[2muchtime]

I’m curious if you’re a native English speaker.

Usually quotes are used to question something another person or other people say so I would think you’d quote “classics” or “classics of American literature” to question this story actually being a classic as many other people might say.

Putting quotes on the word “the” in this context seems to be for emphasis and I’ve seen this numerous times with non-native speakers.

If you are a native speaker I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just curious.

[coldtea]

Quotes are also used to quote something verbatim, which is their more traditional role than "questioning". They're also used to refer to a term in a meta way - like I did with the term questioning just now.

In this case, he uses them for emphasis, like one would write "it's considered one of THE classics".

[sashank_1509]

I’m a native English speaker, my quote was trying to question whether it is really one the classics of American literature or not. Might not be appropriate use though. “The classics of American literature” might have been more appropriate.