Rise and Development of Novel in America

7/29/2019 Rise and Development of Novel in America

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Early American Fiction

In the beginning the literature in America was largely oral and it spread through tales of

spirits, myths and legends. The major themes of these Native American stories were spiritual

forces shown up in the natural objects.

Narrative in the Colonial/ Puritan Era

In America the Puritan era began with the arrival of Mayflower in 1620. It was a ship that

brought Puritans from England. They settled in Plymouth and established plantations there. In

this colonial era the Puritans flourished. Harvard University was founded in 1636 by the

Puritans. The establishment of this university initiated literature in America. Chronicles, diaries,

histories and sermons were written in the Puritan age. The main aim of these writings was to

explain Biblical quotations and lessons. The Puritans favored a plain style. The writers of the

age focused on the promotion of Puritan ideas among the masses. The literature was highly

instructive and reinforced the authority of the Bible and the church. Very little or no imaginative

literature was produced. The major writers of the era were:

William Bradford (1590 1657) came to the New World aboard the Mayflower in 1620 with a

group of Separatists. His writing style was plain which stresses simplicity and clarity of

expression. He wrote Of Plymouth Plantation, which was a history of the founding of Plymouth

Colony and the colonialists of the era. John Winthrop (1588 1649) was the son of a wealthy

land owner in Virginia. His major work was The History of Dividing Line. Cotton Mather

(1663 1728) was the master scholar. He belonged to Mather dynasty of Massachusetts Bay. He

wrote about New England in over 500 books and pamphlets. American colonial literature would

be incomplete without mentioning his name. His major work was Magnalia Christi Americana,

which was published in 1702. The book included biographies of saints.


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Two sort of narratives emerged in that period. First narrative was the stories of the people

captured by the native enemies. There was a theme of temptation and threat to faith by an alien

life style. The most famous of these was Mary Rowlandsons Narrative of the Captivity and

Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.

The second form of narrative was the autobiographical account of life as a slave. The

most interesting of these was The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano , written

by Olaudah Equiano who was captured as a slave.

Narrative in the Revolutionary Era

In the revolutionary era the writings were largely political or travel narratives. The

language of these narratives was highly ornate and persuasive. The elements of patriotism and

pride prevailed. These narratives tended to create unity about the issues and establish American

character. They encouraged the support to revolutionary war support. One of the major writers of

the era was Benjamin Franklin. He emerged in part out of Puritanism and in part out of

Enlightenment. He wrote an account of his own life in his famous workAutobiography. This

work has a narrative unity. In that work he put forth the virtues like self-reliance and self-help.

He focused on practical and useful philosophy. The first part of the Autobiography focuses on

the spiritual side of life and towards the end the focus shifts to the improvement of mundane

existence.

Another important writer of the era was Washington Irving. His famous work was

Diedrich Knickerbockers History of New York. The story is narrated by a Dutch explorer. The

customs and habits of the city are told in this work.

The Revolutionary Period produced some of Americas finest political and philosophical

writings. It also marked a movement known as Enlightenment. Key works of this period focus


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more on reason and common sense rather than tradition, scientific investigation over dependence

on religious doctrine, and also democracy over monarchy. Other major writers of the era are

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry. This era did not produce much creativity in

its writings.

Early Novels

After Independence in the later part of the eighteenth century, American literature began

to take shape. It shifted from the narratives of travels and political pamphlets to the other genres

of literature. Novel was the popular form because of the tradition of narratives from the colonial

times.

The first complete novel in all respects was published in 1789. It was The Power of

Sympathy by William Hill Brown. It was an epistolary romance. It told the story of incest and

seduction. The didactic purpose of this novel was written in its preface i.e. To Expose the

dangerous Consequences of Seduction and to set forth The Advantages of Female education.

The second novel was Charlotte Temple by Susanna Harwell Rowsen. Charlotte Temple

was published in London in 1791 and then three years later is America in 1794. It became the

first best seller of America. This is the story of a young girl Charlotte who is seduced by an

Army officer, she elopes with him later on and is deserted by him. She gives birth to a baby and

dies of poverty.

The third novel was The Coquette by Hannah Webster Foster published in 1797. It was

also an epistolary novel. It is the story of one Eliza who is a spirited young woman and does not

like to be buried in a relationship of marriage. She is married by her family and is seduced to

have an extra marital relationship. The relationship is discovered, she is left by her husband and

becomes pregnant as a result of extra marital relation and dies during child birth.


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All these early novels depicted a common story to some extent. They all were based on

real stories so as to counter any objection of self-indulgence. They had a clear moral purpose to

meet any objection by the Puritans. All these novels depicted the stories of young women which

aimed at the moral education of the young ladies.

Novel in the Romantic Period

This is the point in American literary history when fiction began to develop a unique and

truly American voice. Romantic writings focused on feelings. The characters strive to survive in

hostile and lonely settings. Romantics believed in the individualism that manifests itself in the

beauty of nature and imagination. There were also many anti-slavery and pro-slavery writings in

this period but it was dominated by the Gothic romance. The purpose of this genre is to create

terror. It demonstrates the presence of the uncanny existing in the world. The element of mystery

is there to create the fictional, irrational realm. The characters act from negative emotions of fear,

despair or hatred. The focus is on death and the events near death. The characters seem to be

half-dead or half-mad. The appearance of ghosts is common. The supernatural occurrences are

used to create mystery. The story often involves an innocent heroine persecuted by villain.

The atmosphere created in this genre is of gloom and mystery. The protagonist is tested

with uncanny elements which cause him or her to question the evidence of senses in the presence

of supernatural beings. The events are often violent. The reader is psychologically attracted in

the story by creating suspense. The buildings and mansions in the story possess secrets and

hidden doors and passages. There is a hidden or double reality beneath the surface of what seems

to be a single narrative. This era witnessed many master artists whose major works and style is

discussed as follows.

James Fenimore Cooper:


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James Fenimore Cooper is said to be the "Father of the American novel" because he

wrote the first American adventure story,The Last of the Mohicans (1826). He also wrote the first

American novel of manners, Precaution and the first American novel of the sea, The Pilot. He

helped to define the American character and brought novel to a new platform. As a result,

Cooper became the first successful American novelist. He used symbolism in his writings.

Herman Melville:

Melville is one of the major American novelists. His early novels rose out of his voyages.

He told his adventures at sea in his works. His novel,Moby Dick(1851) is a masterpiece and a

reason of his fame. This novel is about his whaling adventure. He brought imagination and

philosophic skepticism in his works. He masterfully handled the new American language. He

blends fact, fiction and adventure in his works.

Edgar Allan Poe:

Edgar Allan Poe was a poet, short-story writer, novelist, editor and literary critic. He is best

known for his tales of mystery. His tales deal with the uncanny. His best known works are of

Gothic genre. The most recurrent themes in his writings are death, lost love and supernatural

involvement in life. There are elements of dark romanticism in his writings. He wrote only one

novel_The Adventure of Arthur Gordon Pym_ which is the story of an adventurous individual

who journeys through sea and experiences narrow escape from death on a number of occasions.

There is a strong element of suspense in the novel.

Nathaniel Hawthorne:

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the major authors of America. He wrote short stories and

his first novel wasFanshawe (1828). In 1850 his novel, The Scarlet Letter, was published. It was

his masterpiece and brought him international fame. His other novels are: The House of the


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Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), The Marble Faun (1860). Hawthorne's

works dig deep into the darker side of human nature. His stories are mainly set in the background

of Puritan New England. He does not stir sensations in the readers rather he sets forth human

nature for analysis. Hawthorne called his writings "romance," which he defined as a method of

showing "the depths of our common nature." To Hawthorne, romance meant to confronting

reality, rather than escape from it.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe came to fame with the publication of her antislavery novel, Uncle

Toms Cabin (1851). It was published as a series in an antislavery magazine, National Era. Stowe

once said about her book, God wrote the book, I took His dictation. This novel is

melodramatic and sentimental. It creates characters, incidents, and scenes with humor and

realism. The issue of slavery in analyzed through the eyes of a white woman in this novel.

Fiction of Realism & Naturalism

Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material, says

William Dean Howells. In his book Criticism and Fiction (1891) he wrote, The talent that is

robust enough to font the everyday world.need not fear the encounter, he added, The art

must become democratic and then we shall have the expression of America in art. In the late

nineteenth century, from civil war to the turn of century, drastic changes were taking place in

America and realism was a fitting response to these changes. Civil war had changed the

orientation of the mind of masses. During this period the novel took a turn from romanticism to

realism. The writers tried to reflect life as they find it rather than startling the reader with

mysterious incidents. Along with realism, naturalism also was focused. Naturalism highlights

deep social problems, a loss of morality, and alienation caused by industrialization.Naturalism


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tends to study human beings. Unlike realism, which focuses on literary techniques, naturalism

implies a psychological study of human beings.

This new genre of fiction focused more on character than action and plot. Reality is

closely rendered with comprehensive detail. The characters are presented in relation to their

social class and their own past. The themes are complex social situations where characters are

bound by their circumstances. Middle class is presented in these novels. Some notable writers in

this genre are:

William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells, (1837-1920), was an innovative American fiction writer, and

critic. He discouraged artificial sentimentality of romantic era and brought realism in American

fiction. He played an active role in the rise of the Realism movement after the Civil War.

Howells wrote more than 40 novels and short story collections, but his influence as a critic was

perhaps more than as a fiction writer. He introduced the European realists to the American

readers while he was editor of The Atlantic. He urged American authors to choose American

subjects, to portray them with intellectual honesty, and to create characters who used Native

American language.

Henry James

Henry James, (1843-1916), was one of America's greatest realist and naturalist writers.

He creates characters which have great psychological complexities. His prose style went under

gradual change throughout his writing career. At first his style was straight forward and realistic,

later on his style became complicated and he used poetic symbolism in his novels. Daisy Miller

(1878) and The Turn of the Screw (1898) are the most popular of his short novels. The

Bostonians (1886),The Princess Casamassima (1886), and The Tragic Muse (1890) are his long

novels about art and politics.


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Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, (1835-1910), who wrote under the pseudonym of Mark Twain, is

one of the major American fiction writers. He is also considered a good humorist in American

literature. His fame is largely because of his fine works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. These writings are about the Mississippi River and are very

popular among modern readers. His works include novels, travel narratives, short stories,

sketches, and essays. He attacks the false pride and self-satisfaction, which he saw in humanity,

through his effective use of comic exaggeration. He developed a distinct American style of

writing and it is one of his greatest accomplishments. His realistic prose influenced many

American writers. Ernest Hemingway stated that "all modern American literature comes from ...

Huckleberry Finn."

Jack London

Jack London, (1876-1916), was a political activist, journalist and an author of high rank.

He is one of the widely read American authors. Most of his fiction is adventure stories but he is

famous for his complex adult themes. He was a naturalist. He upheld "environmental

determinism," which states that it is the world which shapes us and that man is powerless to

resist his environment. He touched this theme in his two animal novels The Call of the Wild

(1903) and White Fang (1906.)

Modern Novel

This period brought many innovations on the literary scene. Not only the themes but the

style of writing also changed during this era. These changes were largely due to the challenges

America was facing. The two World Wars and the Great Depression of 1929 resulted in loss of

faith in traditional values, beliefs and the American Dream. The rise of Socialism, which was a


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directly against American Capitalism, began to attract people. The theories of Freud in the field

of psychology changed the way of perception of writers.

A new narrative style developed during this period namely Stream of consciousness_ a

concept which was developed by psychologist William James. It stated that the thoughts,

memories and feelings that exist in our mind at the Pre-Speech level cannot be controlled

rationally logically ordered. The writers tried to show this level of consciousness by using

different techniques.

The content of the writings in this period was largely pessimistic and depicted a sense of

isolation. This pessimism was largely due to the problems faced by the American people and the

World Wars. Theme of loneliness prevailed because of the loss of faith in ideals and beliefs. Man

seemed to be lost in wilderness and chaos in these writings. Some of the major novelists of the

era are:

WILLIAM FAULKNER

William Faulkner, (1897-1962), is one of the leading authors in American literature. His

novels about the fictional territory "Yoknapatawpha County" brought him fame. Most of his

novels have a tragic tone, but the tragedy is mixed with comedy. He uses different narrative

voices such as interior monologue and soliloquies. He analyzes individual psychology and racial

problems. Faulkner Nobel Prize for literature in 1949. In 1955 he won Pulitzer Prize for A

Fableand in 1963 for The Reivers. His works include: The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I

Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932) & Absalom, Absalom! (1936).

FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD

F. Scott Fitzgerald, (1896-1940), was the leading writer of America's Roaring Twenties.

Fitzgerald was himself the participant in high life which he objectively described and in it laid


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his talent. He got fame in the 1920s with his novel This Side of Paradise (1921) and his Tales of

the Jazz Age (1922), these novels made him the official spokesman of the Jazz Age. The Great

Gatsby (1925) is an excellent novel about the American Dream and the failure associated with it

and it is his masterpiece. In this novel he combines psychological realism with symbolism.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Ernest Hemingway, (1899-1961), was one of the famous and widely read American

writers of the 20th Century. In 1954 he received Nobel Prize for literature. The Old Man and the

Sea (1952) brought him Pulitzer Prize. His writing style is known as the Iceberg Theory

because in his writings the hard facts float above water. The structure supported by symbolism,

operates out-of-sight. The language of Hemingway was plain with a forceful style. He was

different kind of modernist. He creates attractive characters and there is a note of optimism in his

works. The Sun Also Rises, (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) are his other major novels.

JOHN STEINBECK

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was a prolific American author. He won the 1962 Nobel

Prize in literature. Steinbeck's major works are related to the social problems of poor people

especially the farmers. He won Pulitzer Prize for his most famous novel, The Grapes of Wrath

(1939). His novels often take place in rural areas. His novels discuss economic problems of rural

labor. His novels are a mixture of realism and deep concern about other human beings. Other

important works of Steinbeck are Of Mice and Men (1937) and East of Eden (1952).

Fiction after 1945

America has undergone of a lot of change after the World War II. It has emerged as a

superpower and it now has very diverse ethnicity. Narrative since World War II cannot be

generalized. It is multifaceted and extremely diverse. It has been influenced by new theories and

concepts such as existentialism and magical realism of Latin American. The electronic era has


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converted the world into a global village. Oral tradition has been rejuvenated by mass media.

The writers in the United States have become highly self-aware. They have started asking serious

questions. In the recent decades, the writers have developed a post-modern sensibility. The

arrival of information technology has given a new life to science fiction. The ages of

development can be divided in the following terms.

The Realist Legacy and the Late 1940s

The aftermath of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War influenced the late 1940s. The

World War II put a great impact on all the writers. During this period the writers presented the

harsh realities of life. Norman Mailer and James Jones took material from the War and

highlighted the grim circumstances by employing realism. Joseph Heller depicted World War II

in absurdist and satirical terms. He argues that war is outcome of insanity. A group of writers

emerged in the 1940s. Most of these writers belonged to the South. All of these writers explored

the fate of the individual within a community. Major writers of this era were Robert Penn

Warren (1905-1989), Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) and Eudora Welty (1909- ).

The Affluent but Alienated 1950s

Modernization and technology influenced everyday life in the 1950s. During this period the

United States came out of the Great Depression and it provided the Americans to enjoy material

prosperity. Corporate world offered good life. Despite this prosperity the theme of loneliness

became dominant. Sloan Wilsons, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955) depicted the

loneliness of a faceless corporate man. David Riesman also discussed the theme of alienation in

The Lonely Crowd (1950). Some of the other major works were Vance Packard's The Hidden

Persuaders (1957) and The Status Seekers (1959), William Whyte's The Organization Man

(1956) and C. Wright Mills' intellectual works -- White Collar (1951) and The Power Elite


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(1956). The 1950s brought a stress along with its material prosperity. The individual suffered

under the pressure of corporate struggle. This brought alienation among the masses; they felt

alone in the crowd. Some of the major novelists of the era were John O'Hara (1905-1970), James

Baldwin (1924-1987), Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994), Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), Saul

Bellow (1915- ), Bernard Malamud (1914-1986), John Updike (1932- ) and Vladimir Nabokov

(1889-1977).

The Turbulent But Creative 1960s

1960s brought many movements with it which was a result of the stress and the alienation of the

previous decade. The Civil Rights Movement, Feminism and Antiwar Protests initiated and its

effects can still be traced in the American society. The novels during this period blurred the line

between fiction and fact. Truman Capotes In Cold Blood (1966) is a good example in this

regard. The novelists who made an impact in this era are: Thomas Pynchon (1937- ), John Barth

(1930- ) and Norman Mailer (1923- ).

The 1970s and 1980s: New Directions

By the mid-1970s the Vietnam conflict was over and an era of consolidation began. The

individuals tended to focus on their personal issues rather than social concerns. The writers

started writing on all matters ranging from social problems to very personal psychological

problems. The ethnicity in America became very diverse during this period and the writers

started to write about America from their own perspective. The feminist writings became

common. Sexual issues began to be discussed in novels and in media. All this took American

novel to such a height which was never enjoyed by any literature. The novelists touched all the

themes. A few of the notable novelists are: John Gardner (1933-1982), Toni Morrison (1931- )

and Alice Walker (1944- ).


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BibliographyDutt, J. Ram. Studies in American Literature. New Dehli: Swastik Publications, 2011.

Gray, Richard.A Brief History of American Literature. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Sharma, S.C and Sweta Bakshi.American Literature A Journey Through the Ages.

A.K. Publications, 2008.

Documents

Rise and Development of Novel in America