Regionalism

Regionalism is a type realism. In being a type of realism, regionalism has a very concise and to the point style of writing. Some of the big characteristics of realism is how lifelike the authors try to make the story, describing people, places, and things with the utmost detail. A good definitiong of regionalism is "Some American writers are associated with certain regions of the country because their work provides detailed and dramatic portraits that draw on characteristic speech and manners." (Anderson) A few well known regionalism authors include Jack London, Mark Twain, and William Faulkner. A good example of a regionalism writer is Mark Twain. Twain wrote many stories about a specific region in Missouri. His most famous character is Tom Sawyer, a young boy from Missouri. The Tom Sawyer books were so popular because they were so believable in the way the characters spoke. All of Twain's characters spoke exactly like they would if they were in the region of the story. Many people who lived in the regions in and around the setting of the book felt they could connect with the story much better. Where as people who lived far away felt like they were taking a look in the life of another person in a far off land. Often times authors will further entice the reader when they use local history or beliefs (Anderson) Another great example of some of the regionalism mark Twain used was dialect. Dialect is a very important aspect to the overall feel of a story. If the dialect is much more life like then people will feel much more when they read the story. Regionalism is still around today. Whenever an author writes about a specific area, even if it is based off of another area or an area they by or around, they are still using regionalism methods. People often use accents and other type of speech differences to make the regional differences standout and provided more realism to the story. Regionalism was obviously a big deal and major literary idea to come out of realism. As far as subsets of realism go the could very well be argued to be the most important as it shaped todays literature much more than most others forms.