Following Reconstruction After The Civil War, The Literary

After the conclusion of America’s Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln pitched the idea of “Reconstruction,” which would bring the southern states back into the Union. President Lincoln, according to many radical Republicans, was too gentle on the south. The government was divided on how to solve the issue of readmitting the southern states back into the Union. In addition to that, the government was not certain on what rights to enumerate to the newly emancipated slaves. These issues became more difficult to solve after President Lincoln was murdered. Lincoln’s successor, Vice President Andrew Johnson, was a Tennessee Democrat that lacked respect of the Republican Congress. The legislative and executive branches of the American government

In hindsight it is sometimes claimed that Reconstruction was a failure. Although there was some good that came out of the Reconstruction it was mostly just a relentless uphill battle against Southerners and immoral politicians that were here to delay change and keep racism alive. Reconstruction brought the Ku Klux Klan who displayed great resistance, and poverty that swept the South once the blacks were freed. The freedom of these black slaves led to discriminatory legislatures such as the Black Codes and the Jim Crow laws to keep the blacks constrained from actually being free. The South was then encountered with corruption and high property taxes, as a rebuild was in order to reestablish the war torn part of the nation.

The American Civil War came to a terrible and bloody end with six hundred thousand casualties and the North winning and the South losing. Southern soldiers returned from the war and found their home in ruins. Lots of people lost their homes, land, businesses, and their way of life. Many Southerners faced starvation due to the high food prices and the widespread of crop failure. The Confederate money that was used by Southerners was now useless. Numerous banks collapsed, and the merchants went bankrupt because people couldn’t pay their debts. The people of the South were penniless and broken. (“Post”)

America: “The land of the free, and the home of the brave” (Key 7-8). When our forefathers overcame the colonial reign of the British Empire, they formed the United States of America based on the premise of enlightened ideals promoting life, ownership of land, and liberty. But after the revolution, the country’s problems were far from solved. The country’s post-revolution issues sparked a Civil War, which was followed by a reconstruction. In some ways, the Civil War and Reconstruction helped the United States accomplish its original goals, but in many ways, that was not the case.

In American literature, women have been portrayed differently depending on the sex and race of the author. Henry James who wrote “Daisy Miller: A Study” (1878) characterized Daisy as a tramp who breaks expatriate social customs. When a male writes about a woman, she is sometimes portrayed as a troublemaker and often up to no good. On the other hand, in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), the narrator is trapped by domestic life. When a woman writes about women, they are usually victims of their society. James and Gilman each seem to display women differently because of their own sex, personal preferences, and experiences.

A revolution is a dramatic and sudden change in an organization in the social order that is replaced by a new, more favorable system. When Historian Eric Foner called the Reconstruction period “America’s Second Revolution”, his characterization was correct. Reconstruction can be viewed as a revolution because the previous social order, slavery, was replaced suddenly by a more favorable one, freedom for African-Americans. There was a long period of politicization for incorporating free African-Americans into white society. Reconstruction also revolutionized the preconceived notion that the states had autonomous power.

The Reconstruction-era offered numerous opportunities to African-Americans, by attempting to secure the rights for ex-slaves, but the opportunities presented even more obstacles to them. The thought of freedom intrigued the African-Americans at first, but many of them quickly changed their minds after experiencing it. Henry William Ravenel, a slaveowner, proclaimed, "When they were told they were free, some said they did not wish to be free, and they were silenced with threats of being shot (Firsthand 24)." The Reconstruction-era effected the white settlers and their crops, as well, posing yet more obstacles for the already-struggling African-Americans. The hardships endured

In the beginning of 1865, the Civil War came to a close, abandoning over 620,000 dead and a destructive path of devastating all over the south. The North now was confronted with the task of reconstructing the destroyed and aggrieved Confederate states.

Reconstruction was a period of time after the Civil War (1865-1877) that was supposed to be the rebuilding of America. It was also the process used to readmit all the Confederate states back into the Union. There was controversy, however, on how to go about rebuilding the nation. Abraham Lincoln proposed a lenient plan. After he was assassinated, Andrew Johnson proposed a very similar plan. The Radical Republicans, a group of legislators that were in favor of freedmen’s rights, were opposed to both plans under “Presidential Reconstruction”. They initiated “Congressional Reconstruction”. Because of the conflicting views, there was little cooperation between the Executive and Legislative branches. This lead to many unsuccessful

1. The war in 1862 was only more than a year old and the people in both the Union and Confederate sides didn’t anticipate it would last that long, but it is going to go on. Close to the end of the summer in this same year, the Union has made huge progress in claiming confederate lands, winning some major battles. They have put the confederacy in the defensive. They have taken over New Orleans, with even black troops major on the ground of New Orleans. They have taken Missouri and are working hard to take over the Mississippi Valley and maybe even Richmond itself. Bruce Catton puts it this way in The Civil War, “Except for guerrilla activity, Kentucky and Missouri has been swept clear of armed confederates, Western Tennessee had been reclaimed, there was a Yankee army in Cumberland Gap, another one was approaching chattanooga, and a third was sprawled out from Memphis to Corinth, preparing to splice down through Mississippi and touch hands with the Union occupation forces in Baton Rouge and New Orleans” (85) So not only that they Union had taken over regions, they are advancing as well, but they did not win the way this year for some reason. Firstly, because they did not have generals and army heads capable of taking them to victory. General Halleck, chief of the Union Armies and Pope in charge of one of the Union armies in Virginia, were major examples of this.

Realism and Naturalism are literary movements that appeared across America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The two are “sometimes used interchangeably, sometimes used as opposites” (Baym and Levine 902). Realism and Naturalism emerged in numerous aspects of life, but are most evident in literature. The purpose of realism is to demonstrate “idealistic views of life in favor of detailed, accurate descriptions of the everyday” (Baym and Levine 902). On the other hand, naturalism focuses on a “more romantic, view of human life than realism” (Baym and Levine 902). Authors that concentrated on realism include Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Within their stories, it becomes clear on which issues they are bringing to life. Chopin and Gilman discuss the harsh reality of women during their time in, “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wall-paper.” Alternatively, these authors were byproducts for women’s rights, as well as realism.

The 1860s-1890s were exceptionally eventful years in America. Containing the Civil war, migration westward, and transition into the Gilded Age, this time period ushered in many changes in American thinking. Among these is the transition from romantic literature to realistic literature. Broadly defined as "the faithful representation of reality" or "verisimilitude,” realism is different from romanticism in the fact that it focuses on reality and characters, rather than the exaggerated and anomalous (CITATION). Realistic writing was rejected by many at the time, as the stories often challenged the common way of thinking.

Gender issues also colors some parts of Winterbourne’s misperceptions about Daisy’s character. The author, Henry James, and the main character were both males. Each of them had contributed to the narator that Winterbourne couldn’t understand Daisy’s character for she was a female. The narrator descrips of Daisy by saying “she was very unsophisticated; she was only a pretty American flirt. Winterbourne was almost grateful for having found the formula that applied to Miss Daisy Miller” is an example of that (202). Second, both the Author Henry James and Winterbourne had described Daisy as “a flirt- a pretty American flirt”(202), which is an offense to the American ladies for the word ‘flirt‘ was then associated with sexual issues. These sexual behaviors altered, the clever girl, Daisy and blinded Winterbourne from seeing Daisy’s real character.

Ho! Woodsmen of the mountain side… feed your country’s sacred dust with a flow of crimson rain! Unorthodox to say the least, such an upbeat poem would not be considered to ever be speaking about the bloodiest, deadliest, saddest, and most iconic time in American history, the Civil War. Imagine living in a country at the time when you were sixteen years old and making what would be the biggest decision of your life. It would not be about what kind of car you choose, it would be about which side of the War you choose. As a man of the South, would you choose to fight alongside your friends and neighbors for what you believed in and the freedom from an oppressive government. Or would you wear the colors of America, and fight for the freedom of an entire group of people. This was a decision that a sophomore in high school in our time would be making. And there was no right answer. The Civil War impacted everything and everyone in some way or form, but the impact that it would have on American literature from authors, to the

Realism, the era after Romanticism, was a time when authors realised that the world wasn’t as beautiful as the words they were using. Authors like Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce, Henry James and Abraham Cahen were some of many very famous realist writers that understood the kind of world they lived in. These authors became popular shortly after the civil war, which gave a bleaker outlook on the world. It was suddenly more noticeable that humanity can’t control the world around them and that the smallest differences of each other can cause conflicts. People’s actions and beliefs were also often questioned or the flaws were criticized. Realists focused on the issues of humankind, including the fact that they can’t manage how the world works, the problems of religion and the struggles of difference.