American Realism

1
American Realism

• 1850 - 1900

2
Life in America

• Still growing and prosperous at end of 1800s.
• Most powerful nation in western hemisphere and
  about to be the most powerful nation in the
  world.
• Growing working population of industrial workers
  and farmers.

3
American Attitudes

• Frontier was gone, but still a powerful force.
• Dreams of people did not match the realities of
  their lives.
• People uncertain of their place in society. They
  were fearful they were caught up in large,
  impersonal forces beyond their control.

4
Definition of Realism

• A literary and intellectual movement that led
  poets and novelists not to imagine life as it
  could be, but to examine life as it was actually
  lived and to record what they saw around them as
  honestly as they could.
• The realistic writer is concerned with recording
  the details of ordinary life, and with showing
  the reader not generally, but precisely, how
  ordinary life is lived.

5
Realism - A Slice of Life

• A truthful imitation of ordinary life. A
  reaction against sentimentality of most romantic
  fiction.

6
Influences on American Realism

• Journalistic accounts of the Civil War
  established a taste for realistic writing.
• New subject matter - factory and farm life,
  slums, corruption, politics, hardships, poverty
• Great interest in science and scientific method.
• Darwins Law of the Jungle

7
Elements of Realism

• Realists were concerned with the whole of life,
  not just surface of it
• Produced intensely personal works as well as
  broad studies of a changing society
• Used local color. Portrayed through dialects,
  dress, mannerisms, custom, character types, and
  landscape.

8
The realists were not certain humans could
improve their lives, only that humans could
continue to try.
9
Authors of American Realism

• Ambrose Bierce
• Mark Twain
• Willa Cather
• Stephen Crane

10
Ambrose Bierce 1842 - 1914

• Served as Colonel in Union Army
• Drawn west after war
• Nonfiction essays and short stories
• Influential warfare writings

11
Mark Twain 1835 - 1910

• Samuel Langhorne Clemens
• Philosopher and Humorist
• Worked as miner and newspaper reporter
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

12
Stephen Crane 1871- 1900

• Poet, journalist, social critic, realist
• Observer of psychological and social reality
• Covered war as a journalist
• The Red Badge of Courage (1895)

13
Willa Cather 1873 - 1947

• Lived near the town of Red Cloud, Nebraska
• Wrote poetry, short stories, essays and novels
• Won Pulitzer Prize in 1922 for One of Ours.