Realism and its Genres
Regionalism and
The American Tall Tale
Background
 The 1800’s:
 It was the age of the first mappings
and surveyings of the West
 It was the age of in which the rails of
the first transcontinental railroad had
bound East and West.
The Setting
 The Civil War moved massive numbers of
troops across great expanses and a variety
of American settings
 Westward expansion continued as pioneers
moved further and further West across
untamed and unknown lands.
 Americans wanted to know what their
country looked like, and how the varied
races which made up their growing
population lived and talked.
A Continental Conversation
 The East asked what kinds of people leading what
kinds of life are at the end of those bands of iron?
 The Western regionalists answered: Men and women
like yourselves, but dressed differently, speaking
differently, with different social ways: fantastic
deserts, mile deep canyons, mountains high enough
to bear snow the year round, forests with trees as
wide as man can stretch and wider, villages where the
only woman was the town whore, camps where the
only currency was gold-dust.
A Continental Conversation
 Writers of the South told of swamps where
the cypress grew out the green-scummed
water and the moss grew down into it, and
of the cities where the obsessive bloodconsciousness of its inhabitants testified to
the mingling of the races.
 Mid-western authors narrated the tales of
the plains where a man could be lost in the
dust or ruined by hailstorm; of cities where
fortunes were made or lost in a day's
trading on the beef or grain exchanges.
A Holistic Literary Voice
 The second half of the 19th c. saw America
becoming increasingly self-conscious at the
very time regional writers began to write
about its various aspects.
 The literary map of America, so long a
small corner of light in the East, with a
glimmer on the southern coast, began to be
totally illuminated throughout the country
A Regional Focus
 Thus was born a literary narrative
that focused on America’s many parts
and celebrated, as Whitman notes, its
multitudes
What is Regionalism?
 Often called “local color.”
 Focuses on characters, dialect,
customs, topography, and other
features specific to a certain region
(eg. the South)
 Coincided with Realism and sharing
many of the same traits.
 Prominent from 1865-1895.
Why did Regionalism develop?
 Dual influence of Romanticism and
Realism
 The Civil War and the building of a
national identity
 An outgrowth of realism with more
focus on a particular setting and its
influence over characters
Characteristics of Regionalism
 Setting—often remote and usually integral
to the story;
 Characters—more concerned with the
character of the region than an individual—
quaint, stereotypical;
 Narrator-- an educated observer from the world
beyond who’s often deceived
 Emphasis on dialect
 Use of stock characters
 Plot—nothing much happens, revolves
around the community and its rituals
Themes in Local Color
 Dislike of change, nostalgia for an
always-past Golden Age;
 Triumphant trickster or trickster
tricked;
 Tall tale-tradition, conflicts described
humorously, larger than life
Regionalism and the Tall Tale
 Tall Tales are an extension of
Regionalism, (and therefore, Realism)
in that they promote communal
identity
 They promote a recognition of a
specific area, a character, a type and
engage the reader in a lively
conversation, a sense of being “in” on
the joke at work in the story
So What’s a Tall Tale?
 Tall tales, oral and written, are one of America's
oldest and most popular narrative forms
 They flourished in the nineteenth century, especially
on the frontier.
 They began as a way for pioneers to understand the
greatness of the American West. There were huge
forests, ferocious animals, deserts, and mountains.
 Pioneers were trying to conquer these elements, and
that was a scary business.
 Outrageous victories over the forces of nature, of
those who would impede that progress (Native
Americans, African Americans, women, animals)
became the focus of these narratives.
Attributes of a Tall Tale
 Tall Tales are:
 a combination of reality and fantasy
 based on real or fictional people
 humorous, its humor stemming from absurd
situations intended to entertain through amusing
stretchers or comic lies.
 usually told in the first person as a true story
 frequently disguised as a personal narrative or
anecdote
Attributes of the Tall Tale, cont.
 Tall Tales are:
 The typically depends on the storyteller
assuming a straight-faced pose that
appears to be relating fact but actually
enlarges the plot with fictional and
outlandish details
 Involves the frame story (story within a
story)
 Extraordinary person in ordinary
situation - main character is larger-thanlife or has some superhuman ability
Attributes of the Tall Tale, cont.
 Tall Tales are:
 Caricature – comical or ludicrous representation
of a specific person or type of person
 Hyperbole – details, events, people highly
exaggerated
 Irony – in diction, settings, characters, events,
outcomes
 Vernacular – language typical of a specific area
and of common people in behavior
The Results
 As a whole cumulatively creates an
incredible and fanciful yarn (A long,
often elaborate narrative of real or
fictitious adventures; an entertaining
tale )
Famous American Tall Tales
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Johnny Appleseed
Daniel Boone
Davey Crockett
John Henry
Calamity Jane
Pecos Bill
Casey Jones
Paul Bunyan and his giant blue ox Babe