Realism seeks to document the world. Like documentary films, a realistic novel gives precise descriptions of objects, settings and characters, all for the purpose of the giving the reader a sense of reality. Whereas a romantic would describe the emotional effect of a flower, a realist would try to describe its exact physical makeup while avoiding all subjective interpretations of it. Such faith in facts would be criticized by later writers, who emphasized the subjective nature of all reality.
A cardinal rule of literary realism is to depict real people doing real things in real situations. Unlike literature that came before it, realism depicted ordinary people, rather than kings, queens and nobility. It showed middle- or working-class individuals in everyday situations and gave them names that sounded like the names of its readers. This impulse was largely due to the increased popularity of the novel in the 19th century. With the middle classes now able to read, regular people wanted stories and characters that reflected their own reality.
As with characters and situations, writers of realism employed everyday language in description and dialogue. Instead of the formal language of Elizabethan literature or the flowery poetic language of Romanticism, realism used the same words that regular folk used, including slang. Using ordinary language let less-educated people understand novels that were being written. In addition, simple and easy-to-understand language gave these novels a stronger impression of being realistic.
Like much literature that came before it, literary realism had specific political goals in mind. In addition to democratizing literature, it often sought to expose the horrors of the industrial world, particular among the working classes. The novels of Charles Dickens, for instance, depict the harsh effects that industry had on workers and especially on children. Dickens and others believed that literature could be a force for change in the world. With these horrors exposed, they believed, readers would demand change from their political leaders.