Beginning of Essay
After World War I, American people and the authors among them were left disillusioned by the effects that war had on their society. America needed a literature that would explain what had happened and what was happening to their society. American writers turne ....

Middle of Essay
.... of modern life" (Elliott 502) by presenting the entire picture. They did not try to give one view of life but instead attempted to show the different classes, manners, and stratification of life in America. Realists created this picture of America by combining a wide variety of "details derived from observation and documentation..." to "approach the norm of experience..." (3). Along with this technique, realists compared the "objective or absolute existence" in America to that of the "universal truths, or observed facts of life" (Harvey 12). In other words, realists objectively looked at American society and pointed ....