Naturalism between Realism and Modernism

ByNazereg Nour Elhouda

04-05-2012

American literature, the body of written works in English language produced in the United States of America. Like other national literatures, American literature was shaped by the history and culture of the country that produced it. American Literature witnessed many periods and movements like: The Realistic Period (Realism) 1865-1890, The Naturalistic Period (Naturalism) 1890-1915, and The American Modernist Period (Modernism) 1915-1939; they were introduced to America by several American novelists and poets for instance Mark Twain, Henry James, Bret Harte, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway.

The Naturalistic Period took place between The Realistic and Modernistic one. Naturalism was first formulated by the French novelist Emile Zola; in accordance to some scholars it is an outgrowth of Realism, new and harsher one. Realism is an artistic literary movement which is adopted by writers in order to report and describe the real facts of life in comprehensive detail, where characters are strongly a product of his social environment and they are more important than the plot; it has been concerned with portraying the everyday life of the middle and lower classes as it really is, with the intention of making the reader believe that the character actually might exist and the situation might truly happen, another important characteristic is the complex ethical choices that are often the subject. Unlike romantic fiction, realistic fiction stressed and focused on the actual in opposed to the imagined, Realism is a reaction against Romanticism which represents a wild spread rational epistemology that turned its back and put an end to the fantasies of Romanticism rejecting heroic, adventures, unfamiliar subjects; and was shaped by the impact of the social and political changes in addition to the scientific and industrial development of its day. Henry James is considered to be one of the major realist writers, he writes in an elegant leisurely style and he deals in the finer subtitles of moral life and human consciousness. His masterpiece is The Portrait of a Lady (1881), the novel portrays the story of a young attractive American lady named Isabel Archer with wit and imagination, who went to discover Europe, and she sees the world as a new place with the freedom of expression of tempting action. Rejecting all the gentlemen callers who offered her their fidelity and wealth, she follows her own path but unfortunately that

way leads her to disillusionment and a hopeless future “A dark narrow alley with a dead wall at the end” in the conclusion the protagonist is forced to make her final decision. Henry James discusses in this novel one of his favorite themes the new world in competition with the old one.

As mentioned before Naturalism is an extension and continuation of Realism. It is globally defined as a literary movement which took place in American literature by the end of the nineteenth century and during the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a literary theory which implemented scientific observations of life without idealism or voidance of the ugly. American naturalists adopted this movement eliminating the validity of moralities and religious ideologies; they attempted to achieve a higher objectivity and frankness with exploring human nature and representing characters of lowliest social and economic classes studying them with more focus on their instinct, passion and the ways in which their lives are determined by forces of heredity and environment.

Naturalistic novel depicts not only real life, but even biological and concrete details focusing on the excess of human nature, portraying humans as animal because of greed or the desire of something abnormally. Other characteristics of naturalistic novels are Determinism, Objectivism, and Pessimism. The first one is basically the opposite of the notion of freedom of choice, that is to say, that individual characters fate is predetermined by natural forces and social factors and sometimes death is the only punishment and they can do nothing about it. The second one, authors frequently try to maintain their objectivity presenting themselves as objective observers then writing the experiment as it is, just like scientists in their labs. It is a common knowledge that no human being can reach objectivity, but by detaching the narrator from the story, an author can somehow achieve it. The third one, Pessimism is often when characters repeat words or phrases, lines that tends to have a pessimistic nuance. Since Naturalists applied scientific methods rejecting all old spiritual and supernatural beliefs (church, religion), they exposed other subject matters sometimes sordid, for example, frankness about sexuality, prostitution, racism, and filth. Naturalistic works were also deeply influenced by Charles Darwin (1809-1882), his theory and evolution the origin of the species which dominated a new understanding about the origins of human beings; “Social Darwinism” explained characters’ fates and different life situations to the reader. The main setting for a naturalistic novel lean to be urban and depicts and endless hopelessness and misery.

Generally, key themes of Naturalism in that were regularly exhibited in American novels are: survival and determination, violence and taboo; the famous dichotomies man against nature, the world, society, and sometimes himself; nature is represented as an indifference force that governs the life of human beings, it

demonstrates the wasted efforts of individuals to exercise their free will One of the remarkable and influential American naturalist writers is Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961); he was among writers of The Lost Generation as Gertrude Stain called. The primary concern in his works is individual’s moment of truth and his interest with the threat of physical emotional and psychic death rejecting the romantic ideal and suggesting death as an ultimate end for relationships. The novella The Old Man and The Sea, tells the story of an old Cuban fisherman named Santiago, who was trying to change his destiny and gaining back his dignity in front of all other fishermen who were calling him Salao because he did not have luck in fishing for some time. So the story describes his struggle with giant marlin and sharks far out in the golf stream. He ended up with a defeat; sharks ate the giant fish. The novella embodies evidently natural and environmental determinism, that is to say, humans are helpless and overwhelmed by nature forces. Yet according to Hemingway man’s great success is to show grace under stress.

The impact of Naturalism on American literature had a remarkable and colossal effect on twentieth century writers, it led to the evolution of the new movement “Modernism” during the first and second world wars; it made individuals realize that life is a struggle to embrace forces of nature, and understand that man and nature are inseparable. From a different point of view best represented by the Hungarian philosopher George Lukàcs (1885-1971) affirmed that Naturalism is not an outgrowth of Realism, but he saw it as a part from Modernism; for him differences between Naturalism and Modernism are merely superficial dissimilarity of style as he put it “There is a continuity from Naturalism to the Modernism of our day.”

Modernism is widely defined as large cultural waves which progressively become known in Europe and the United States in the early years of the twentieth century. It symbolizes the refusal of the past and conveys the sense of modern life. Modernist writers adopted changes from the traditional life to the modern one that was more scientific, technological and faster. The movement is characterized by a strong reaction against religious, political, and social traditional views; open form and free verse in poetry and prose; several writers aimed to have the sense of solitude by writing with the technique Stream of Consciousness which depicts the psychological process of characters without interruption; pessimism was a kind of result of the influence of the movement in American society. Frequent themes of modernist works are isolation, loneliness, and objectivism. One of the famous and influential poets of the modern era was T.S Eliot (1888-1965). Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri-United States of America. Eliot as a critic is most remembered for his objective complementary effects. Poems such as "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915) embody this approach, when the ineffectual, elderly Prufrock thinks to himself that he has "measured out his life in coffee spoons," using coffee spoons to reflect a humdrum existence and a wasted lifetime.

To conclude, numerous forms of writing were spread in the literary world, and were successful for various reasons. Each form of literature had distinct characteristics that represent it. Throughout the turn of the twentieth century three major movements were attracting writers’ attention. The emergence of the Naturalistic movement which marked the end of the Realistic one, it was new and having a significant consideration; while Modernism had a huge influence on the American society. Naturalism focuses on the implication of scientific principles in order to study human beings, it implies a logic philosophical justification; unlike Realism that centers on ethics and traditional values focusing more on literary technique. The third movement is Modernism most known by the lost concept of tradition, and the belief that knowledge is not absolute instead it investigates actual objects. Modernist writers reflect on emotional and primitive sexual behaviors, and involved to convey all aspects of life. Americans made use of these literary forms to explore a new life style.

References

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Xiaofen Zhang. “On the Influence of Naturalism on American Literature”. Dezhou University China.2010.

I.Serir. Doctoral Thesis “Dialect use in the Victorian Novel: Dickens’ Hard Times and Eliot’s Silas Marner” Telemcen:2010.

Jane Stevenson. “Women Writers in English Literature”. LONGMAN York Press: 1993.

Mrtin Stephen. “English Literature a student guide”. LONGMAN Third Edition:2000

M.D.E.DE LEVE. “A Shorter Introduction To English Literature”. The Fifteenth Edition: 1963.

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