Transcript Realism and Naturalism 2 different BEASTS

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 selfdetermined
• 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.