Uzbek state world languages university

Theme 4: REALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE 19^th CENTURY

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. 
   Frank Norris.
   
7. 
   Jack London.
   

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 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.