Realism and how authors like Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald give a "tell it like it is" writing in the stories. An author can only write realistically about what he/she knows.

In American literature realism, is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Realism has been mainly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of social factors and environment is the important element in the dramatic complications. The realism sought to explain why ordinary people behave they way they do. What, for example, fuels the ambitions of a young man …

…think that Twain and Fitzgerald both conveyed in reality. Both authors wrote there stories based upon the social restrictions of time. Today we see the same kind of American dream and look down upon the lower class. I think that we moved closer to the truth by seeing what society be really about. This is somewhat the real world and it's either your accepted by following the rules or not accepted by disobeying the rules.