American Naturalism Crane Norris Dreiser Robinson

1. Chapter 10 American Naturalism Crane * Norris * Dreiser * Robinson

2. I. American Naturalism 1. Background: Social background: Modern America � industrialism � financial giants and industrial proletariat � skyscrapers and slums Ideological background: a cold, indifferent Godless world � life as a struggle for survival � Darwinian evolutionary concepts like �the survival of the fittest� and �the human beast� � Herbert Spencer�s social Darwinism � an attitude of gloom and despair

3. American Naturalism 2. Literary background/ Definition In the nineties, French naturalism, with its new techniques and new ways of writing, appealed to the imagination of the younger generation like Crane, Norris and Dreiser. They tore the mask of gentility into pieces and wrote about helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world, and his lack of dignity in face of the crushing forces of environment and heredity. They reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accumulation of factual detail. They painted as it was lived in the slums, and were accused of telling just the hideous side of it and making a god of the dull commonplace. Also, American naturalism received an impetus from other foreign influences like Tolstoy and Turgenev. Their major works reveal a bitter and wretched world where human beings such as Maggie, McTeague, and Sister Carrie battle hopelessly against overwhelming odds in a cold, harsh, apathetic environment.

4. American Naturalism The whole picture is somber and dark; the general tone is one of hopelessness and even despair. It�s a more deliberate kind of realism in novels, stories, and plays, usually involving a view of human being as passive victims of natural forces and environment. They wrote about the helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world and his lack of dignity. They are concerned with the less elegant aspects of life. Its typical settings are the slum, the sweatshop, the factory and the farm. They represented the life of the lower class truthfully and broke into such forbidden regions as violence, sex and death. Practitioners: Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton (The House of Mirth,1905), Ellen Glasgow( Barren Ground,1925) .

5. The term naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. 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. Zola's 1880 description of this method in Le roman experimental (1880) goes that human beings as "products" should be studied impartially, without moralizing about their natures. Other influences on American naturalists include Herbert Spencer and Joseph LeConte. Through this objective study of human beings, naturalistic writers believed that the laws behind the forces that govern human lives might be studied and understood. Naturalistic writers thus used a version of the scientific method to write their novels; they studied human beings governed by their instincts and passions as well as the ways in which the characters' lives were governed by forces of heredity and environment. Although they used the techniques of accumulating detail pioneered by the realists, the naturalists thus had a specific object in mind when they chose the segment of reality that they wished to convey.

6. 3. Characteristics of American Naturalism Characters: Frequently but not invariably ill-educated or lower-class characters whose lives are governed by the forces of heredity, instinct, and passion. Their attempts at exercising free will or choice are hamstrung by forces beyond their control; social Darwinism and other theories help to explain their fates to the reader. Setting: Frequently an urban setting, as in McTeague, Maggie, and Sister Carrie. Techniques and plots: Walcutt says that the naturalistic novel offers "clinical, panoramic, slice-of-life" drama that is often a "chronicle of despair". The novel of degeneration is also a common type. Themes: Walcutt identifies survival, determinism, violence, and taboo as key themes.

7. II. Major Naturalistic Writers 1. Stephen Crane (1871-1900) Novels: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) (the first uncompromising naturalistic novel in America) The Red Badge of Courage (1895, first modern de-romanticizing anti-War novel) Poetry: The Black Riders and Other Lines War is Kind Short Stories: �Open Boat�, �The Blue Hotel�, and �An Experiment in Misery�