Realism In Children's Literature

Children’s literature is a genre that is vastly dependent on fantastic elements that make it more appealing to children and adults. The fantastic elements, on the surface, act as a model for psychologically cushioning that protects the child from the harsh realities of life. The significance of this element is to offer a moral message to the mass. But the fantastical element alone cannot show the social, political, or moral message the piece of work intends to spread. Another paradoxical element of children’s literature is realism. The use of realism, in the façade of fantasy, and larger than life characters, has helped writers to adhere to the real intention of children’s literature. But realism is different from reality. Realism by definition

In my paper I intend to first explain different form of realism by discussing Ian Watt’s definition of realism, and the different types explained in The Rise of The Novel; Brecht and Luckas’s idea of realism inBertolt Brecht: Against George Luckas. Secondly I will discuss in brief the difference between reality and realism in a work of fiction. Thirdly, I will talk about the portrayal of reality and realism in children’s literature, using socialist realism and Brecht’s view on it, using Satyajit Ray’s Hirak Rajar Deshe, the

The Realist artists used common subjects and surrounding involved in daily life, and workplaces as their subjects. Emily Zola, Honre De Balzac and Flaubert are those naturalists who used these themes in their work of literature. Realism is a style that depicts honest and un-glorified truth of life that the commoners, especially, the working class, the proletariat, could connect to. They despised the ideal beauty and glorified subjects of the past, the subjects used for Ancient Roman art and Greeks. Realism was faithfully based on the idea of “objective reality”, without romanticizing or dramatizing the realities of life and society. Locke’s idea of individuation was highly influential for realism writers, which stated that a man’s conceptual schemes, linguistic practices and beliefs has to be known to the writer who can then faithfully portray it in his work of literature. Ian Watt claimed Locke as one of the pioneers of realism, along with Descartes. They used modern realism in their work and influenced Watt’s take on realism. According to Watt, modern realism - “begins from the place that the truth is discovered by the person through his senses.” But, in his The Rise of the Novel, he explains different kind of realism. He defines formal realism, which he considered it to be the base of Novel writing and the only way to portray the absolute truth ( Pamela by Richardson). He