Naturalism
Naturalism
Naturalism
Determinism
Characters do not have free will; external and
internal forces control their behavior.
This belief is called determinism. All determinists
believe in the existence of the will, but the will is
enslaved due to a multitude of reasons.
Characters attempting to exercise free will are
hamstrung by forces beyond their control.
Life is an inescapable trap.
Characters as Marionettes
Naturalists view individuals as being at the mercy of
biological and socioeconomic forces, whereas realists
hold that humans have some degree of free will that
they can exercise to affect their situations.
Things happen to people, as if they were marionettes whose
movements are entirely determined by forces beyond their
control.
Social conditions
A character born into poverty.
Chance (fate)
A characters child is suddenly stricken with typhoid fever.
Internal Passions
Lust, greed, or desire for dominance or pleasure overcome rational
behavior.
Subject
Matter
Generally deals with raw and unpleasant
experiences which reduce characters to
"degrading" behavior as they struggle to
survive.
Characters are mostly from the lower-middle
or lower classes
Generally poor, uneducated, and unsophisticated.
drama of the people working itself out in blood
and [filth] (Norris).
A Few Practictioners:
Emile Zola, Le roman experimental (The Experimental
Novel) (1880)
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat (1898)
Jack London, To Build a Fire (1901)
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)
Ellen Glasgow, Barren Ground (1925)
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1939)
Richard Wright, Native Son (1940), Black Boy (1945)
Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead (1948)
William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness (1951)
Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (1953)
Naturalistic Poem:
A man said to the
universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied
the universe,
"The fact has not
created in me
A sense of
obligation."
--Stephen Crane (1899)