Realism In The Second Half Of The 19th Century

The second half of the 19th century was a period of dramatic changes in peoples lives. The industrial revolution is considered to be a period of accelerated structural change in the economy, involving a rapid rise in the industrial output, in the share of manufacturing in national product, in factory-based activity (which meant a different kind of economy), and based on major technological innovation. It was a period of time when the replacement of manual labor for machines occurred, thus leading to significant social upheaval: it was believed that machines would take over the job of thousands of people making them search for other ways of living. Those changes could be felt in the way people ate, dressed, expressed themselves, had fun and thought. In novel writing the romantic idealism of the earlier part of the century was no longer the paradigm. Writers were then putting in words their observation and attention to the details and their effort to portray the true nature of reality in a way they had never attempted before. This new era in writing and in the world of the arts was called Realism. Realism was a reaction against romanticism and its exaggerated emotionalism and drama. Now life became raw and a brand new way of portraying reality came to life. Real peoples lives were unveiled and dayly situations were exposed with truth and accuracy, not avoiding the unpleasant or sordid aspects of life. Realist works described the ordinary life of people from all social classes