Regionalism and local color literature became dominant in American writing between the Civil War and the late 19th century. These works emphasized accurate representations of specific regions through details of language, customs, landscapes, and peoples' lives. Regionalist authors sought to portray ordinary people and themes of social conflict through objective narration. Notable American regionalists included Mark Twain, who used distinct dialects to represent different social groups in the Mississippi River valley in works like Huckleberry Finn. Regionalism helped unify the country after the Civil War and contributed to the narrative of American national identity in this period.

1. Regionalism&LocalColor
1865-1920

2. • Literary Realism is a literary movement
which began in the late 19th century.
• A literary technique devoted to "the
faithful representation of reality"
• A reaction against romanticism
• Sparked by an interest in the scientific
method, the systematizing of the study of
documentary history, and the influence
of rational philosophy

3. REALISM
•Emphasizes
accuracy and
objectivity
•Depicts common,
everyday heroes
•Views the world
scientifically
•Focuses on real-
life situations
ROMANTICISM
•Emphasizes
imagination and
emotion
•Depicts larger-than-
life heroes
•Views the world
poetically
•Focuses on exotic,
supernatural, and
imaginary worlds

4. • Endeavored to accurately represent
contemporary culture and people from all
walks of life
• Addressed themes of socioeconomic conflict
by contrasting the living conditions of the
poor with those of the upper classes in
urban as well as rural societies
• Sought to narrate their novels from an
objective, unbiased perspective that simply
and clearly represented the factual
elements of the story
• Became masters at psychological
characterization, detailed descriptions of
everyday life in realistic settings, and
dialogue that captures the idioms of natural
human speech

5. • The Civil War
• Advances in Technology
• Advances in Science and Education
• Social Changes
• Increasing rates of democracy and literacy
• Rapid growth in industrialism
• Concern about loss of personal identity

6. The Civil War was a major cause of the rise of
realism in America. The four-year conflict:
Copyright2001,TheMultimediaLibrary
•destroyed cities,
industries, and
lives
•left bitter
memories and
economic
desolation in the
South

7. • Technological advances also contributed
to the rise of realism in America.
•Photography allowed people to see
real, sometimes dismaying, images of
war and poverty.
•Telephones and coast-to-coast
railways allowed more people than
ever to hear about events that
affected the nation.

8. • Advances in psychology, biology, and
geology contradicted long-held beliefs
about the nature of humans, the world, and
the universe.
• More people, especially women, minorities,
and the poor, had access to an education
and learned to read.
• Newspapers and the new mass-circulation
magazines were widely read.

9. •In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution, outlawing slavery, was
ratified.
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10. •Industrialization led to overpopulation
and poverty in the cities.
•The agrarian economy of the South
was devastated by the war and by the
loss of slave labor.
•Many newly freed slaves and other
Southerners moved to Northern cities
looking for work.

11. • Local color or regional literature focuses on the
characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other
features particular to a specific region. This type of
literature describes the details, even when unpleasant,
of everyday life.
• Between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth
century, this mode of writing became dominant in
American literature.
• Contains themes that center on contemporary society
and on the lives of the middle and lower classes
• Features characters drawn from the poor and outcast of
society
• Avoids extravagant language in favor of simpler,
everyday diction

12. • According to the Oxford Companion to
American Literature, "In local-color
literature one finds the dual influence of
romanticism and realism, since the
author frequently looks away from
ordinary life to distant lands, strange
customs, or exotic scenes, but retains
through minute detail a sense of fidelity
and accuracy of description" (439).

13. • Regionalism is literature that emphasizes a specific
geographic setting and reproduces the speech,
behavior, and attitudes of the people who live in that
region. Regional literature incorporates the broader
concept of sectional differences within a locale.
• Regionalist writers differed from strict realists by
portraying their characters in a somewhat sentimental
fashion.
• For example, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
Mark Twain makes use of seven distinct dialects to
represent the differences of various groups living in
the region.
• Some important American regionalists are Sarah Orne
Jewett, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bret Harte, and Mark
Twain.

14. •Contributed to the
reunification of the country
after the Civil War
• Helped build a national
identity
•Contributed to the narrative
of unified nationhood that late
nineteenth-century America
sought to construct

15. • Regionalism is a realist modern American
art movement wherein artists shunned
the city and rapidly developing
technological advances to focus on scenes
of rural life.
• Regionalist style was at its height from
1930 to 1935.
• During the Great Depression of the 1930s,
Regionalist art was widely appreciated for
its reassuring images of the American
heartland.

17. • In Regionalism works
the emphasis is
frequently on nature
and the limitations it
imposes; settings are
frequently remote and
inaccessible. The
setting is integral to
the story and may
sometimes become a
character in itself.

18. • Local color stories tend to be concerned
with the character of the district or
region rather than with the individual:
characters may become character types,
sometimes quaint or stereotypical.
• The characters are marked by their
adherence to the old ways, by dialect,
and by particular personality traits
central to the region.

19. • The narrator is typically an educated
observer from the world beyond who
learns something from the characters
while preserving a sometimes
sympathetic, sometimes ironic distance
from them.
• The narrator serves as mediator between
the rural folk of the tale and the urban
audience to whom the tale is directed.

20. • It has been said that
"nothing happens" in
local color stories by
women authors, and
often very little does
happen.
• Stories may include
lots of storytelling and
revolve around the
community and its
rituals.

21. • Many local color stories share an antipathy to change
and a nostalgia for an always-past golden age. Thematic
tension or conflict between urban ways and old-
fashioned rural values is often symbolized by the
intrusion of an outsider or interloper who seeks
something from the community.

22. • Mark Twain
• Bret Harte
• Hamlin Garland
• Joel Chandler
Harris
• William Faulkner
• William Styron
• Robert Frost
• Sinclair Lewis
• Henry James
• John Steinbeck
• Dashiell Hammett
• Kate Chopin
• Harriet Beecher
Stowe
• Eudora Welty
• Sarah Orne Jewett
• Willa Cather
• Harper Lee

23. • Samuel Langhorne Clemens,
aka. Mark Twain, was a
natural-born storyteller who
was the first writer to
recognize that art could be
created out of the American
language.
• Through his use of carefully
chosen words and his sharply
honed humor, he dealt head-on
with controversial issues that
others were afraid to confront.

24. • “Whatever you have
lived, you can write – &
by hard work & a
genuine apprenticeship,
you can learn to write
well; but what you have
not lived you cannot
write, you can only
pretend to write it...”

25. • Mark Twain is described as “an enormous
noticer.” Much of what he noticed as a boy
growing up in the small Mississippi River town of
Hannibal, Missouri, found its way into his
writings in books such as The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn.
• He was always noticing whether people had
their hands in their pockets or not, how they
dressed, walked, spoke or presented themselves
to others.

26. • "The Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras County"
(1865) was Twain’s first
great success as a writer,
bringing him national
attention.
• In it, the narrator retells a
story he heard from a
bartender at the Angels
Hotel in Angels Camp,
California, about the
gambler Jim Smiley and
his “celebrated jumping
frog”.

27. • Twain began his career as a journalist,
travel writer, and writer of light,
humorous verse.
• He evolved into a chronicler of the
vanities, hypocrisies. and murderous acts
of mankind, making frequent use of
satire.
• At mid-career, with Huckleberry Finn, he
combined rich humor, sturdy narrative
and social criticism.

28. • A literary genre or form in which vices, follies, abuses,
and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with
the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself,
into improvement.
• Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater
purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit
as a weapon.
• A common feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm; it
also makes frequent use of parody, burlesque, analogy,
exaggeration, juxtaposition, and double entendre.
• Modern Examples: Animal Farm; Fahrenheit 451; Lord
of the Flies; Saturday Night Live, “Doonesbury,” John
Stewart; Stephen Colbert; The Simpsons; South Park

29. • Twain was a master at rendering
colloquial speech and helped to create
and popularize a distinctive American
literature built on American themes and
language.
• In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
Twain uses seven different dialects and
even provides an explanation for doing so
…

30. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuQMBWjmlHk