Realism; Gothic Fiction
Here are two things we know about Sherwood Anderson—he loves to keep it real, but he's really just a goth kid at heart. Like, Hot Topic mallrat-level goth.
"A Death in the Woods" is a prime example of literary realism. Anderson isn't sentimental: he talks about the difficult lives of people from small towns in the Midwest. The story doesn't shy away from controversial topics like violence, sexism, and social class, investigating these heavy themes in a gritty fashion.
But the story also cops a few moves from the American Gothic approach. Although the story doesn't feature ghouls and ghosts, it's more similar to Gothic fiction like "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner—it has all of the dread and "strange, mystical feeling" of the gothiest gothic novel, without any of the magical tomfoolery you might expect (4.14). Instead, Anderson approaches gothic literature in a realistic matter, connecting those hints of mysticism with the inner lives of his characters.