1. Realism in American Literature 1865-1914

2. American Literature The Puritan Era Age of Reason Romanticism Realism
Contemporary and Post-Modern Period
The Puritan Era
Age of Reason
Romanticism
Realism
Transcendentalism
Modernism
1946 – Present

3. The Civil War 1861-1865 Interrupts Romanticism and Transcendentalism
Claimed 625,000 lives
A nation divided by the issue of slavery; some triggers:
Mexican-American War + Wilmot Proviso
Nat Turner, Dred Scott, John Brown
Missouri Compromise
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Fugitive Slave Act
Lincoln’s Election

4. Transitional writers:
Walt Whitman
Late Transcendental poet, early Realist
Leaves of Grass
“O Captain, My Captain”
Emily Dickinson
Reclusive poet
Posthumously famous
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death”

5. Historical Context Population of the United States is growing rapidly.
( )
Science, industry and transportation are expanding.
Literature is growing, but most new writers are not Romantics or Transcendentalists. They are Realists.
The “Frontier” did not exist as before; its legacy changed and impacted Realists in its new form (harsh, unforgiving).
The aftermath of the Civil War meant that Americans were less certain and optimistic about the future.
The idealism of the Romantics and philosophy of Transcendentalists seemed out of date and irrelevant to many readers.

6. Realism vs. Romanticism
“The trapper was placed on a rude seat which had been made with studied care…His body was placed so as to let the light of the setting sun fall full upon the solemn features. His head was bare, the long thin locks of gray fluttering lightly in the evening breeze. ”
He was past fifty and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and you could see his eyes shining through…there warn’t no color in his face; it was white…a white to make a body sick…a tree-toad white, a fish belly white. As for his clothes, just rags, that’s all.

7. Realism in American Literature
The purpose of the writing is “to instruct or inform; entertainment is secondary”
Character description is more important than plot. The characters are ordinary people with ordinary lives.
Subject matter is drawn from real life experience.
The realists reject symbolism and romanticizing of subjects. Writers wanted to write about the truth; readers wanted to read about the truth.
Settings are usually those familiar to the author. Everyday, nothing fancy.
Plots emphasized “the norm of daily experience”
Journalism, specifically “muckraking” becomes prevalent
Media influence is evident today: 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, 20/20, Supersize Me, Waiting for Superman, (documentaries that expose corruption)

8. Literary Style and Concerns
Novels and short stories; very little poetry
Narrators are objective
Narrator does not tell the reader how to interpret text
Writing in vernacular and local dialect
Writers write dialogue exactly the way the character would speak.
Regionalism – writing that has characteristics of a particular region, especially the emergence of Southern literature
Nature again
Not so much in a positive light
More focused on hardship it causes and how it wears the human spirit down

9. Notable writers and works:
Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage
Frederick Douglass
The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass
Jack London
The Call of the Wild
Kate Chopin
Story of an Hour
Mark Twain
Life on the Mississippi
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
A fictional account of slavery; inspired abolitionism and encouraged Lincoln to pursue the end of slavery
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
The story of an immigrant who faces the harsh realities of pursuing the American Dream

10. Important Terms Naturalism Disillusionment
The idea that we are products of our environment
Manifested in literature as characters who behave in socially unacceptable ways, but do so because their environments place them at a disadvantage
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
A man (Jurgis) emigrates from Yugoslavia with his family to seek a better life. He and his wife are swindled into renting a house they are told they are buying. Then, they get jobs in a slaughterhouse, only to be taken advantage of in every way possible. Most of the family dies of disease, and Jurgis turns to a life of crime in order to survive.
Disillusionment
The feeling you get when you realize that something is not a great as you thought it would be; ex: the feeling after a war is over or after the patriotic intensity fades away
Both the North and South expected the to win the war, quickly and decisively. Both sides were “disillusioned” when it dragged on for years and so many lives were lost.