Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark

Twain, grew up in the Mississippi River

famous state- ment that all of American litera- ture comes from
one great book, Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
indicates this author’s tow- ering place in the tradition
The U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) between the industrial North and the
agricultural, slave-owning South was a watershed in American history
Twain’s style, based on vigorous, realistic, colloquial American speech,
gave American writers a new apprecia- tion of their national voice. Twain
The innocent optimism of the young democratic nation gave
Samuel Clemens way, after the war, to a period of exhaustion.
For Twain and other American writers of the late 19th century, realism Background: The
His style (Mark Twain)
was not merely a liter- ary technique: It was a way of speaking truth U.S Civil War
and exploding worn-out conventions. (1835-1910)
Before the war, idealists championed human rights, especially
the abolition of slavery
Thus it was profoundly liberating and poten- tially at odds with society
after the war, Americans increasingly idealized progress and
the self-made man.
The most well-known example is Finn, a poor boy who decides to follow the voice
of his conscience and help a Negro slave escape to freedom, even though Huck Twin’s
thinks this means that he will be damned to hell for breaking the law. adventures of
hucklebery Charles darwin
They go through many comical and dangerous shore adventures that show finn
the variety, generosity, and sometimes cruel irrationality of society.
Darwinian evolution and the A situation in which only the strongest and most
“survival of the ttest” successful people or things continue to exist.
Representative writers. unethical methods
Nineteenth-century women writ- ers formed
their own networks of moral support and In order to succeed, you have to make many
influence, as their letters show. compromises, you hate to oppress.
Several women writers are
remembered for their fine
Women made up the major audience for descriptions on New England
fiction, and many women wrote popu-
Business boomed after the war.
lar novels, poems, and humorous pieces

This was the era of the millionaire manufacturer and

Kate chopin the speculator

Business
The story of an hour Chapter5 War produc- tion had boosted industry in the North and
given it prestige and political clout.

The yellow wallpaper “1892” by charlotte perkin gilman

The rise of It also gave industrial leaders valuable experience in the

Both works were forgotten for a time , but rediscovered

LOCAL Colorist
realism: management of men and machines

by feminists literary critics late in the 20th century. In Women from south 1860-1914
gilman’s story , a condescending doctor drives his wife
mad by confining her in a room to cure her of nervous
exhaustion. the United States was transformed from a small, young,
From 1860 to agricultural ex-colony to a huge, modern, industrial nation.
1914
The imprisoned wife projects her entrapment onto the
wallpaper, in the design of which she sees imprisoned By WW1 , the united states it has become a major wolrd power.
women creeping behind bars.

Poor and overcrowded housing.

Used realism to relate the individual to society.
Problems of the Unsanitary conditions
Naturalism industalisation
Often they exposed social problems and were influenced by Darwinain thought,
which views individuals as the helpless pawn of economic and social forces appeared:
low pay called” wage slavery”
beyond their

Difficult working conditions.

Stephen Crane

As industrialization grew, so did alienation.

The autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1909)
depicts the inner stresses of the Ameri- can dream as
Jack london
London experienced them dur- ing his meteoric rise depict the damage of economic forces and alienation on
from obscure poverty to wealth and fame the weak or vulnerable individual
Themes and characteristics
of the American realist
novel during and after The
The 1925 work An American Tragedy by Suvivors, like Twain’s Huck Finn, endure through inner
U.S CIVIL WAR:
Theodore Dreiser, like London’s Martin Eden, strength involving kindness, flexibility, and, above all,
Writers individuality
explores the dangers of the American dream.

An American Tragedy is a reflec- tion of the Disappointed of the american dream, alienation
dissatisfaction, envy, and despair that afflicted Theodore Dreiser
many poor and working people in Amer- ica’s
competitive, success-driven society

He also suffers from class alienation, for he no

longer belongs to the working class
fi