Willa Cathers Issues with Realism and The Barn Burner,...

1. Willa Cather 2. Willa Cather and the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 3. The Barn Burner 4. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner 1. Willa Cather seems to take issue with the bland and boring nature of realism above all else. She notes that realism is not in itself an artistic expression, yet so many art forms from literature to paintings—particularly from her time period—portray little more than the realism of our world. In her mind, the literalness that is realism can be successfully integrated in art, but it must be done in a specific way for it to qualify as true art. The literalism needs to fuse with the emotions and experiences of the characters and simply remain as a simple component of the artistic experience rather than the entire focus. The novelists and other artists of her time that she mentions and feels have placed too much focus on realism in their work are not real artists in her mind. Overall it seems that Cather believed that the growing prominence of realism within art forms in her time was leading to their downfall and their loss of true artistic expression. As she stated wi thin â€Å"The Novel Dà ©meublà ©,†If the novel is a form of imaginative art, it cannot be at the same time a vivid and brilliant form of journalism† (par. 7). Through this quote, she is essentially getting her aforementioned message across by comparing realism in art to mere journalism—the mere relaying of facts and realities without a shred of creativity or imagination