The Rise of RealismThe Civil War to 1914

The Civil War

•South depended on North for financial, manufacturing, commercial services.

Multiple Causes

•South produced cash crops for the North.

•War resulted from decades of sectional conflict.

•South relied on nearly 4 million slaves as its labor force.

•North valued power of federal government; South believed in states’ rights.

•Toll of frontal and cavalry assaults led to use of trench warfare.

New Forms of Warfare

•Cavalry riders faced certain death attacking infantry.

•Infantry carried new, more accurate rifles.

•More than 600,000 soldiers died.

The Civil War

•Even though slaves had been freed, fight for equality was just beginning.

End of Slavery

•Thirteenth Amendment freed all slaves in the U.S.

•Emancipation Proclamation declared that slaves in Confederate states were free.

The Civil War

•The horror of war required a new literary form—realism.

Literature

•None of the prominent writers of the time served in the war.

•The primary forms of war literature were journals and letters.

The Rise of Realism

Realists’ New View of the World

•Rejected larger-than-life hero of Romantic literature

•Depicted ordinary characters and realistic events

•Emphasized characters from cities and lower classes

•Avoidance of the exotic, sensational, and overly dramatic

•Use of everyday speech patterns to reveal class distinction.

•Sought to explain WHY people behave as they do

The Rise of Realism

•Prominent authors: Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin, Bret Harte, Mark Twain

Regionalism

•Often sentimental in depictions of characters and locations

•Emphasized a specific geographic setting

Kate Chopin

Mark Twain

The Rise of Realism

•Viewed life as a losing battle against the universe

Naturalism

•Believed human behavior determined by heredity and environment

•Attempted to analyze human behavior objectively, as a scientist would

•Sense that human beings cannot control their own destinies

•Prominent authors: William Dean Howells, Frank Norris

FrankNorris

WilliamDeanHowells

The Rise of Realism

•Prominent authors: Henry James, Stephen Crane

Psychological Realism

•Studied complex social and psychological situations

•Focused on character motivation and characters at moments of stress

StephenCrane

Henry James

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) As a Realist, Bierce infused his writing with an attitude of

scorn for all the sentimental illusions human beings cling to. In other words, his fiction conforms to the truth as it is experienced rather than as we would like it to be.

He was fascinated with the psychology of warfare and the cruel joke it plays on humanity.

– His obsession grew out of his own traumatic experiences with the Civil War.

• Once a Confederate sentinel shot him unexpectedly during the night. Bierce recalls feeling shock and dread. A similar sense of terror and disorientation in evident in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

– In 1913, Bierce left his home for Mexico to report on or join in its revolution. He was never heard from again.