Local Colorism

1860s, 1870s~1890s

I. Appearance

1. uneven development in economy in America

2. culture: flourishing of frontier literature, humourists

3. magazines appeared to let writer publish their works

II. What is “Local Colour”?

Tasks of local colourists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.

Regional literature (similar, but larger in world)

l Garland, Harte – the west

l Eggleston – Indiana

l Mrs Stowe

l Jewett – Maine

l Chopin – Louisiana

III. Mark Twain – Mississippi

1. life

2. works

(1) The Gilded Age

(2) “the two advantages”

(3) Life on the Mississippi

(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

(5) The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug

3. style

(1) colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects

(2) local colour

(3) syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief, sometimes ungrammatical

(4) humour

(5) tall tales (highly exaggerated)

(6) social criticism (satire on the different ugly things in society)

IV. Comparison of the three “giants” of American Realism

1. Theme

Howells – middle class

James – upper class

Twain – lower class

2. Technique

Howells – smiling/genteel realism

James – psychological realism

Twain – local colourism and colloquialism