Think About...

American writer and poets responded to the Civil War by writing novels and poems on the war and its effects after the war ended. This continued for several decades. Even though the war ended in 1865, the most representative novel about the war,The Red Badge of Courage, was written in 1895 by an author that have never lived through the Civil War. However, the new literary style emerged after the war: Realism. The Civil War had brought the once ideal Americans back to the ground. Instead of depicting perfect and bigger than life heros, artists focused on ordinary characters, especially the lower class that were living in the cities. Novels were written in everyday speech pattern to show what “real” people were like. Some writing emphasized ethical struggles and social issues. 

A movement called naturalism came out of realistic style. It differs from realism because it is more of a philosophical position. While a realistic writing would portray a situation, naturalism shows a person’s fate. Naturalism has a pretty pessimistic point of view and shows the belief that humans’ fates are determined not by themselves, but decided early on by nature. A common characteristic of naturalism is detachment, which means the author writes in a way that makes the characters seem distant. These stories focus more on the plot than on the characters.