The period of Reconstruction began in 1865, accounting for a lot of change in the United States, including the shift from one literary era to another. However, the era of realism and naturalism reached its peak in 1877, when the Reconstruction period ended. There were also several advancements in technology that shifted the focus from imagination and character to industrialization, including the invention of the motion-picture projector. This put more focus on the concept of science instead of literature, therefore decreasing its importance during this era. The famous authors of this time period include O. Henry, Ambrose Bierce, Ralph Ellison, Ring Lardner, and James …show more content…
While starting off at a similar time as realism and naturalism, psychological realism hadn’t peaked until the early 1900s. Authors of this literary era typically placed emphasis on the internal conflicts and mindsets within characters in their works, making it much more interesting and original than works of the previous era. Instead of focusing on logic and technology, authors of the psychological realism period focused on character and emotion in order to create literature appealing to the audience at the time. One of the reasons that the literary period was successful was because of the lack of criticism of writing techniques. While the traditional realism period had carried out impressive scientific and economical movements, its literature was quite hollow. Because of this, there was much more criticism of realism literature. On the other hand, the psychological realism era demonstrated excellent writing styles and techniques, requiring less criticism. Another interesting component of this time period was the fact that it occurred at the time of early psychological developments. While the concept of psychology was being founded and built upon, a literary era incorporated its values and main ideas into pieces of writing. In the present, it’s very typical to find internal conflicts involving a character’s conscious in