The House Behind the Cedars can be considered a work of American Realism because it takes place in the aftermath of the Civil War, with an emphasis on setting, dialect, and the depiction of an ordinary town and characters. Chestnutt does not incorporate fantastical or imaginary elements and chooses to depict how life has and hasn’t changed in a small southern town. His characters use dialect to represent how it would sound to hear them talk, and the plot of the story depicts ordinary events.
