Local color Quick Reference Term applied to fiction or verse which emphasizes its setting, being concerned with the character of a district or of an era, as marked by its customs, dialect, costumes, landscape, or other peculiarities that have escaped standardizing cultural influences.
What are the characteristics of local color stories?
Characters: Local color stories tend to be concerned with the character of the district or region rather than with the individual: characters may become character types, sometimes quaint or stereotypical. The characters are marked by their adherence to the old ways, by dialect, and by particular personality traits central to the region.
What is local color in writing?
Local color is the setting for a story. It includes what the landscape and buildings look like and how people dress, look and speak.
Who wrote with local color?
Writers who wrote using local color were‚ in most cases‚ connected to the region they were writing about. Mark Twain‚ who is commonly known as being one of the greatest American writers‚ if not the greatest‚ used copious amounts of local color in his stories .
When was the first known use of local color?
The first known use of local color was in 1829. English Language Learners Definition of local color. : interesting information about a particular place and about the people who live there that is included in a story, movie, etc.
What is local color with example?
Local-color definition The use of regional detail in a literary or an artistic work. Local color is defined as the characteristics and traits that make a location unique. The foods, shops and attitudes of the people in a town are an example of the local color.
What is local color?
Definition of local color : the presentation of the features and peculiarities of a particular locality and its inhabitants in writing.
What are some examples of local color fiction?
Local Color FictionGeorge Washington Cable. George Washington Cable, for example, chose the local color genre to critique Louisiana's racial history. ... Grace King. ... Kate Chopin. ... Ruth McEnery Stuart. ... Local Color's Impact.Apr 5, 2011
What are characteristics of local color?
Local Color reflects the characteristic appearance, mannerisms, speech, and dress of a place or a period. It is a term applied particularly to literature and the arts. Main Street is rich in local color, for Sinclair Lewis saw nature as well as human nature with a photographic eye.
What is local color in writing?
local colour, style of writing derived from the presentation of the features and peculiarities of a particular locality and its inhabitants.
What is the use of local color?
Local color is used to refer to customs, traditions, dress, and other things which give a place or period of history its own particular character. There are many corners of America that are bright with local color.
Why do authors use local color?
In local-color literature one finds the dual influence of romanticism and realism, since the author frequently looks away from ordinary life to distant lands, strange customs, or exotic scenes, but retains through minute detail a sense of fidelity and accuracy of description.
What is the difference between local color and regionalism?
Whereas local color is often applied to a specific literary mode that flourished in the late 19th century, regionalism implies a recognition from the colonial period to the present of differences among specific areas of the country.
Is Desiree's Baby local color?
Perhaps the most insistent indicator of the movement from local color to well-made story is the stories of Kate Chopin, who was more influenced by Maupassant's tightly unified stories than by the southern local colorists.May 20, 2015
Which author was written for local color?
Local-color writers such as Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909), Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908), and Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) were among the most popular writers of their time.
Who among these writers is famous for using local color in his stories?
Local-color writers such as Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909), Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908), and Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) were among the most popular writers of their time. Yet the label “local colorist” has always suggested a writer of second-class stature.Mar 1, 2020
What is regionalist writing?
Regionalism indicates that a writer has chosen to focus on one of the areas outside the centers of power, and to organize the work around that region. In American literature, regionalism has been associated with the sketch or short story, although the category can accommodate poetry and the novel.May 29, 2019
What is local color?
Local color refers to a type of regional writing with a focus on the specific features of the area. These features can include regional or local dialects; characters with mannerisms distinct to the area; historical references; social customs; and even the geographical peculiarities of the region. The narrator of the story is often ...
What is local color writing?
Local color writing can also refer to a specific type of American literature which is characteristic of the period just after the Civil War. Writers in this subgenre focused on showcasing a particular region—usually the American South—together with its history and folklore.
What is local color literature?
Local color or regional literature is fiction and poetry that focuses on the characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to a specific region. Influenced by Southwestern and Down East humor, between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century this mode of writing became dominant in American literature. According to the Oxford Companion to American Literature, "In local-color literature one finds the dual influence of romanticism and realism, since the author frequently looks away from ordinary life to distant lands, strange customs, or exotic scenes, but retains through minute detail a sense of fidelity and accuracy of description" (439). Its weaknesses may include nostalgia or sentimentality. Its customary form is the sketch or short story, although Hamlin Garland argued for the novel of local color.
What is the narrator in local color fiction?
Narrator: The narrator is typically an educated observer from the world beyond who learns something from the characters while preserving a sometimes sympathetic, sometimes ironic distance from them.
What is regional literature?
Regional literature incorporates the broader concept of sectional differences, although in Writing Out of Place, Judith Fetterley and Marjorie Pryse have argued convincingly that the distinguishing characteristic ...
Who wrote the story of the Creole people?
George Washington Cable (1844-1925) wrote of Creoles and the bayou country near New Orleans in popular magazine stories, later collected in Old Creole Days (1879). Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) wrote Oldtown Folks (1869), a representative portrayal of life in New England. Later New England also figured prominently in the stories ...
What is the literary response to the development of the modern scientific method?
As such, realism was a literary response to the development of the modern scientific method, substituting experimentation for philosophical speculation and recognizing the flawed nature of the real world instead of aspiring to transcendental perfection. This new literary creed emerged primarily in the novel.
What is Chopin's use of local color?
among those is her use of local color. This short story was written in the late nineteenth century at a time when women were to be seen, not heard. Chopin had a different outlook on life and it showed in her writing. Though some believe it may not have been her intention to use local color in her stories, she does. We see local color in the setting she chooses, the descriptive colors she uses, the plot of the story, and also though the narrator’s eyes. The setting of the story takes place in Louisiana...
What are the elements of a short story?
5 Important Elements of a Short Story A short story is a short work of fiction. Fiction, as you know, is prose writing about imagined events and characters. Prose writing differs from poetry in that it does not depend on verses, meters or rhymes for its organization and presentation. Novels are another example of fictional prose and are much longer than short stories. Some short stories, however, can be quite long. If a a short story is a long one, say fifty to one hundred pages, we call it...
What are the language and sound devices in short stories?
These language and sound devices create a stronger image of the scenario or the characters within the text, which contribute to the overall pre-designed effect. As it is shown in the metaphor 'lipstick bleeding gently' in Cinnamon...
