Qarshi davlat universiteti xorijiy tillar fakulteti ingliz tili va adabiyoti kafedrasi

Other Questions 
Answer the following on notebook paper: 
1. What was the mission of the abolitionist movement? 
2. What were the various tactics the abolitionists used to fight for freedom and equality? 
3. Of the tactics employed by various abolitionists, which do you think was most effective in 
bringing about an end to slavery and why?
4. What were abolitionists risking by speaking out and fighting for emancipation of slaves?
5. Why do you think the abolitionist movement and the women’s suffrage movement often 
joined forces?

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134 
Lecture № 6 
American fiction after Civil War. Regionalism, realism, naturalism.
Plan 
1.
The results of the Civil War. 
2.
The development of American literature after the war. 
3.
Walt Whitman. 
4.
Mark Twain. 
5.
O. Henry. 
6.
William Dean Howells 
Key Words and Expressions
 
Realism
Apologetic literature
Tender realists 
“Red-blood” literature 
Pseudonym Satire
Text of the Lecture 
 
The Civil War brought the abolition of slavery. After the war various branches of industry 
began to develop by leaps and bounds. The incessant flow of emigrants is typical of that time, 
the extensive building of railroads and abolition of slavery. All these factors combined led to the 
rapid growth of the USA, American capitalism. At the end of the 18
th
century the USA became a 
highly developed industrial country. Negroes were granted the right to vote but all the same they 
were under certain oppression and deprived of many rights. The slave-owners continued to 
persecute Negroes in every possible way. In 1866, the organization of Ku-Klux-Klan was 
established to terrorize Negro population. But not only Negroes found themselves in a hard state. 
The rapid development of industry, the progress of technique led to a still more terrible 
exploitation of all the workers. At the end of the 19
th
century the American capitalism entered 
upon a stage of imperialism. Big monopolies and trusts were formed, which played a great role 
in the economy of the country. In the international arena America behaved as a militarist 
country. New territories were annexed and some smaller peoples were subjugated. Such policy 
led to the discontent of the toiling people class struggle. In 1866, on the 1
st
of May in Chicago 
there was a general strike. 
The literature of that period reflects both the class struggle and the sharp ideological struggle 
within American society. That period and ideas of the American democracy found the reflection 
in the poetry of the greatest American poet Walt Whitman. His poetry is imbued with profound 
optimism and belief in better future. At the same time some new trends of literature appeared in 
the country. The purpose of one literary trend was to amuse readers. The writers did their best to 
paint in bright colors the social life. They tried to create an illusion in the minds of people that 
every man in America stood his fair chance. It was so-called “apologetic” literature. Its motto 
was “Every shoeblack may become the President of the USA”.
There was another trend in American literature called “red-blood” literature. It justified the 
militarist expansion. They named the whites the superior race. Another group of writers called 
themselves “tender realists”. They did not reflect the sharp political issues and gave a softened 

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135 
picture of reality. Finally, there existed in literature the group of “Muckrackers”. They attacked 
various institutions representing publicist literature, not fiction. Most of them were journalists, 
and they exposed the ulcers of capitalism.
All those trends were opposed by the American critical realists such as Mark Twain, Frank 
Norris, O. Henry, Jack London, and Theodore Dreiser.