American novel
U.S. literary work
A novel written by an American author or set in the United States, typically exploring themes central to the American experience—identity, class mobility, race, regional culture, or the tension between individual freedom and social constraint.
The term appears in literary discussions and course titles: We're studying the American novel from Hawthorne to Morrison.
Some works are called American novels for their setting or themes regardless of the author's nationality.
- identityWho someone is
- modernismFavoring contemporary approaches
- race relationsSocial interactions across ethnicities
- Lost GenerationDisillusioned postwar literary cohort
- realismAccepting things as they are
Puritan values · Beat Generation · road trip · Manifest Destiny · multiculturalism · Harlem Renaissance · freedom · Southern Gothic · Deep South · historical fiction · naturalism · transcendentalism · frontier life · white whale · regionalism · industrialization · westward expansion · immigration
- American LiteratureThe Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Moby Dick
- fictionfiction, short story, fairy tales, fables, literary fiction
America, American, Americans, Americanism, Americanize, Americanization, novel, novels, novelist