1. Realism in American Literature 1865-1910

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. So what is realism?
TAKE A MINUTE AND DEFINE REALISM IN ONE SENTENCE

4. Our Facebook fantasies

5. Realism instead demands the truth

6. What is realism? A brief overview

7. CAUSES OF REALISM IN LITERATURE

8. The Civil War A NATION DIVIDED INTERRUPTS TRANSCENDENTALISM
WALT WHITMAN
TRANSITION WRITER: LATE TRANSCENDENTAL POET, EARLY REALIST
LEAVES OF GRASS
“O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN”

9. Photography reveals realism
YOUNG FACTORY GIRL AT A THREAD-SPINNING MACHINE IN N.C. (BY LEWIS HINE)
A BOY ARRIVES AT ELLIS ISLAND (BY PAUL THOMPSON)

10. Historical Context POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES IS GROWING RAPIDLY.
( )
SCIENCE, INDUSTRY AND TRANSPORTATION ARE EXPANDING.
LITERATURE ALSO WAS GROWING, BUT MOST NEW WRITERS WERE NOT ROMANTICS OR TRANSCENDENTALISTS. THEY ARE REALISTS.
THE “FRONTIER” DID NOT EXIST AS BEFORE; ITS LEGACY CHANGED AND IMPACTED REALISTS IN ITS NEW FORM.
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THE IDEALISM OF THE ROMANTICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSCENDENTALISTS SEEMED OUT OF DATE AND IRRELEVANT TO MANY READERS.

11. Realism in American Literature
THE PURPOSE OF THE WRITING IS “TO INSTRUCT AND ENTERTAIN”
CHARACTER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN PLOT.
SUBJECT MATTER IS DRAWN FROM REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE.
THE REALISTS REJECT SYMBOLISM AND ROMANTICIZING OF SUBJECTS.
SETTINGS ARE USUALLY THOSE FAMILIAR TO THE AUTHOR.
PLOTS EMPHASIZED “THE NORM OF DAILY EXPERIENCE”
ORDINARY CHARACTERS

12. Examples of Romanticism vs. realism
“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. ” -The Prairie
He was almost 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. -The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

13. Writers who embraced Realism
Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage
Willa Cather
O Pioneers!
My Antonia
Bret Harte “Outcasts of Poker Flats”
Jack London
The Call of the Wild
Kate Chopin!
Story of an Hour
Desiree’s Baby
Mark Twain
Life on the Mississippi
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Sarah Orne Jewett
The White heron
William Dean Howells
The Rise of Silas Lapham
Editha
Henry James
Daisy miller

14. Other voices in the age of realism
AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
DREW UPON THE REALITY OF LIFE FOLLOWING THE CIVIL WAR AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
ESTABLISHMENT OF BLACK COLLEGES (FISK, MOREHOUSE, HOWARD, TALLADEGA COLLEGE
JIM CROW LAWS
KU KLUX KLAN
PROMINENT BLACK AUTHORS
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (POET)
FRANCES HARPER (IOLA LEROY)
W.E.B. DU BOIS VS. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON (EQUITY VS. COMPLIANCE)

15. Other voices in the age of realism
Native Americans
Reservations
Poverty, disease, dispossession
Protest literature
Helen Hunt Jackson brought native American’s plight to attention for American readers with her novel ramona (1885) and her tale of dispossession
By 1870s, Native American writers emerged
D.W.C. Duncan, John t. Adair, D.J. Brown, John Oskison, and many more

16. Other voices in the age of realism
Latinos
Mestizo (Spanish, Native, Mexican)
Little desire to accommodate or become assimilated into “gringo” society and customs
Proximity to homeland (Mexico, Central and South America)
Corrido ballad tradition
Medium balanced dispossession and cultural conflict with Anglos
Usually anonymous
Sung (in Spanish, of course)
Jose Marti
“Nuestra America” (1891) Latina/o self determination

17. William dean Howells THE DEAN OF AMERICAN LETTERS
“A SENTRY ON THE WATCH TOWER, STRAINING FOR A FIRST GLIMPSE OF APPROACHING GENIUS”
(DREISER IN HEATH ANTHOLOGY 79)

18. Literary Style and Concerns
UNIFORMITY AND DIVERSITY
“THE ART OF DEPICTING NATURE AS IT IS SEEN BY TOADS…AND A STORY WRITTEN BY A MEASURING WORM.” ~ AMBROSE BIERCE
CAPTURING THE COMMONPLACE
FOR TWAIN AND OTHER AUTHORS, NARRATIVE VOICE IS ONE OF DIVISION – BEFORE AND AFTER WAR; CONVENTIONS VERSUS PERSONAL CONVICTION
WRITING IN VERNACULAR AND LOCAL DIALECT
LOCAL STORIES
NATURE AGAIN

19. Other Ideologies GOD GOVERNMENT EDUCATION MAN’S PURPOSE IN LIFE
AMERICAN DREAM