American Realism1865 through early 1900s

Central Goal of Movement

To reflect real life issues of ordinary people• Focus on the middle class• Rejection of fanciful Romantic notions• Confrontation of real social issues in

literature

“The only reason for the existence of the novel is that it does attempt to represent life.” ---Henry James

Cultural Influences

• Harsh reality of the Civil War left many bitter• Harsh reality of frontier life dampened

love affair with nature• Urban growth & interest in life in small

towns and villages• Realism began with regionalism, or local

color writing: writing that captured the “color” of a small region

Literature of American Realism

• Tackles social issues• Focuses on character, not plot• Uses dialect to reflect real people’s speech

Regionalist Literature• Focuses on specific

geographic setting• Attempts to capture

the speech and mannerisms of people in that region

• Criticized for being too sentimental

• Opened doors to literary careers for a number of women writers

Women Writers’ Voices

Naturalism

Another movement tied to Realism was Naturalism. • Central belief: force

beyond human power shape a human’s fate• Nature, fate, and

hereditary were more powerful than will

Grim view of life as a losing battle

Historical Background

• Women’s suffrage movement• “The Gilded Age”—an era of corruption among

the extremely wealthy• Racial hierarchies—era of immigration• “Muckraking” journalism exposing evils of urban

and corporate life• Harsh realities of reconstruction• The era of lynching, emergence of Jim Crow

Urban Growth and Poverty

The Gilded Age

Ida B. Wells--Journalist

Exposed the mythology that supported lynching• Fear of racial

subjugation• Fear of race riots• Threat to white

womanhood

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.” ― Mark Twain

Twain’s Biography

•Born Samuel Clemens in 1835•Moved to Hannibal, Missouri in 1839: “St. Petersburg” of his novels

Early Life Highlights

Worked as a printer1857—became an apprentice on a riverboat1861—Civil War—spent a few weeks as a Confederate volunteerMoved West and became reporter, silver prospector

1867—began publishing fiction, humorous short stories and adopted name “Mark Twain”

The great irony: he critiqued the very trappings of success he enjoyed and garnered

1870 married Olivia Langdon and moved to Elmira, New York1873 published The Gilded Age, a critique of America’s obsession with wealth1876 living in Hartford, Connecticut and traveling as the most popular lecturer in the nation

“”Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” ― Mark Twain

By the time he died in 1910 he was increasingly angry about the flaws he

saw in the world around him.

“I am persuaded that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict upon a fashion or in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion, or any other matter…is a most rare thing—if it has ever existed.”

“We are creatures of outside influences; as a rule we do not think, we only imitate.”

“…a man’s self-approval in the large concerns of life has its source in the approval of the people around him, and not in the searching personal examination of the matter.”

--Mark Twain “Corn Pone Opinions” 1901

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” 

― Mark TwainTwain critiqued:• Violence of river towns• Failure of Reconstruction• Excessive sentimentality of

popular literature• Illusions of Southern Chivalry• Religious hypocrisy• People’s obsession with wealth

Sir Walter Scott

Huck Finn• Twain began it in

1876 but did not publish it until 1885• Set in the 1830s• Huck as narrator:

voice of an uneducated rapscallion

"It is Huck who gives the book style. The River gives the book its form.”

T.S. Eliot

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn….it's the best book

we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before.

There has been nothing as good since." -- from Ernest Hemingway, "The Green

Hills of Africa" (1934)

Within a month of publication, the book faced its first challenge

It deals with a series of adventures of a very low grade of morality; it is couched in the language of a rough dialect, and all through its pages there is a systemic use of bad grammar and an employment of rough, coarse, inelegant expressions. It is also very irreverent. . . . The whole book is of a class that is more profitable for the slums than it is for respectable people.

Twain’s Response:The Committee of the Public Library of Concord, Mass., have given us a rattling tip-off puff which will go into every paper in the country. They have expelled Huck from their library as “trash and suitable only for the slums.” That will sell 25,000 copies for us sure.

Contemporary Relevance

Issues of race and classOur love affair with natureSatire and humorOngoing debate about its place in classrooms