In American literature realism, is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Realism has been mainly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of social factors and environment is the important element in the dramatic complications.
The realism sought to explain why ordinary people behave they way they do. What, for example, fuels the ambitions of a young man who has come from the country to the city to make his fortune? Why does an apparently happily married woman decide to have a love affair? What leads a woman to accept or reject a particular man? In trying to answer these questions, realistic novelists often relied on the emerging sciences of human and animal behavior--biology, psychology, and sociology--as well as on their own insights and observations.
Realism from 1865 to the present has changed.
The cover of the first edition of Adventures of Hu...
Illustration of Jim and Huckleberry Finn, by EW Ke...
mark twain Category:Mark Twain imagesAs authors have moved into a global world, their writing has become less regional and therefore less realistic. Writers today do research instead of writing about what they already know about. As the world has become more global, authors have become more full. To a certain extent, realism is about presenting a limited view because is very much about regionalism. An author can only write realistically about what he/she knows.
Authors like Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald gives a "tell it like it is" writing in the stories. In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the setting has a large influence on Huck's character. The period of time that Huck lived in was a distinct era. The country was changing rapidly. During this period steam engines enabled rivers to be used as mass transportation, an idea that had never been explored until now.
There were many traits...