As Albert Camus once said, "You will never live if you seek the meaning of life."[1] If "order" in life means a structure that can bring meaning, "fragmentation" considers life's events, fortunate or unfortunate, arbitrary and therefore meaningless. As constructs of language, events within novels are almost always significant. This element distinguishes the realist novel from reality, as loss and suffering without greater meaning are inevitable in true life experiences, implying inevitable fragmentation within society. Camus' reality is based on the idea that, by seeking order, the very meaning of random events is lost. From this premise, the novel exists as a "myth" of happiness that "holds together" a fragmented society through the possibility that random events can be sequenced, consequently revealing the significant within the insignificant. However, as a reflection of reality, the fragments of society can only be held together within the structure of the novel, and not in reality. Life, whether in reality or depicted in a novel, can only be completely ordered by following a preordained path. In Stowe and Crane's novels, order is not controlled by inexplicable forces but by society's expectations which, being established, are considered "order". Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Within the war zone represented by Crane, idealistic expectations focus on two options: victory or an honorable death. Young Henry rejects both of these options by initially retreating, a decision made based on extreme emotions: "There was a revelation. He also threw down the gun and ran [...] He ran like a rabbit."[1] You can argue that the preordained structure that defines "order" presupposes a society without feelings and emotional "revelation" inspires a different course of action. Right now, young people not only refuse to meet social expectations, but also those of gender; as war fiction, the traditional subject would be patriotic heroism, not a realism that allows for the display of true cowardice. Yet this cowardice is accepted through the adverb “too much” that accuses others of the same behavior, suggesting that the fragmentation of society can begin when only one person recognizes that they can choose another path. An accumulative fragmentation is emphasized through structure; as the individual actively makes the decision to escape, the sentences consequently become more concise, as if they too were fragmented. Through both the protagonist's and syntax's refusal to remain in a preordained order, he suggests that social expectations of value are unrealistic, in novels or in life. Henry is therefore sincere in acting outwardly on his internal emotions, but is seen as disingenuous to certain expectations of becoming a "quiet, virile, self-respecting [man]" [2] in a battle. However, since these attributes are expectations, it can be assumed that they were formed before the battle. So, on a larger scale, the action of war is technically fragmentation in the order of human life; previous ordered expectations become irrelevant. While Henry's rejection of socially ordered behavior is seen as shameful, Eliza's breakdown of traditional slave behavior in Stowe's narrative has ultimately positive consequences. Slave owners build a path for slaves, which only leads to servitude and death.This structured “order” gives economic meaning to slave traders, but they are random and arbitrary events that provide significant freedom to slaves. Eliza's actions provoke fragmentation by assuming that she has the right to freedom in a structured society in which she has none available: "with a wild cry and a flying leap, she plunged […] onto the ice raft below there.”[3 ] The boundaries between the sexes are also being shifted. Despair forces Eliza from a feminine sphere of domesticity to a primordial masculine wildness, the action of moving from one sphere to another materializes in her "flying leap". As in Crane's scenarios, Eliza's actions are insignificant when considered alone. However, the ability to physically escape presents an idealistic reality in which it is possible to escape from the bottom of an ordered social hierarchy. Through the genre of protest narrative, this fragmentation of a corrupt order is presented positively by Stowe. Yet Eliza's escape can be seen as encouraging harmful fragmentation through Social Darwinism, as it supports the idea that society is fundamentally structured as a hierarchy that favors whites. Order may cause suffering but it is natural and this can only change by questioning it, proposing that this structure is in fact not natural. Focusing on the individual can undoubtedly be a lack of realism, since in a large structure like the slave market, people are seen as mass products. However, it is precisely this focus that allows for the humanization of each character so that they are developed emotionally beyond their "rebellious slave" and "cowardly soldier" stereotypes. This consequently deems their fragmentation actions acceptable and calls into question how established it is if one evolves by moving out of society rather than gradually changing with it. The past and present exist as separate times, but the former constantly influences the latter. The use of influences from the past presents difficulties for the realist writer in holding together a society that is not based on the difficulties - the fragmentations - of the present but concerned with the historical values of the past. Before any combat, the army's only experience of war is through myths: tales of great movements [that] shook the earth. They may not be clearly Homeric, but they seemed to contain a lot of glory. (Crane, p.4) In seeing nobility through the context of 'tales' and not present life, the desire to achieve this status is shown even within the stories. While realist writers attempt to portray events as they are, one difficulty lies in the fact that Crane's army is not even present in their reality and tries to fulfill heroic fantasies of past wars. To aid this, the account is retrospective and the Army considers the retrospective to be legendary. It therefore becomes complicated to try to label Crane's novel as legendary or realistic. Crane's attempts bind the current group of frightened soldiers together with past ideals of "glory", unsustainable in themselves as they leave the soldiers unprepared when reacting to present-day problems. Additionally, the act of looking back can change perception; It “seemed” glorious, yet time can work to forget the pain and leave only the honor. A further consequence of past influences is the use of clichés. In realism it can be argued that the original language must be used to highlight a new and current sense of reality. If you use clichéd phrases and aspire to “big movements,” you foreground the repetition of past language and highlight its novel format. This challengeit is complicated by the genre of war fiction; precisely because the experience and perhaps the words are not original, the emotions contained in the words are. The horrors of war must therefore be so jarring in reality that they lead the army out of the ideals of the past and into a very real possibility of death. While Crane posits realism as flawed in his novel, Stowe goes further by almost completely rejecting realism through the past source of the Bible. Realism operates in a material, earthly sphere; by introducing religion, the narrative responds to a spiritual culture that transcends realism. Eve and Tom exist spiritually where the fragmentation caused by their human sin is held together and even healed with the power of God and his word, residing in earthly, fragmented society only when bondage physically drags them back. Eve's ascension to heaven complicates realism as it transcends the physical, where it must function as a concept, to the metaphysical which cannot be so specifically described: the Earth was past and the pain earthly; but so solemn, so mysterious, was the triumphant brightness of that face... (Stowe, p.428) A characteristic of realism is excessively detailed description; by omitting grief from a death scene, he also omits any emotion that a reader might sympathize with and imagine in their own reality. From this the experience can be seen as realistic only by those who are specifically religious, by those who can believe that the spiritual exists in reality. Stowe also omits an emotional range. If the order of society is based on a certain range of emotions, fragmentation is caused by the replacement of feeling with something “mysterious”, an unrecognizable state. It can be argued that even the experience of death itself detracts from realism, as only those who experienced it could truly describe it. In this way life can be seen as ordered through what is certain. Death, as a certainty, can therefore be seen as the establishment of an order after a lifetime of fragmentation of human choices. However, Eve's death is also the result of these Christian choices made, and her ascension mirrors the Bible when she "left them and was taken up into heaven" (Luke, 24:50). This similarity has limitations with the realist novel, as the act is not only based on the past but on a spiritual experience that struggles to be described with the language previously used for the material. Each story therefore constructs its characters partially in the past, in order to transcend the fragmented and present society towards a higher ideal of religion or heroism. Through a self-aware style, and particularly with irony, Crane pokes fun at the young man's development from infancy to childhood. question whether a single combat encounter is enough to induce change. Michael Bell recognizes the "terrible power of established styles to determine consciousness"[1], suggesting that realism as an established and recognizable technique is limiting because it presents every reader with the same effect. Crane instead manipulates the concept and transcends the "established" effect through character development that suggests a new, dubious "consciousness" about the influence of war. Growth can be seen everywhere, but the irony mocks the realistic concern for inner progress: "He felt a quiet manhood, not assertive but of sturdy and strong blood […] he was a man" (Crane, p.109) . The lack of stereotypical language challenges expectations about masculinity. His proclamation of manhood as “quiet,” residing as anything but a proclamation; this perhaps suggests that a man does not need to proclaim his masculinity outwardly for, 1992)
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