When considering the genre of Romantic Fiction, it is important to distinguish two main criteria. The first one is that the story should tell about the relationship and romantic love between two people. Secondly, the positive end of the story leaves the reader believing that love and relationship are very real and endure right next to them, and that love wins at all.
In literature, realism expresses real situations, real people and real events, whereas romanticism shows messages by using fiction. Romanticism focuses on plot, hyperbole, metaphor and feeling. In contrast, realism focuses on characters, details, objectivity and separation of an author and a narrator.
Romanticism raises against prior forms of writing. It is a style that profits a personal freedom and spontaneity, breaking the gap between the reader and the author so that the author can use free comments on events within the story and play with the reader a little. In romantic stories we can see unusual, supernatural characters and forces.
Realism is a reaction against Romanticism and show "life as it is" in literature, focusing on details in an attempt to reproduce the real world in a text form. Objectivity becomes increasingly important and the author is not in touch with the world of the story. This style shows the characters like normal, everyday people and the events of the plot are typically normal and have not supernatural or fantastical elements. Realistic novels avoid the sensational, dramatic elements of romances. Realism focuses on characters and characterization that is why it is a common choice for writers of literary fiction. In realism, even time and place are meant to enforce the characterization and normalcy of the characters and events.
In The Scarlet Letter, the unity and structure are provided in the main scenes, and such literary devices as symbols, irony, colors of light and darkness are used. To provide the artistic balance Hawthorne can use the marvelous and at the same time go beyond the probable, he must also do so without chaos(Cather).
The history of Hester and Dimmesdale reminds the story of Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin leads to expulsion and suffering. However, at the same time it results in knowledge – especially, in knowledge of what it means to be immoral. For Hester, the Scarlet Letter is a manifestation of her physical sin and reminder of her painful loneliness. She wants to obtain her freedom from an oppressive society. Because the society excludes her, she considers that many of the Puritan traditions are untrue and cannot bring her happiness(Cather).
As a result, she retreats into her own mind and her own thinking. Hester agrees to her sin, but begins to look on it differently than the others ever have. She begins to believe that there is no necessity to condemn a person's earthly sins. She even dares to persuade Dimmesdale that their sin has been paid for by their daily penance and that their sin won't keep them from getting to heaven, however, the Puritans believed that such a sin surely condemns. Even when Dimmesdale dies, Hester knows she is away from the Puritan society and has to move on because she can no longer conform to the Puritans' strictness. Her moral standards and beliefs are different and thinking is free from religious bounds.
The rose bush's beauty forms a striking contrast to all that surrounds it – as later the beautifully embroidered scarlet "A" will be held out in part as an invitation to find "some sweet moral blossom" in the ensuing, tragic tale and in part as an image that "the deep heart of nature" may look more kind on the errant Hester and her child than her Puritan neighbors do. Throughout the work, the nature images contrast with the stark darkness of the Puritans and their systems (Cather, p.45).
The section from "O Pioneers!" is focused on real life of these Bergson boys and the harsh and unfair ways they had to live. These boys were farmers on a new, prospective land out of the city, but the harvest had not been good, causing many of their fellow, neighboring farmers to declare bankruptcy and foreclose their land to try to cut their losses.
Romance is the feeling that surrounds falling/being in love. It is that light-headed, feeling with butterflies in your stomach that you get when the man you love says something sweet. Even when he does something silly that touches your heart, as everything about the person makes you smile. Even though it is important to always remember that all people are different and they reflect on things differently.
The story plot was quite simple as it had to be a love story. It did not have to be a great story. The book had to be about life and people’s relationships, how they make the things to work out and how ordinary and at the same time passionate love can be. The plot of the book should be focused on the love story, developing its own protagonists. The love story should be resolves using the climax as it is very important to give the reader this same feeling the characters are going through. There could be a number of subplots, however, the main focus should still center the love story in order to not to lose a thread along the book.
Works cited
Cather, Willa. Not under Forty. Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 1988. Print.
Cather, Willa. O Pioneers! New York: Vintage, 1992. Print.
