Transcript Realism and Naturalism

A look at American Styles &
John Steinbeck
American Realism (1860-1890)
 Realism tries hard (as its name suggests) to present the
world as it really is -- the way, for instance, a photograph
might capture it. Howells writes that "realism is nothing
more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of
material." Since it tries so hard to be truthful, realist
literature, unlike much of the "romantic" writing that
preceded it, never feels overblown, the way a fairy tale or a
parable or a dream might. And it's rarely sentimental or
emotional. It tends to read like a plain, sensible, sober
account of whatever action it's describing.
Presentation of the Facts
 This concern with delivering plain and simple truth
leads realists to fill their works with details and facts
drawn from everyday life. They can be facts about
domestic life, about families and genealogies, about
history, about politics, about business and finance,
about geographical places...whatever. But to make us
believe in the reality of the worlds they show us,
realists fill their literature with facts to bolster the
reader's feeling that, yes, this place I'm reading about
is just like the everyday world I live in.
Everyday People
 Speaking of the "everyday," it's another important concept
in realist works. Realists, generally speaking, don't write
about extraordinary people in fantastic situations. They
write about plain, normal, everyday folks dealing with the
trials and tribulations of plain, normal, everyday life.
Melville's Moby Dick (1851), which pretty much defines the
romantic literary period that came before realism, is about
a crazed sea captain named Ahab who's obsessed with
killing the biggest, fiercest whale in the world -- not an
everyday person in an everyday situation. Realist literature,
on the other hand, might often leave you saying, "That one
character totally reminds me of my aunt." Again, everyday
folks doing everyday things.
Common Places
 Since writers are most likely to be factual and convey a sense of
everyday-ness when dealing with subjects they know intimately,
many realists write specifically about places where they live or
have grown up. There's a whole subcategory of American realism,
in fact, called "local color," which tries hard to convey the reality
of particular places in the U.S. It's interesting to note, too, that a
whole lot of this local-color realism is set in different parts of the
Midwest. Up until the realists' time, most American literature is
about the East (New England especially). But the fact that the
American West is becoming increasingly settled late in the 19th
century -- and that Americans at this time are fascinated with
the notion of "manifest destiny" -- leads to a boom in literature
about the nation's newer territories.
Dialect
 Setting their works in specific places leads realist writers to make use of
specific dialects, or speech patterns that are particular to certain
locales. Before the realists' time, most characters in American literature
were simply expected to speak the Queen's English, like good
gentlemen and ladies. In the realist period, though, writers make a
conscious effort to let American characters speak various types of
American English. A white man in rural Missouri doesn't, of course,
speak like an English gentleman, so it wouldn't be factual and
"truthful" to make him sound that way. Similarly, a black woman from
rural Missouri may not speak the same way a white woman from the
same place does, so it wouldn't be factual and truthful to make her
speak in anything other than her dialect. Realists have to have an
excellent ear to make their characters sound like real Americans. And
by representing different American dialects, these writers help create a
genuinely American body of literature -- that is, a set of works
distinguishable from the European lit most Americans of that time
have grown up reading.
Celebrating the Individual
 Realism generally celebrates the individual. Most realist
works feature a central character who has to deal with some
moral struggle, hopefully to arrive at an important moral
victory or realization before the story's over. And this,
relatedly, often means much of the "action" in realist lit is
internal action: we hear lots about what's going on in
central characters' heads; we learn a lot about those
characters' psychologies. Since realist characters live in the
"everyday" world, interesting external things aren't always
happening -- so the "internal" stuff has to take up the slack.
One way or the other, though, realist writers are fascinated
by individuals: they love the idea that single human beings
must learn, grow, and change their worlds -- or be held
responsible for failing to do these things.
Plot Driven
 One last thing: realist works are generally plot driven, even
if only subtly. This means they pivot around conflicts we as
readers want to see resolved. A realist work, then, will
typically have at least one protagonist (a main character -not necessarily a likeable person or "hero") and at least one
antagonist (another character or a force that will try to
prevent the protagonist from getting what s/he wants), and
readers will wait to see, as they watch a sequence of
increasingly dramatic events, who prevails. This is how any
standard story works, but it's important to note that
realism does these things, too, because the modernist stuff
we'll look at later often refuses to provide plot, going in for
more fragmented or "stream of consciousness" modes of
storytelling instead.
Characteristics of Realism
 Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. Selective
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presentation of reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude, even at the
expense of a well-made plot
Character is more important than action and plot; complex ethical
choices are often the subject.
Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive;
they are in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to their social
class, to their own past.
Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and
aspirations of an insurgent middle class. (See Ian Watt, The Rise of the
Novel)
Events will usually be plausible. Realistic novels avoid the sensational,
dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances.
Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone may be
comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.
Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important: overt
authorial comments or intrusions diminish as the century progresses.
Major Authors
 Mark Twain
 Guy de Maupassant
 William Dean Howells
(French)
 Gustav Flaubert (French)
 Anton Chekov (Russian)
 George Eliot (English)
 Rebecca Harding Davis
 Joseph Kirkland
 Henry James
 Ambrose Bierce
 Sarah Orne Jewett
American Naturalism (1890-1910)
 The term Naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to
apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study
of human beings.
 Naturalism is an outgrowth of realism.
 Like realism, it wants to present an almost photographically
accurate version of "real" life. It's full of facts and details about an
everyday world ordinary people may well recognize. Its characters
speak the same dialects real Americans speak. And it's generally plot
driven.
 Unlike, Realism which focuses on literary technique, naturalism
implies a philosophical position: for naturalistic writers, since
human beings are, in Emile Zola's phrase, "human beasts,"
characters can be studied through their relationships to their
surroundings.
 The Naturalist believed in studying human beings as though they were
"products" that are to be studied impartially, without moralizing about
their natures.
Uncontrollable Forces
 Naturalist writers aren't interested in individuality the way the
realists are. They don't think it's the individual's place to change
the world, and whatever moral struggle s/he goes through may
well not add up to a hill of beans. Naturalism's central belief, in
fact, is that individual human beings are at the mercy of
uncontrollable larger forces that originate both within and
outside them. These forces might include some of our more
"animal" drives, such as the need for food, sex, shelter, social
dominance, etc. Or, in a more "external" vein, these forces might
include the natural environment, the man-made environment,
or finance, industry, and the economy. Something, though, is
always beating down and controlling the lives of lowly individual
humans in naturalist works. The whole point of this literary
movement, in fact, is to demonstrate that this is inevitable. And
yes, it's often pretty grim.
Political
 Naturalist works are more likely to be political than
traditional realist works. A great many naturalists (Upton
Sinclair, for instance, whose The Jungle describes the plight
of the working poor in Chicago's meat-packing industry)
want to expose the cruelty of such "larger forces" as the
U.S.'s voracious capitalist economy. It may, on one level, be
inevitable that money will crush poor people, but it might
also be true, these writers suggest, that we shouldn't turn a
blind eye to it -- that we should, maybe, start thinking
about bigger-than-the-individual political movements (like
socialism) that can counter capitalism's exploitation of the
poor.
Extraordinary Subjects
 Naturalist works are more likely than realist works to
deal with extraordinary (that is, beyond-the-ordinary)
subject matter. In their desire to show how larger
forces control and manipulate people, naturalist works
often deal with subjects most comfortable middleclass readers of the time wouldn't have considered part
of their ordinary lives: war, violence, crime, natural
disaster, urban squalor, poverty.... Those more
politically charged naturalist works I mentioned above
are especially likely to depict things that would shock
or jar readers, unlike the more "polite" realist works of,
say, William Dean Howells or Henry James.
Major Authors
 Jack London
 Stephen Crane
 Theodore Dreiser
 Jack London
 Edith Wharton
 Richard Wright
Realist or Naturalist?
Of Mice and Men
 John Steinbeck is known for his realistic writings that
portray the life of Americans searching for something
better.
 Details are realistic
 Experiences are common
 Language is natural and dialectical
 Also portrays human life as directed by greater forces.
 No control over ultimate fate
Resources
 http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm
 http://faculty.bucks.edu/docarmos/RealismNaturalis
m.html