4.1 Realism and Naturalism

Notes

After the Civil War, American writers turned away from Romantic idealism and tried to show life as it really is.

• Realism (c. 1865-1900) portrays ordinary people, everyday settings and believable events, often with attention to social class, work and local speech.
• Naturalism goes further: influenced by Darwin and science, it shows characters shaped by heredity, environment and chance, with nature or society often indifferent to them.
• Realism: characters make real choices within real limits. Naturalism: forces beyond their control often decide the outcome (determinism).
• Local color (regionalism) captures the dialect and customs of a specific place.
• Worked example: a factory worker whose choices are limited by poverty, in a story that shows him struggling against forces he cannot control, leans toward naturalism.