Modern Languages and LiteraturesVanBuskirk, Autumn2020-06-122020-06-1220192470-3958https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12588/102One of American Realism’s defining characteristics lies in the authors’ ability to realistically mimic an accent, dialect, or language of a person or group of people. Through the capture of the spoken word, authors use this unique style of writing to create a specialized persona for a character. Accents and dialects (or the lack of) allow the author to shape the readers’ perspective of a character by distinguishing their class, region, race, gender and/or their intellect for political, social, or personal gain. The integration of different languages into a text validates and/or complicates a country’s language and culture since it forces the reader to have an understanding of the language to completely read the text.en-USArticle