May 08, · From Psychology to Morality: Essays in Ethical Naturalism. Since ancient times, philosophers have wondered how exactly to account for the status of morality in the lives of human beings. Ancient philosophers were very much concerned with understanding how our moral lives are grounded in the structure of our psyche and how its various parts, specifically Sep 05, · 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,” Estimated Reading Time: 8 mins Naturalism was a literary movement of the 19th century “that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character.” (“Naturalism (literature)”) Realism is a style of writing in Save Paper; 8 Page; Words; INT Task 3
Naturalism in Depth Article Essay
Get access to this section to get all the help you need with your essay and educational goals. The term naturalism describes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. 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. 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.
Frequently but not invariably ill-educated or lower-class characters essay on naturalism lives are governed by the forces of heredity, instinct, and passion. Their attempts at exercising essay on naturalism will or choice are hamstrung by forces beyond their control; social Darwinism and other theories help to explain their fates to the reader.
Techniques and plots. Walcutt identifies survival, determinism, violence, and taboo as key themes. Nature as an indifferent force acting on the lives of human beings. It represented in a degree, to the correspondent, essay on naturalism, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent. The forces of heredity and environment essay on naturalism they affect and afflict individual lives.
An indifferent, deterministic universe. Naturalistic texts often describe the futile attempts of human beings to exercise free will, often ironically presented, in this universe that reveals free will as an illusion.
Naturalism: The logical outgrowth of literary Realism was the point of view known as Naturalism, essay on naturalism.
This literary movement, like its predecessor, found expression almost exclusively within the novel. Naturalism also found its greatest number of practitioners in America shortly before and after the turn of the twentieth century, essay on naturalism.
A poor immigrant could not escape their life of poverty because their preconditions were the only formative aspects in his or her existence that mattered. The theories of Charles Darwin are often identified as playing a role in the development of literary Naturalism; however, such a relationship does not stand up to investigative rigor.
Darwin never applied his theories to human social behavior, and in doing so many authors seriously abused the actual science.
There was in the late nineteenth century a fashion in sociology to apply evolutionary essay on naturalism to human social woes. This line of thinking came to be knows as Social Darwinism, and today is recognized as the systematized, scientific racism that it is. More than a few atrocities in world history were perpetrated by those who misguidedly applied Darwinism to the social realm.
Naturalism, essay on naturalism, for better or worse, is in some respects a form of Social Darwinism played out in essay on naturalism One could make the case that Naturalism merely a specialized variety of Realism. In fact, many authors of the period are identified as both Naturalist and Realist. Edith Wharton for one is frequently identified as perfectly representative of both aesthetic frameworks.
However, Naturalism displayed some very specific characteristics that delimit it from the contemporary literature that was merely realistic. The environment, especially the social environment, essay on naturalism, played a large part in how the narrative developed. The locale essentially becomes its own character, guiding the human characters in ways they do not fully realize.
Plot structure as such was secondary to the inner workings of character, which superficially resembles how the Realists approached characterization. The work of Emile Zola provided inspiration for many of the Naturalist authors, as well as the work of many Russian novelists.
It would be fairer to assert that all Naturalist fiction is Realist, but not all Realist fiction is Naturalist. The dominant theme of Naturalist literature is that persons are fated to whatever station in life their heredity, environment, and social conditions prepare them for.
The power of primitive emotions to negate human reason was also a recurring element. Writers like Zola and Frank Norris conceived of their work as experiments in which characters were subjected to various stimuli in order to gauge reactions.
Adverse social conditions are taken as a matter of fact. The documentary style of narrative makes no comment on the situation, and there is no sense of advocating for change. The Naturalist simply takes the world as it is, for good or ill. The Naturalist novel is then a sort of laboratory of fiction, essay on naturalism, with studies underway that ethically could not be performed in the real world. The work of French novelist and playwright Emile Zola is often pinpointed as the genesis of the Naturalist movement proper.
His most famous contribution to Naturalism was Les Rougon-Macquart, a sweeping collection of 20 novels that follow two families over the course of five generations. One of the families is privileged, the other impoverished, but they each stumble into decay and failure.
The action takes place during the rule of Napoleon III, essay on naturalism, a time of great uncertainty for the French people. Essay on naturalism atmosphere in Paris, as well as in the novels, essay on naturalism, was one of dread and uncertainty. Zola crafts over characters for his epic, yet on the whole they are rather thinly drawn. His concern is not with character as such, but how characters react to circumstances.
Often, an inanimate object or place is given as much potency as a human character, essay on naturalism. Essay on naturalism is a clinical aspect to his craft that is echoed in his descriptions of novel-writing as a form of science.
Later writers would concur, citing Zola as their major inspiration in pursuing the Naturalist aesthetic in literature. Crane spent a great deal of time in the Bowery of lower Manhattan gathering material for his first novel. Like a research scientist accumulating data, Crane wanted to learn as much as he could about life for the impoverished, mostly immigrant residents.
Maggie was unusual for the time in that it perfectly reproduced the ostensibly vulgar dialect of the persons portrayed. An earlier novel treating the same subject may have romanticized the immigrant life, but Crane portrayed abject poverty exactly as it was. The book was not a great seller, and he lost a hefty sum of money on the venture, essay on naturalism, but those who did read it saw the promise of a new talent in American literature.
Like many of his fellow American novelists, Crane began his career as a journalist, and he continued to travel and report on international stories for the remainder of his career. His total contributions to the body of literature were relatively small, as he died before his thirtieth birthday.
This was not fully realized until many years after his death. Modernists like Ernest Hemingway worked hard to rehabilitate the critical reputation of Crane, and today that reputation is resoundingly positive.
His descriptions and scenery were inspired by war and history magazines, essay on naturalism, which he found dry and too matter-of-fact. He saw an opportunity to craft the first novel that explored warfare from the point of view of the psyche. Characters speak in realistic dialects. The story is not rooted in a specific locale.
The soldiers cannot see the big picture of the war, essay on naturalism, and neither can the reader. The glory of warfare is replaced by ignorance, pain, and fear. Crane offers no sentimentality or mythology.
He reports the events in fine detail, essay on naturalism makes no authorial commentary. The Red Badge of Courage is frequently required reading for high school English classes, yet the irony of the text is often lost. Crane abhorred the mythmaking that surrounded armed combat, and his greatest novel is an attempt to show that humans were not designed to commit such atrocities on each other.
Though she is frequently lumped together with the Realists, Edith Wharton often produced essay on naturalism that just as rightly belong in the category of Naturalism. Though she herself descended from enormous wealth, Wharton was able to step outside her own experience and take an objective view of privilege and class.
Her agenda was to show the unforgiving nature of life at the top of the class structure. Her characters often fall from grace through their own mistakes, miscalculation, and sometimes for no apparent reason at all. Interestingly, Wharton also had a successful career as a designer of homes and landscapes. This attention to environmental details certainly found expression with her literary productions, essay on naturalism.
More so than most Essay on naturalism writers, essay on naturalism, Wharton displayed a real sympathy for her characters. In that sense, her particular brand of Naturalism was less cold and clinical than many of her contemporaries. Still, one cannot escape the sense that Wharton subscribed to the notion of determinism — a world devoid of free will. In Ethan Frome, Wharton departs from her typical subject matter and attempts a thoroughly provincial narrative.
The setting is rural Massachusetts, and the characters are poverty-stricken and hopeless. There is essay on naturalism faintest hint of romance, but all hopes of a happy resolution are dashed, essay on naturalism, quite literally. The poverty of the characters is presented as a roadblock to even the slimmest chance of fulfillment.
The lead characters are not even permitted to end their suffering through suicide — their fateful sledding accident only adding to the tragedy of their existence. There is no epic sweep to the tragedy either. The sense of irrevocable fate is overpowering, essay on naturalism, as is the unforgiving, elemental nature of the harsh Massachusetts winter. In Frank Norris, American literature found its most potent expression of Naturalism. His novels are Darwinian struggles played out in fiction, and he was sometimes criticized for making literature that was too scientific and lacking in sympathy.
Like many Naturalists, Norris was interested in the trials of life of the poor and destitute. In McTeague, his most famous novel, he studies how ambition and greed derail the life of a moderately successful dentist. Characters are frequently referred to in animalistic terms, and there is an undercurrent of unhealthy sexuality that permeates the first sections of the novel.
The title character is small-minded, almost childlike in his view of the world. Because of this, his well-meaning efforts to improve his economic situation go hopeless awry. In the final scene, one gets the impression that the protagonist, if one can call him that, could not have ended up anywhere else.
Despite the resounding pessimism of their literary output, essay on naturalism, the Naturalists for the most part were genuinely concerned with improving the situation of the poor in America and the world. There would seem to be a disconnect between the opinions of the authors and the statements made in the contexts of their novels.
However, closer study reveals this not to be the case. Norris intended his novels to be warnings about the capacity for mankind to sink to its lowest common denominator. Critics, both contemporary and modern, sometimes accuse the Naturalists of ethnocentricity.
Naturalism - Examples and Definition of Naturalism In Literature
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Naturalism was a literary movement of the 19th century “that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character.” (“Naturalism (literature)”) Realism is a style of writing in Save Paper; 8 Page; Words; INT Task 3 May 08, · From Psychology to Morality: Essays in Ethical Naturalism. Since ancient times, philosophers have wondered how exactly to account for the status of morality in the lives of human beings. Ancient philosophers were very much concerned with understanding how our moral lives are grounded in the structure of our psyche and how its various parts, specifically Naturalism As defined by philosopher Paul Draper, naturalism is "the hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system" in the sense that "nothing that is not a part of the natural world affects it." More simply, it is the denial of the existence of supernatural causes
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