1. Units 3 and 4 Intro Textbook Questions
Explain the concept of a “Romantic Hero” and what happened to it (518).
How did “reality strike” at the Battle of Bull Run (518)?
Who is Frederick Douglass (519)? What are slave narratives (522)?
Define realism (519).
What challenge did Emerson issue to America (520)?
2-3 biographical/artistic facts for Whitman and Dickinson that clearly establishes who they were and how they differed ( ).
What is free verse (520)?
What is “local color”? How does it relate to regionalism? What writers exemplify this style (643, 647)?
What is the “Gilded Age” (644)?
Explain the idea of social Darwinism and how it fits into this unit (646).
What is naturalism (649)?
How did the role of women change during this time period? What female writers exemplified this change ( )?

2. Realism Covers the years of 1855-1910 ALL ABOUT BEING REAL!
Based on “objective reality,” focuses on everyday activities/life, especially the middle or lower class society, without idealization or dramatization (like those Romantics did).
Under Realism movement, we have two types of writing styles:
Regionalism- Captures customs, characteristics, and landscapes of a particular area, includes local color
Naturalism – Reaction to wealthy few and rapid changes in society. Humans are always in conflict with nature and its forces. Writers often use their characters to investigate the forces beyond human control to determine how the world works.

3. The beliefs that developed were
Self-interest
People are motivated by their own needs
This can be both good and bad
People will exert their will on others to protect their self-interests
Objectivity
The transcendentalists believed that your interpretation of reality depended on your moods.
Emerson told us that morality was subjectively defined.
Well, the realists said that’s stupid. Reality is the same for everyone and what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. You don’t interpret reality mostly because . . .

4. Other features of a Realist text:
You do not have that much power.
Nature is all-powerful and controls everything
Tiny, little humans are powerless to change it.
Nature and society are forces beyond our control.
Often, in struggling against these forces, you die. (Reality….)
Much of these new ideas were founded on the science of the time.

6. Writers of the Time
Realism: Slave narratives and writers like Whitman, Dickinson, Lincoln show the time before and during the Civil War and the ordinary lives of Americans
Regionalism: Writers (like Twain who writes Huckleberry Finn which is celebrated as the first truly American novel) provide a true representation of a place through use of dialect, customs, geography, and culture.
Naturalism: Shows the harsh realities and struggles in life. Chopin analyzed female points of view during this time.

8. Some science of the time…
The Naturalism movement came into focus
Evaluates the impact of social and natural forces on an individual.
Claimed that heredity and environmental conditions shaped one’s life; eliminated power of free will to change station in life
Believed in Social Darwinism
Survival of the fittest (only those on top survive)
Laissez faire (Government does not regulate business practices)

10. Development of Regionalism
Reconstruction ( ):
Period of change in South that was meant to restore it to the Union.
President Andrew Johnson takes a lenient stand on Southern governments: all land given to freed slaves are returned to prewar owners, and “black codes” are passed that limit free slaves in many ways.
Johnson vetoes bills that would provide equality for freed slaves; Congress overrides his vetoes.
Congress maintains Reconstruction focus, but many new white supremacy groups gain power in South. These take complete control and end Reconstruction in the mid-1870s.
After being torn apart, many areas clung to their regional identities and attempted to capture the customs of their area in literature.
Local Color of areas shine true (Twain)

12. Transcontinental Railroad- transportation from the Eastern US to Western US safely…..people start to move out west!
This movement created more diversity in areas due to an influx of Americans from all different areas converging to create a society.

14. Changing America
Second Industrial Revolution sparks wave of immigration to the US.
This brought on THE GILDED AGE (gild: to apply a thin gold layer to the outside of something)
Wealth is concentrated with few
Celebration of the decadence of the wealthy.
Rise in American production of goods and technology
For the first time, we could now buy, not make, our goods (Sears Catalog)
“The time of sparkle, glitter, luxury, and excess”

16. So if it was so ‘Gilded,’ why was there realism?
Unfortunately, not all people were included in the party.
Native Americans were being forced off their land in the West due to expansion.
African Americans, though now free from slavery, were still left poor, powerless, and suppressed by Jim Crow segregation laws.
Immigrants were flooding the US searching for the dream only to live in poverty and work hard labor jobs in factories.