Henry James And The Civil War

In the mid nineteenth century, a literary movement began in America as a form of rejection of romanticism. This movement was called Realism. In contrast to romanticism, which promoted idealism, positivism, and subjectivity, Realism was a literary technique which attempted to portray the society as it was presented in the ordinary life. One of the pioneer of Realism was Henry James. In his essay “Art of Fiction” he described realism not as an attempt to picture someone’s life experiences but rather as a way to evoke a sense of reality in the mind (554) on the reader. Although Mark Twain’s short story “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was written fifteen years before this approach of realism, it is an example of realism as defined by Henry James, for it succeeds to create an illusion of reality by using three capital tools: the plausibility of the event, the emphasis on the characters, and the stress on the details of the environment.

Realism is the period in American literature from 1860 to 1890. This movement in writing focused on writing about how things really appeared and how they really were instead of writing in a dark manner. The stories, Life On The Mississippi and The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County written by Mark Twain best represent the realism movement in American literature at this time.

Naturalism and Realism both became important writing styles in the mid- nineteenth century. Naturalist writing portrays individuality within a character allowing a person to obtain humanistic themes. Realist writing is all about portraying real life and real situations. (Thesis)- Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” and Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” both display elements of naturalism and realism.

Author, Ambrose Bierce, who is considered one of the Great American authors, wrote during the realism period. Particularly, in his work titled An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, written in 1890, we can see evidence of the characteristics, themes and style identified with the realism movement which was extant in American letters between 1850 and 1900. As a representative of such a movement, Ambrose Bierce, then remains on the most identifiable and iconic writers of his time.

The literary rebellion, known as realism, established itself in American writing as a direct response to the age of American romanticism’s sentimental and sensationalist prose. As the dominance of New England’s literary culture waned “a host of new writers appeared, among them Bret Harte, William Dean Howells, and Mark Twain, whose background and training, unlike those of the older generation they displaced, were middle-class and journalistic rather than genteel or academic” (McMichael 6). These authors moved from tales of local color fiction to realistic and truthful depictions of the complete panorama of American experience. They wrote about uniquely American subjects in a humorous and everyday

The Realism movement consumed almost all of the continental United States beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, coming to a stop only a decade into the twentieth century. The Realistic era appeared as many things, including a reply to Romanticism, a demonstration of exhausted morals, and an example of the country’s civilization (White 1). Realism captured the attention

Before Abraham Lincoln became president the politics with different because there was still slavery going on but James Buchanan did nothing about it by supporting slavery. "By the end of Buchanan's presidency, the slavery issue threatened to tear the country apart." James Buchanan mean the 15th president his career was called unsuccessfully tried to continue slavery or expand it but was unsuccessful any cause the country to tear apart because the Civil War he was blamed for." Enbroiled and explodes explosive struggle in Kansas over the expansion of slavery (1854-59), he attended to persuade Kansas voters to accept the unpopular Lecompton Constitution which would have permitted slavery there." If it wasn't for the 15th president on successful

Realism, as stated by Washington University, is the “faithful representation of reality that describes and depicts everyday middle- class life.” It (Realism) demonstrates the hardships and problems people undergo in order to be able to achieve moral success and mental peace. “Naturalism depicts the similar ideals as realism in portraying a situation in a more negative and detached tone” (literarydevices.net). The ideas are mostly focused on the character being more human and more prone to making mistakes and going through struggles that may seem hard to overcome, but in the end may teach something. Despite the character’s obstacles, they don’t overcome who they truly are and don’t change their personality, economic status or wealth.

In the century America, there were changes in the society and politics resulting from the expansion to the westward as well as the civil wars. Artists in America turned to reality and regionalism as a way to bring their concerns during that time. Their concerns included the widening gap in social classes where there were class struggles among those of the working class as well as the middle class who were brought down socially. These artists wrote down these transfo0rmations brought out in the nation by creating removed, impartial status of everyday life. In a bid to bring readers to be fascinated by their stories and to depict their character and the reader’s setting to life, Mark Twain in the adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the awakening by Kate Chopin used regionalism and in the same way, Henry James showed the reality of life in his story Daisy Miller.

When people hear the word Realism, they think of literature or something that contributes to art. Realism was an artistic movement that was brought upon by France in the 1850s. Realism came about as a reaction against the supernatural nature of Romanticism. It sought out to show the truth of everyday American life. This essay is going to dig deeper into American society, literature, religion, writers, Naturalism, and Regionalism; and what Realism had to do with this change.

Realism, in contrast to Romanticism, represents the reality of life in America. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, America experienced enormous industrial, economic, social, and cultural change. Realism focuses on showing everyday activities and events among the middle and lower class society without romantic ideas. In the early 20th century people started to pull away from fantasy and started focusing on the reality around them. Realism emphasises on truth, class, and social commentary.

Realism in literature is basically the successor to romanticism. It first took off and gained footing in 19th century France. The literary style is a more straightforward and realistic style of writing in comparison to romanticism which was all about exaggeration and symbolism. Realism is often interchangeable with naturalism and branches out into regionalism which is interchangeable with local color. This type of writing is responsible for one of the greatest era of literary works.

"Authors began to focus their writing on ordinary people and their everyday lives" which caused the shift from Romanticism to Realism to begin.Many American authors were influenced by this movement ("Realism"). Realism inspired these authors to take into a deeper meaning the realties of life by further examining the obstacles and circumstances they have undergone (Marshall). The main ideas of literature shifted from giving people supernatural traits to authors portraying humans as the ordinary person ("Realism"). The major theme of this time period was to preserve the foundations that America’s forefathers laid down for the country. The Civil War was ultimately a second chance for the nation to rebuild and gain back the beneficial aspects that were overlooked in times of change. Realism began around the time of the Civil War and ended in early 1900. The changes in the writing styles shifted America’s views on the works of literature in the time period and caused a drastic change in the country (Leonard). Realists wanted to use the diction of the typical person to be able to connect to them and portray the concreteness of life

Realism came about in literary works in the 19th century, and portrayed real life unlike the previous Enlightenment and Romanticism movements prior. Writers and people were sick of the neat, happy stories and endings that were written by the two previous movements, and those people wanted something they could relate to. Because of this, Realistic writers wrote about the boring, ordinary lives that regular folks led and did not sugar-coat anything that occurred but was brutally honest. In the words of Randall Craig, “Realistic writers educate readers, not through humiliation, but by familiarizing them with a re-presented world and enabling them to discover the rules by which it works and to apply them both to the fictional and extra-fictional

Realism is the portrayal of the reality of everyday life and period of literature between 1850-1900. Realist fictions speculate myths, assumptions, social norms, sentimentality, collective wisdom, and prejudices. Realism stories are usually about the middle-class people, and it aims to show a truthful portrayal of truth. Regionalism is a class of realist literature distinguished by closeness to the habits, language, dialects, manners, history, traditions, beliefs of a particular geographical region. Regionalism manifests the characters of both realism and romanticism. Romanticism is cultural the period from 1830-1860 in America. Humankind is naturally good. The characteristics of romanticism are passion and emotion, nature over the man, spiritual, intuition, and insight. "A White Heron," by Sarah Orne Jewett, is an example of local color because of its realism. Jewett uses characteristics of regionalism like dialogue to show the contrast between the locals and outsiders, habits, their daily activities, the dress, features of a place. "Editha" by William is the story of realism which has many characteristics of realism like details about war; he uses dialect to hold out the trend of the story, using middle-class peoples character. Dean Howell uses a part of romantic style but all together its categorized as one of the