Naturalism:
Naturalism was an early twentieth century literary movement that
portrayed mankind as a victim of its surroundings. Naturalism was, in
addition to a literary movement, a developing philosophical
viewpoint, which applied objectivity and scientific principals to the
study of mankind. Typical naturalist fiction places the human, a
creature living by survival instincts, against a cruel world.
Historical
Importance: Using techniques of detail pioneered by the Realists,
Naturalism takes the realist’s method of literary accuracy a
step in the deterministic direction. Naturalists felt that while
realism represented life better than romanticism, it did nothing to
speak for social Darwinism and the loss of psychological
individuality in the early twentieth century.
Jack
London (1876-1916) best known for tales of wilderness adventure
The Call of the Wild (1903), White Fang (1906), etc.
Theodore
Dreiser (1871-1945) edited various magazines (1906-10); wrote
Sister Carrie (1900), An American Tragedy (1925), The
Stoic (1947), etc.
Stephen
Crane (1871-1900) wrote Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893),
Red Badge of Courage (1895), many short stories, verse; style
often realistic or impressionistic
Ellen
Glasgow (1873-1945) wrote The Descendant (1897), They
Stooped to Folly (1929), In This Our Life (1941, Pulitzer
prize), etc.
Exemplary
Quotes:
“When
it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and
that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him,
he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply
the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.”
-Stephen Crane
The
Open Boat
This excerpt speaks
of the naturalistic moment when man realizes his insignificance in
the world, and he wants to hurt it, and he hates deeply that there is
no significant way he can do so. Note how Crane refers to nature as a
cold, cruel, personal being.
"The
animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that is was no
time for traveling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told
to the man by the man’s judgment ”
-Jack
London
To Build a Fire
This piece of narrative is a great example of nature vs.
man. The dog, as a naturalistic entity, knows something by instinct
that the man cannot figure out by using his judgment.
“Some
of them [the owners] hated the mathematics that drove them [to kick
the farmers off their land], and some were afraid, and some
worshipped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought
and from feeling.”
- John Steinbeck
The
Grapes of Wrath
Here is an example of how naturalism was portrayed even
within the human race, in this example of Social Darwinism. Steinbeck
portrays the land owners who evicted their tenants as one would a
cruel, naturalistic force.
