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Ms. Richmond
English 231
Realism, Regionalism and Naturalism
 The United States has lost the positive, idealistic attitude of the pre-Civil War, transcendental era.
 Industrialization is really taking off. Electricity, automobiles and skyscrapers are invented,
factories are thriving, goods are mass-produced for the first time ever, and the country is still
divided even though the war is over.
 Many Americans are moving west to take advantage of land offered by the Homestead Act
(1862).
 Immigrants flow into America, changing its face and greatly increasing the population of cities.
 With industrialization comes many problems in society – poverty, child labor, disease, and more,
particularly in overcrowded cities.
Realism:
 Began after the Civil War (roughly 1865-1910)
 Portrays real life; tries to be objective and true (unlike Romanticism)
 “it is more important to adhere to concrete facts than to present idealized versions or existence”
(Lathbury 88)
 Focuses on the here and now – instead of the spiritual like transcendentalists (Lathbury 8)
 Skeptical of moral absolutes (Lathbury 8)
Regionalism
 Runs roughly from 1860-1910
 Literature that is particular to a certain area of the United States
 Contains local dialect
 Mark Twain is best known author
Naturalism:
 Movement that occurred roughly from 1890-1910
 Sprung from Realism
 There is a cause and effect relationship between heredity/economics/nature/fate and human
destiny (Lathbury 16).
 Characters in this fiction are passive.
 Nature is “indifferent to human wants and needs” (Lathbury 16).
 Adherents believe that God has disappeared.
 Usually depicts a harsh reality.
 Individual is powerless in the face of industrialization (“Prentice” 471).
 a result of American’s greater interest in science, particularly biology
Major authors:
 Mark Twain
 Henry James
 Edith Wharton
 Stephen Crane
 Jack London
 W.E.B. DuBois
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Upton Sinclair
Theodore Dreiser
Bret Harte
Kate Chopin
Edgar Lee Masters
Willa Cather
Works Cited
Lathbury, Roger. Realism and Regionalism (1860-1910). New York: DWJ Books, LLC, 2006.
Prentice Hall Literature: Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes – The American Experience. Upper
Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2005.