American Realism and Naturalism describes a period shared by many American literary works from 1865-1914. From the end of the American Civil War until the start of World War I, American Realists, led by Mark Twain, rejected the subjective and emotional concerns of the Romantic Period in favor of objectivity and naturalism in literature. American realists sought to reflect social concerns with race and class by depicting the world realistically—a quality in literature called verisimilitude
Late in the movement, a subset of realists, called the naturalists, continued to practice verisimilitude, but they found special interest—due to the influence of Sigmund Freud and William James and their pioneering books on human psychology—in how social and psychological forces determined a character’s fate. Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening is a fine example of the later trend toward naturalism during the period of American realism.
What are Representative Works of American Realism and Naturalism?
A new realism dominated American literature after the Civil War, whose brutality shattered the imaginative fancies of the romantic movement. From the short, pointed political speeches of Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” and “Second Inaugural,” to Mark Twain’s careful reproduction of Southern dialects in his novels and stories, American realists sought to reflect social concerns by depicting the world realistically. Lincoln spoke plainly, and Twain’s characters spoke in dialogue carefully mimicking realistic speech.
When Twain opened his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in the first-person voice of an illiterate child, he changed American literature forever.
“You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter.”
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Realism depicted life as it is lived, such as in Charles Chesnutt’s stories and in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems about African-Americans’ experiences after Reconstruction, in order to better represent the external realities of a given social situation.
Ambrose Bierce, a Union officer who fought in the Civil War, wrote savage indictments of human folly in his stark, realistic stories of the war and in the satirical definitions of his The Devil’s Dictionary.
A generation younger than Bierce, Stephen Crane never fought in the war, yet his The Red Badge of Courage remains one of the best anti-war novels yet written, sometimes overshadowing his excellent short stories and poetry. Jack London, also a generation younger than Bierce, often joined the master in a San Francisco writers’ group while penning his realistic novels and stories of adventure in Alaska and the Klondike, such as “To Build a Fire.”
Later Realism and Naturalism
Kate Chopin’s superb stories of Acadian life in Louisiana by themselves would have marked her as a leading naturalist. Her short novel The Awakening, about a young, upper-class woman’s infidelity and questioning of marriage and the role of women in her society, has ensured her status as a leading figure in Naturalism. The novel’s protagonst is subject to external social forces, much as Twain’s Huck and Jim, but her unconscious desires play just as significant a role in her fate, reflecting the new understanding of human psychology brought about by psychologists Sigmund Freud and William James.
Naturalism’s school of psychologically-informed, realistic writers also includes Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser.
Major poets of the period apart from Crane include Paul Laurence Dunbar and Edward Arlington Robinson.
Finally, Henry James, brother of pioneering psychologist William James, combined the novel of manners from the Enlightenment period with the new realism in his stories and novels. His wealth and access to high culture as an affluent son of New York City provided him material to write as an American in the tradition of Jane Austen and William Thackeray.
Henry James befriended and mentored another elite New Yorker, Edith Wharton, whose stories and novels of high society are every bit as refined as James’. Wharton’s single novel focusing on the working class, Ethan Frome, nevertheless stands alongside the work of Stephen Crane and Frank Norris for its sympathetic and realistic depiction of the struggles of lower-class people.
Representative Works of American Realism and Naturalism
Abraham Lincoln’s “The Gettysburg Address” and “The Second Inaugural;” Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pudd’nhead Wilson, short stories, and “To the Person Sitting in the Darkness;” Ambrose Bierce’s civil war stories and The Devil’s Dictionary; Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, stories, and poems; Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” and White Fang; Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and stories; Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie; Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome, and “Roman Fever;” Charles Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman; Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady and “Daisy Miller;” Frank Norris’ McTeague and The Octopus; Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems; Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poems
