American Realism and Mark Twain

Realist writers give importance to the physical details and appearances. They are also interested in human psychology but their point of view is objective. They depict psychological realities through physical appearances. For example; the writer can reflect a character’s psychology through his/her tone of voice; is he angry? is he calm? is he a good person or an evil one?

Realism is all about portraying real (physical life) and objective reality. Realist writers wrote about ordinary people, especially about the middle class. They usually used dialogues, regional dialect, and speech patterns of people from different socio-economic backgrounds. They used clear, detailed, and accurate narrations. They avoid sensational writing. Characters are emphasized rather than plot and they are shown not in their idealized situation but in their real existence. They want to reflect ordinary people in ordinary environments. Social realities and observable facts are more significant than the ideas and aesthetics. Social realities can be poverty, racism, war. They reflect contemporary life. The plot is generally considered very slow moving. It has a chronological way, it is easy to read. Main themes are class conflicts, the city, philosophy, morality, marriage, and family.

Local Color Fiction (American literary regionalism, from late 17th to 20th century)

It refers to a type of regional writing with a focus on the specific features of the area. Local color stories concentrate on the landscape, dialect, customs, folklore, and a certain geographical region. It is also called regionalist writing. Local color fiction is an offshoot of American realism. This style is concerned mainly with depicting the character of a particular region. Characters in these stories appear themselves to traditional, ethnic, and socio-economic roles of that peculiar area. The narrator of the story is often native to the setting, they know about the area. Local color is the setting for a story in American realism. It implies the certain features of a rural small town. It is about a local and its inhabitants with their dress, dialect, folklore, landscape, customs, manners, traditions. The narration is realistic, objective. Mark Twain wrote many regionalist short stories and novels. Huckleberry Finn is a local color fiction.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

It is the pen name of Samuel L. Clemens. H. L. Mencken said "the true father of our national literature." He is very important. He made an extensive contribution to American folk humor and serious literature. Clemens was born in the backwoods of Missouri, but while he was yet a small boy, the family moved to Hannibal on the Mississippi River. There he developed a passion for the river and a desire to become the pilot on a riverboat, and he became a pilot later. He also became a successful humorous lecturer. He wanted to criticize social realities through humor. Many people did not understand his message at that time. People only get delight from his humour, they did not understand his criticism. Twain was very sad about this and then, towards the end of his life, he directly said the social wrongs to people. He became more serious. The typical motif in Twain’s writing was the narration of a story by a young or naive person or a story in which the main character was an Easterner unaccustomed to frontier life. In Twain’s stories, the over-refined Easterner was usually outwitted by Westerners. The east was more modern or cultured in that time. The west is generally regarded as wilderness, the people living there are regarded as wild people. So, Mark Twain reflected the frontier life, the differences between the east and the west. The eastern people are more educated than westerners.

Mark Twain is a symbolic name. He gives a humorous message with his name. "Mark Twain" means the second mark on a line that measured depth, signifying two fathoms, or 12 feet, which was a safe depth for riverboats. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn includes adventures as a child on the banks of the Mississippi River. The novel is an autobiographical, maybe we can say it is a bildungsroman because it reflects the development of a child. Twain began his literary aspirations as a modest young journalist for his local newspaper. His journalism contributed to his development as a writer. There is a connection between them. Journalists and writers show the wrong side of society. Journalists reflect in a realist way, they give details about physical realities. So Twain’s journalism helped him to become a successful realist writer. He gave information about the cultural history of America in his books. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884 after slavery was abolished (1865) in the USA. This novel is a juvenile novel. It means works of children's fiction.