Discuss the distinctive features of the American novel.

However, this idea of the individual and his community life in a continuum was modified with the intervention of the economic forces. According to Crevecoeur, the individual and social progress in the new nation, without the exploiting institutions of monarchy or a corrupt church or selfish nobility, was not possible, in material terms, for generating more wealth, merely by practising the romantic values of piety and simplicity of the frontier. He, therefore, saw the nineteenth century individual, essentially in economic terms by sharing the enlightened view (as also expressed by Benzamin Franklin), that “human character is environmentally decided”. He showed a consistent belief in the virtues of expanding civilization. The new democracy would assure the rewards of industry” and “his labour is founded on the basis of ,nature”.

For him, the sea had no “romantic” or metaphysical association. It was only a setting for the fishing industry and for trade. Ralph Gabriel also corroborating with, the view believed that individualism was the most dominant force behind the development of the nineteenth century society and literature. These contending economic forces in the lives of the individuals led to the breaking down of social institution leading to a new way of comprehending the individual and his relationship with his society.