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North American Literature III
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UNIT 1: THE INHERITANCE OF THE 19THCENTURY IN US FICTION: REALISM AND
NATURALISM.
1.-HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT OF THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
America underwent a process of modernization (1865-1914): the country started to
develop, as before economically speaking it was an undeveloped country. By 1890 the
US achieved world-wide popularity by its modernization. By 1900 the manufacturing
was between the primal ones: Germany and the United Kingdom (an outstanding
achievement). It came together with the grew of cities, new transports, etc. it was in
part of the scale of the country (immense natural resources, capital intensive
industrialization, the tradition of practical know-how and invention).
The United States became a modern economical and industrial land, they were
remaining traditional images but regarded with nostalgia (kept for their symbolic
value). Many people coming from Protestant European countries settled in the North
and some Mediterranean countries settled in the South. The country was also divided
in terms of religion and morals (Protestants –North, Catholics – South).
A time of contrasts between great growth in industrial terms (new social class of very
rich people but at the same time there was great poverty of the lower social classes, of
the working classes, the proletarian which was exploited by the factory owners), an
emphasis on … values, massacre of Native Americans, segregation of African-
Americans, discrimination of women, WASP movements.
After the Civil War the technological progress was accelerated by different
developments such as new industrial methods, inventions (telephone, phonograph,
typewriter, mechanization of agriculture, and new means of transport like the railway).
Some of the inventions were exhibited in the 1876 Philadelphia Exhibition and in 1885
Chicago Exhibition. There was a huge expansion with many different developments
which marked the industrialization of the US and the modernization of society itself.
There was a change in landscape: industrialization of the country, the city acquires lots
of importance in social forms and in literature. There was a load of rural immigration
which caused a great emergence of urban areas.
Social transformation marked on the spectacular growth of the city (1860: 40 million,
1900: 80 million: people living in the United States). This increase in the population
was due to the migration waves, the US received nearly 27 million immigrants from
18540 to 1910, who came from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavian countries, Asian
Countries, European countries, … they settled in rural areas but the vast majorities
,settled in the cities, quite frequently the immigrants outnumbered the number of
American citizens born in the US; the problems of assimilation and working conditions
made visible the differences between the American Dream and the Melting Pot
culture of America. There was a feeling of fragmentation/dislocation/not living in this
multi-ethnic society.
Social polarization and stratification: the population was structured in Massive
proletarian working and leaving in horrible unhealthy settings, on the other hand the
wealthy bourgeoisie. A bridge with democratic-egalitarian ideals of the time. Huge gap
between the working classes and the owners of the factories.
Terrible work conditions of the lower class: at the turn of the century the working class
started uniting in federations of workers (American Federation Labour à DEMANDED
BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS, HEALTHY ASSURANCES, HOUSING, LESS HOURS OF
WORK, …).
Scientific discoveries affected the culture and literature of the time. Back to the 17th
century there was the belief of a mechanic universe whose working could be
understood and reliable, this marked the optimistic belief in the human capacity to
understand and faithfully describe the world. It marked the beginning of the novel as a
genre, it was related to the bourgeoisie, a form of entertaining.
In the second half of the 19th century with The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
(survival of the fittest, as world was no longer the act of creation of God), and the
Second Law of Thermodynamics or Law of Entropy by Rudolph Clausius (universe is a
closed system and its energy is constantly decreasing and one day the world would die
as it is going to run out of heath) à feeling of pessimism which marks a trend of
changing, NATURALISM.
Change in values: took place at the turn of the century. Moral problems started by the
idea of Darwin of the survival of the fittest (sometimes in social terms it implies the
survival of the West in moral terms, ‘those who have any scruples’), individualism is
vindicated and it is somehow associated to the opportunism and competition that is
embodied in capitalism.
Idea of the self-made man is connected to all the ideas mentioned before. The late
nineteenth century is an age in which some people moved from rags to riches and
materialized the term American Dream. Competition and faith on humans. PURSUIT OF
HAPPINESS + PURSUIT OF WEALTH (love for money, corruption). Age of speculation,
opportunism, fraud … it implied the degradation of the democratic valued that
originally were the basis of the United States of America.
The reflection in literature:
,- There are new literary themes in US fiction: 1) notion of the self-made man (new
hero, a scientific rationale for competition and struggle which is supported by Herbert
Spencer ‘society was a living organism which evolves through natural evolution’,
‘progress is unavoidable and it relies on Western industrial society’, and Charles
Darwin. Social Darwinism reinforced the older American business and industrial ethos,
they somehow found scientific support for the individual competitiveness)
COMPETITION + STRUGGLE; 2) importance of the city (a character in its own right in
fiction. Chicago was the realistic centre of Naturalistic works as it was between the
rural area of the Midwest and the big cities like New York, symbolized the wild of
business, conflicts, internal immigration, …)
- Controversial policy of the time:
o Popular vs elitist culture
o East (more cultivated, sophisticated, directly linked to the European) vs West
(popular culture, values connected to the American West)
o Imagination vs The machine
o Pragmatism (connected to American capitalist community) vs idealism (of the past)
o Material (acquisition of wealth) vs Spiritual progress (the past)
o US vs Europe (cultural values and political powers)
o Man vs Women (birth of the feminist movement, changes in gender relations)
The regionalist literature influenced the epoque, it encompasses popular and mass
culture from the West, Midwest, South, partly produced by women and minorities; it
does not says as much about genre, but about local. Feeling of loss. About local
themes and return of nostalgia (romance, domestic novels, frontier stories, a more
ideal past).
On the other hand there are changes in the literarily industry such as mass production,
commercialization, middle class reading publics (much of them were women), new
journals and presses (publishing houses). The literary marker grows a lot at this time. A
national literary industry is created in the United States.
The US literature is in a process of transformation at the turn of the century. In the late
18th century, literature was regarded as thew second hand of British literature;
American fiction had to be vindicated as autonomous and valuable. It was not until the
1920 that a new generation of writers had a wider impact, it includes writers such as
William Faulkner, Henry James, it was not until 1930 that an American writer received
the first American Nobel prize for literature, he was Sinclair Lewis. American literature
became the best known in the world all through the 20th century.
, 2. AN INTRODUCTION TO U.S. REALISM
Issues connected to content, what is rejected, what it reacts against, but it also is
connected with reality (representation of it). Writers blamed for a more direct
representation of reality.
US realism is a period of transition between romanticism and modernism. It is the
predominant literary approach after the Civil War, an international movement. It
started in 1845 and what is clear is that it was brought to America by William Dean
Howells with his novel Their Wedding Journey (1872), first realistic novel in the United
States. It really has no single doctrine or awareness in part of the writers to belonging
to a group. Their effort was to understand the changing reality (industrialization).
Realism is our response to the transformation of American images at the time of those
great changes. It can be defined (in broad terms) as a kind of literature that records life
as it is lived. According to William Dean Howells “realism is nothing more and nothing
less than the truthful treatment of material”.
There are three main representatives of US realism literature: Mark Twain (South
West humour), William Dean Howells (realism as the discourse of democratic
ordinariness and American values), and Henry James (refined realism to aesthetic
positions)
Howells believed that the task of the novel is “to picture the daily life in the most exact
terms possible, with an absolute and clear sense of proportion”. This opinion is
expanded in his volume Criticism and Fiction (1891) and it earned him a position as an
eminent theorist of the novel.
For William Dean Howells realism is finally an INTERPRETATION OF LIFE: 1) novel as a
romance (The last of the Mohicans – emotions , passion , feelings); 2) novel as
sociological document (the most painful aspects of society were denounced, especially
the urbanised society, the kind of naturalistic novel); 3) Henry James: “a novel is in its
broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life” (a new way of seeing the
novel, the kind of novel which was more refined, even pedantic, and subtle).
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS (1837-1920)
He was a prestigious novelist and critic, Criticism and Fiction (1891) was considered
“the Dean of American Letters”. He was born in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, the son of an
itinerant journalist and printer; he soon started to read W. Irving and Cervantes, and
self-educated himself with some knowledge of Latin, German, Spanish, French, and
Italian .He was appointed as US consul to Venice during Civil War . Back in the USA, he
became editor in chief of the Atlantic Monthly for some years, started to write fiction
at an approximate rate of one novel per year, and eventually published almost 40
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