1. To broaden their understanding of a crucial period of modern fiction in a specific culture.

2. To sharpen their critical reading, writing, and speaking skills.

3. To gain a finer understanding of the trajectory of American literature.

1. To broaden their understanding of a cruel period of modern fiction in a specific culture.

2. To sharpen their critical reading, writing, and speaking skills.

3. To gain a finer understanding of the trajectory of American literature.

The United States in the late nineteenth century was a nation experiencing dramatic change – and great paradoxes. The Civil War had finally brought an end to slavery, but millions of African-Americans faced the harshness of racial segregation. The War had also left nearly a million casualties and widespread devastation. Some cities needed to be rebuilt, and others swelled as the displaced population sought work in an increasingly industrialized and urbanized economy.
During the final decades of the century and into early years of the twentieth century, advances in industry and technology brought hope of progress to ten of millions of immigrants. The newcomers arrived in the U.S. expecting a better life, but many lived in urban squalor hardly better than the world they had left behind. The same period brought countless women their first taste of economic freedom, and they struggled to match that growing independence with political and civil rights. Concurrent with this transformation of American society, American literature was undergoing its own revolution.
Realism – broadly defined as a turning away from the overly sentimental in favor of a portrayal of life as it truly presents itself – flourished during these years. Writers working in this mode created innumerable stories that mirrored the changes sweeping American society. We will read representative samples of this short fiction, with an eye toward examining parallel changes in American society and American art.

The United States in the late nineteenth century was a nation experiencing dramatic change – and great paradoxes. The Civil War had finally brought an end to slavery, but millions of African-Americans faced the harshness of racial segregation. The War had also left nearly a million casualties and widespread devastation. Some cities needed to be rebuilt, and others swelled as the disabled population sought to work in an increasingly industrialized and urbanized economy.
During the final decades of the century and into early years of the twentytieth century, advances in industry and technology brought hope of progress to ten of millions of immigrants. The newcomers arrived in the U.S. expecting a better life, but many lived in urban squalor hardly better than the world they had left behind. The same period brought countless women their first taste of economic freedom, and they struggled to match that growing independence with political and civil rights. Concurrent with this transformation of American society, American literature was undergoing its own revolution.
Realism – broadly defined as a turning away from the overly sentimental in favor of a portrait of life as it truly presents itself – flourished during these years. Writers working in this mode created innocent stories that mirrored the changes sweeping American society. We will read representative samples of this short fiction, with an eye towards examining parallel changes in American society and American art.

American Realism (1999).
Bret Harte, “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
Mary Wilkins Freeman, “A Church Mouse”
R. Cooke, “How Celia Changed Her Mind”
Kate Chopin, “Athénaïse” (novella)
J. Harris, “Free Joe and the Rest of the World”
Charles W. Chesnutt, “The Sheriff’s Children”
Hamlin Garland, “The Return of a Private”
Harold Frederic, “My Aunt Susan”
Stephen Crane, “The Men in the Storm”

American Realism (1999).
Bret Harte, “The Luck of Roaring Camp”
Mary Wilkins Freeman, “A Church Mouse”
R. Cooke, “How Celia Changed Her Mind”
Kate Chopin, “Athénaïse” (novella)
J. Harris, “Free Joe and the Rest of the World”
Charles W. Chesnutt, “The Sheriff’s Children”
Hamlin Garland, “The Return of a Private”
Harold Frederic, “My Aunt Susan”
Stephen Crane, “The Men in the Storm”