Regionalism / Mark Twain
Historical Context
• Interest in Regionalism grew during the late 1800s
• Contributed to the narrative of unified nationhood that late
nineteenth-century America sought (why?) to construct
• Writers sought to record, celebrate, and mythologize diversity of
landscape and people
• Regionalism helped to develop national identity between New
England, the Old Southwest, the Middle West, and the Western
frontier.
Regionalism (sometimes Local Color)
• Focuses on the special characteristics of a certain geographical area
and its people
• Writers use careful detail to re-create:
- physical features of landscapes and towns
- characters who inhabit them
- speech, dress, common beliefs
Regionalism vs. Local Color
• Local Color includes :
• nostalgia/sentimentality
• exploitation/condescension towards its subjects
Regionalism in Art
Edward Hopper. Early Sunday Morning. 1930.
Grant Wood. American
Gothic. 1930.
Dorothea
Lange. Migrant
Mother, Nipomo,
California. 1936.
Regionalist painter
Andrew Wyeth is
sometime referred to as
the "painter of the
people" due to his
renderings of everyday
Americana. "Christina's
World", 1948 is an iconic
piece of American art.
Mark Twain
Some quotes…
• Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor
will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
• The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a
large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the
lightning.
• It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still
rolling.
• Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to
prayer.
• Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only
animal that has the True Religion—several of them. He is the only animal
that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t
straight.
Characteristics of Writing
• Humor and satire (based on Western America)
• Colloquial idioms and syntax (Local Color)
• Protagonists innocent, simple, naive, and ignorant