The classical phase of American Naturalism is usually located as occurring after the flowering of the local color movement. Naturalism’s full-blown emergence is usually charted as the next century drew near. Scholars have suggested that its strongest voicing arrived in the quartet of Stephen Crane, Theodor Dreiser, Jack London, and Frank Norris (Mitchell viii). Naturalism is perhaps more closely aligned with the local color stylistic traits embedded in the writings of Mark Twain. Here American literature with its glimmerings of the modern emerges. In the Reconstructionist era, generally slotted from 1865 to 1900, Twain’s creation of Huck Finn grants him genuine claim to…