Realism and Naturalism

Age of Science Influence

• Technological Advances

• Changes in Natural Sciences

• Thought became science could be applied to all aspects of life

• Literature became intermingled with sociology, psychology, and “scientific philosophies”

Technological Advances

Changes in Natural Sciences

Publication of Origin of Species

EVOLUTION

Rise of Naturalism

• Writers now show concern with human character

• Characters are less “free”, less self-determined

• Heredity became a determinant of character

• Evolution also provided writers with new metaphors with which to compare literature to social environment

By 1890

Authors began titling work with some of these metaphors…metaphors that viewed life as a struggle and drew upon the predatory aspect of nature for ways to describe the social environment

“Under the Lion’s Paw”---Midwestern farmers under grip of capitalistic land owners

The Jungle---Upton Sinclair’s look at the Chicago meat packing industry

Rise in Utopian novels

• Edwards Bellamy’s Looking Backward – Scientifically planned society

where citizens of Boston in year 2000 enjoy abundance of materials, advanced technology, no conflict, competition, inequality, or crime

• Increase in Bellamy Clubs

Realism to Naturalism

• Realism is nothing more than a call to accurate observation-limited in scope and depth especially about human character

• Naturalism emphasizes human experience by focusing on Heredity and Environment

2 approaches to Naturalism

1. Pessimistic extension of realism

2. Different from realism

Ever look at the world and feel small and powerless? The philosophy of "Naturalism" says you are, but you don't know it. Your "self," full of ambition and hope, is what your brain fabricates to deny the larger environmental forces governing your behavior: social class, economics, war, biology, climate, geography.

The place creates the "person"

Emile Zola“Father of naturalism”

• Writers must examine human character and society “scientifically”

• Laws of individual and society are as fixed as laws of science

Determinism

• Free will or self-determination is an illusion

• Characters cannot exercise free will because it doesn’t exist in the universe

• Universe is indifferent to you

• Chance is granted a role in human affairs, BUT chance is destroyed by inherited traits and the environment

• A writer must study the inherited traits of a character and the social condition of the time

• These 2 things determine the course of any action and the outcome of any life

TRAITS & SOCIAL CONDITION

Subject matter of Naturalism

• Raw and unpleasant experiences which reduce characters to “degrading” behavior in their struggle to survive

• Characters are usually from lower middle or lower classes– Poor, uneducated, and unsophisticated

Naturalistic Character

• Conditioned and controlled by the environment, heredity, chance, or instinct

• They have compensating humanistic values which affirm their individuality and life (values compensate for flaws)

• Their struggle becomes heroic and the character maintains human dignity

Characters

• Governed by heredity, passion, instinct, and environment

• “brute within”= warring emotions (ie: love of another and duty to wife) and the fight for survival

Why no true Naturalist?

No American writer is considered solely naturalist because of the strict limitations prescribed by Zola

1. Hard to study inherited traits of long family histories (immigrants)

2. Social issues are too complex to study “scientifically”---the laws keep changing

Not solely Naturalist Works

• London’s “To Build a Fire”

• Crane’s Maggie, a Girl of the Street

• Wharton’s Ethan Frome

Ethan Frome

• Omniscient Narrator• Sources of information vary from hearsay to

direct interaction• The story frame is Prologue and Epilogue with

the main story told in the chapters in between– Story is told as a flashback

• Similar to The Catcher in the Rye perhaps in structure (book end style), but very different in effect because of POINTS OF VIEW

Framed-story technique

• Story within a story

• Helps to position the reader’s attitude toward the tale

• Draws attention to the narrator's unreliability. – By explicitly making the narrator a character

within the frame story, the writer distances himself from the narrator

– he may also characterize the narrator to cast doubt on his truthfulness.