to examine the individual experience on a more realistic level. The economical use of words in Defoe’s writing reinforces his goal of examining and defining the new, modern individual. Some critics argue that this immediacy and economy of language represents an unwanted departure from the literature of the past. “Natural, too, that both Defoe and Richardson should have been attacked by many of the better educated writers of the day for their clumsy and often inaccurate way of writing” (29). This is far too short sighted because in examining the individual experience, Defoe is seeking to appeal to their way of communicating. By doing otherwise, such as talking down to them in artificially esoteric language, would cause many of the truths he brings up in his writings to be missed by the same public that he was attempting to acknowledge and portray. The changes that much of Europe is undergoing at the time are the motivation for this change in literature. This move to a realist, modern novel wasn’t a purely stylistic choice but rather a necessity in which to create, comprehend, and ultimately define the times in which they are living. “The literary innovations must be seen as parallel manifestations of larger change-that vast transformation of Western civilisation since the Renaissance which has replaced the unified world picture of the Middle Ages with another very different one-one that which presents us, essentially, with a developing but unplanned aggregate of particular individuals having particular experiences at particular times and at particular places” (31). This preoccupation with the particulars of almost everything is important to note in terms of the modern novel because it is the essence of art imitating life. By dissecting these particulars Defoe is able to take on the role of social commentator as well as novelist. These particulars, the mundane aspects of life, aren’t
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always interesting but it does cleverly serve as the launching pad for Defoe’s larger themes discussed in his work. Defoe successfully shifts the trajectory of the novel by using his art as a mirror of the society around him. “The novel is in nothing so characteristic of our culture as in the way it reflects this characteristic orientation of modern thought” (22). By creating a form for which to express the positive and negative aspects of a modern culture through the prism of the individual, Defoe manages to use the novel as portraying what E.M. Forster saw as “life by time” instead of the outdated thought of portraying “life by values.” Seemingly small, this progression from portraying “life by values” to “life by time” ushers in a completely new way of observing one’s society. It also presents an interesting schism as the modernization of the society creates a sense of isolation and lack of selfimportance in the individual while Defoe emphasizes his focus on portraying the individual. This dichotomy is important to note because it serves as a symbol of the changing, and often polarizing, times where the forces of science and religion are still vying for dominance. In this way, Defoe serves as a microcosm for the times in which he lives in. Defoe, with his melding of more realistic features to the novel, makes one of the single greatest literary achievements in history. “The historical importance of Defoe and Richardson therefore primarily depends on the suddenness and completeness with which they brought into being what may be regarded as the lowest common denominator of the novel genre as a whole, its formal realism” (34). This application of formal realism, while not new, is the type of innovation that transforms the novel into a more representative means in which to investigate the changing times. The “suddenness and completeness” of
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Defoe’s application of realism in the novel takes a back seat only to the evolution of the modern society during the time. With the social changes of the time apparent everywhere, Defoe creates a new type of literature to meet the needs and successfully portray the lives of the individual living in a newly modern world. Defoe is able to use literary tools such as the implementation of new plots, a focus on the individual’s physical surroundings, and an economy of language, among other things, to revolutionize the modern novel. By acclimating to this changing environment Defoe is able to give a voice to the individual, thereby changing the way the modern novel is thought of. This voice comes in the form of a new prism for which to view, examine, and define this changing world.
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