Essay --

American Literary Realism has been bringing the social issues that had previously been dressed up and hidden by Romanticism into the spotlight since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this time of upheaval and change, realist writers were able to use their own experiences with suffering and misfortune to try and change society's perception of the problems the country was facing. The goal of realist writing was to express the way the world worked in a brutally honest way in an attempt to spark change. More specifically, two authors named Kate Chopin and Paul Laurence Dunbar both faced many trials and tribulations that they were able to incorporate into their passages in order to open the minds of their readers to new ideas and ways of living. With social issues like slavery, The Civil War, industrialization, reconstruction, and American "equality", realist writers led the realist movement by revealing the struggles and hardships of ordinary people. By implementi ng American regionalism, realistic points of view, and smiling/grim naturalism into their stories or poems the writers were able to enlighten the public on important topics of that time period, no matter how graphic or unpleasant. The main characters in â€Å"The Story of an Hour† and â€Å"Douglass† by Kate Chopin and Paul Laurence Dunbar both share courageous and unconventional qualities that make them heroic and admirable. Kate Chopin’s passage features Mrs. Mallard, a young wife who after receiving the news that her husband had passed away in a railroad disaster feels a strange sense of independence and freedom. â€Å"There would be no one to live for her in those coming years; she would live for herself†¦ A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem n... ... who were the least fortunate, literary realism was sure to have an impact on the reader. People were used to stories that were romanticized and that always had happy endings, so when groundbreaking authors began to write about the world as it really was and all the suffering that was happening at the time, it was extremely influential. Especially for events like the Civil and Women’s Rights movements, whose starting points were likely sparked by realist writers such as Kate Chopin and Paul Laurence Dunbar. If writers had continued sugarcoating the truth and keeping the public’s eyes closed when it comes to injustice, who knows if things would have ever gotten better? By enlightening the country about topics that were not necessarily pleasant but desperately needed attention, realist writers were able to spark changes that influenced not only the U.S., but the world.