Discussion Topic
The Civil War was a traumatic and destructive conflict that remains the bloodiest war in
US history. Realism began around the end of the war in 1865. Rejecting romantic-era
ideals that focused on allegorical characters, symbolic settings, and dramatic subjects,
realism depicted ordinary people in everyday situations.
What aspects of the Civil War might have caused this dramatic shift in style, form, and
thematic discourse in American literature?