American Realism: a literary

movement1860-1890

Huge upheavals are changing our country and

culture.1860 -- Abraham Lincoln becomes president after attacking slavery and insisting that the Federal government has "the power of restraining the extension of the institution."  1860 -- South

Carolina votes to secede from the Union

1861 – Civil War starts

1863 -- The Emancipation Proclamation is signed

1865 – Civil War ends

1865 -- Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery

1867 -- All males over 21 are granted suffrage in US

territories

1870 -- Territory of Utah gives full suffrage to women

1871 – Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone

1876 – Custer attacks Sioux forces at Little Big Horn

1877 – Thomas Alva Edison patents phonograph

1878 – Edison invents light bulb.

1879 – “exodusters” 7-15,000 African Americans move to Kansas 1880 – Chinese

Exclusion Treaty signed

1888 -- first Kodak box cameras are

sold 1881 – Tuskagee Institute formed by

Booker T. Washington

1881 – gunfight @ OK Corral in Tombstone

1884 – Chicago houses first skyscraper 1886 – Haymarket

Riot

1887 – Dawes Severalty Act: 60 acres/ Native American family

1890 – Jane Adams forms Hull House

1896 – Plessy vs. Fergeson – separate but equal

Authors (like other artists) try to make

sense of this – the life they are seeing isn’t reflected in the Romantic literature that was previously produced in America.

Romanticism• Nature emphasized.• Prefers action to

character. • Characters not as

complexly related to each other or to their society.

• Origins and class of characters sometimes irrelevant, sometimes a mystery.

Romanticism didn’t depict their reality …

… so Realism developed in

America.

Realism is …

• Realism developed after the Civil War because the romantic novel (remember The Last of the Mohicians) could not capture the disappointment, senselessness, and horror of war.

American Realism

Realist writers used ordinary people as their subjects instead of larger than life heroes (like Hawkeye). As they wrote about regular people they had to examine local manners; another important aspect of realism is that authors tried to explain why ordinary people behave the way they do.

American Realism

While Realism focused on people …

Authors also started to ask what the effects of

PLACE (setting) on stories and the characters in them, which lead to

American Regionalism.

Regionalism is …

American Regionalism

Regionalism is literature that emphasizes a specific geographic setting and that

reproduces the speech and manners of people who live in that region.

While regional writers might be realistic in their depiction of speech patterns and manners, they were often unrealistic in their depiction of character and social environment. This is where regionalism differs from realism; realism tried to reproduce accurately the social conditions and human motivations.

American Regionalism

Prominent American writers during this

time:Regionalist Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

Kate Chopin

Mark Twain

Realist Authors:

Stephen Crane

W. D. Howells

Edith Wharton

… so before we start our next short

stories--… be ready to examine characters in a deep, patient

analysis … using feminist criticism, psychoanalytic

theory, and structuralism.