NATURALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

General Overview
Naturalism was first proposed and formulated by French novelist Emile Zola, the French
writer and theorist who is known as the founder of literary naturalism. Naturalism
is a literary movement that took place from 1865 to 1900. It used an advanced form of
realism to discuss how social conditions, heredity and environment shape human
character. Writers of the Naturalist mode are influenced by Charles Darwin‘s theory of
evolution. They believed that a person‘s heredity and social environment determine
his/her character. They also believe that heredity and social environment influence the
actions of people. Naturalism was introduced to America by American novelist Frank
Norris. It is a more extreme form of realism. It is a theory in literature that emphasizes
scientific observation of life without idealism or the avoidance of the ugly. American
literature naturalists dismissed comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve
extreme objectivity and frankness. They presented characters of low social and economic
classes who were dominated by their environment and heredity. The ideas of naturalism
pervaded the works of such writers as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Jack London, Henry
Adams, Theodore Dreiser, and Ernest Hemingway.

Characteristics of Naturalism
Naturalism is a harsher form of realism. The term Naturalism came from Emile Zola. It is
believed that he sought a new idea to convince the reading public of something new and
more modern in his fiction. He argued that his innovation in fiction-writing was the
creation of characters and plots based on the scientific method. Skinnerian principles of
learning through conditioning and the Darwinian hierarchy of the survival of the
fittest are the underlying themes involved in shaping the human character. There are
many defining characteristics of literary naturalism. They include:

Determinism
Determinism is the opposite of the idea that there is free will. In determinism,
individual characters do not have a direct influence on the course of their lives. Rather, it
is supplanted by a focus on nature or fate. As human beings live in natural environment,
they can react toward the exterior and interior forces but are helpless before these forces
(Lin Xianghua, 1989, p.528). Often, a naturalist author will lead the reader to believe that
a character's fate has been pre-determined, usually by heredity and environmental factors.
Such writer also depicts that the destiny of humanity is misery in life and oblivion in
death and that he/she can do nothing about it.

Objectivism
Naturalist authors often try to maintain a tone that will be experienced as 'objective.' The
author presents himself or herself as an objective observer, similar to a scientist taking
note of what he or she sees. Of course, no human being can ever be truly objective.
However, by detaching the narrator from the story he or she tells, an author can achieve
objectivity. Also, an author will sometimes achieve detachment by creating nameless
characters. This is more common among modernists such as Ernest Hemingway). This
puts the focus more on the plot and what happens to the character, rather than the
characters themselves.

Pessimism
Very often, one or more characters will continue to repeat one line or phrase that tends to
have a pessimistic connotation. They sometimes emphasize the inevitability of death.
Naturalistic works often include uncouth or sordid subject matter. For example, Emile
Zola‘s works showed frankness about sexuality along with a pervasive pessimism.
Naturalistic works exposed the dark harshness of life, including poverty, racism, sex,
prejudice, disease, prostitution, and filth. The naturalistic novel offers clinical,
panoramic, slice of life drama that is often a chronicle of despair.

Surprising Twist at the End of the Story

In naturalist novels and stories, there tends to be a strong sense that nature is
indifferent to human struggle. Characters are 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.

Influence of Naturalism on American Literature

Influenced by European naturalists, especially by Emile Zola, at the end of the nineteenth
century, a generation of writers arose in America. Their ideas of the workings of the
universe and the perception of society‘s disorders led them to naturalism. This was a new
and harsher realism.

Jack London The Call of the Wild

Jack London (1876-1916) was one of the most popular American writers of his time and
regarded as one of the greatest naturalist novelists of America. He has been in the
forefront of the move toward naturalistic fiction and realism in America. He has been
deeply influenced by Darwin's ideas of constant struggle in nature and ―the survival of
the fittest. He shows his philosophy of naturalism completely in The Call of the Wild.

The Call of the Wild is a novel that is concerned about a previously domesticated and
somewhat pampered dog named Buck, whose primordial instincts return after a series of
events. One day he was kidnapped and taken to the north, where he served as a sled dog
in the treacherous, frigid Yukon. The bad weather, the terrible Husky dogs, the fights, his
dead friend and many things made Buck know he was surrounded by savages. There was
no fair play. Only fight and war could help him. Finally, he began to master his new
surroundings. His ability to rule and his great intelligence and good judgment were
wonders to everyone. Then, Buck was sold once more. It was John Thornton who rescued
him and became his new owner. But life was hard for Buck. When they lived in a forest,
the Yeehats, an Indian tribe killed all the people, include John. Buck was very angry, and
he killed most of the Yeehats. After John‘s death, Buck‘s last tie with people was broken.
Finally, he was ready to answer the call of the wild. He ran with wolves, side by side with
his wild brothers, shouting as he ran. He sounded the call of the wild. More and more
cruelties made Buck realize there is no goodness and kindness in this world. There is only
one rule: eat or be eaten off.

The environment plays a very important part in The Call of the Wild. The novel shows
how the environment controls one's (here dog's and wolf‘s) life. Zola said: ―I still hold
my view that the environment plays a very important part, ―When we research a family
or a group of people, I think the environment has a chief importance (Zola, 1988, p. 476).
Jack London has a deep understanding about environment, so we can clearly see many
expressions of Naturalism in The Call of the Wild. As an animal, Buck‘s behaviors
represent ―the survival of the fittest. He made himself accustom to the new
environment, so he won the right of survival. At the same time, Buck ensured himself the
safety with his courage and wisdom in the severe north. As a symbol of human nature,
Buck's behaviors indicated the extremely cruel and unfair humanity in misery and the
hunger. He was struggling for his life. Facing trouble, to survive is the most important
thing. From portraying the dog‘s images to revealing the formation and development of
the dog‘s character, the novel embodies obviously genetic determinism and
environmental determinism advocated by Zola. Darwin's theory of―the big fish eat up
the small, the fittest survive is fully expressed through Buck's image.

Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie

Theodore Dreiser was one of the outstanding American writers of naturalism. He was the
leading figure in a national literary movement that replaced Victorian notions of propriety
with the unflinching presentation of real-life subject matter. Among other themes, his
novels explore the new social problems that had arisen in a rapidly industrializing
America. Sinclair Lewis said in his Nobel Prize Lecture of 1930, that Dreiser's great first
novel, Sister Carrie, came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western
wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and
Whitman.

Sister Carrie tells the story of a pretty small-town girl who comes to the big city filled
with vague ambitions. She is used by men and she too uses them in turn to become a
successful Broadway actress. The married man who runs away with her, George
Hurstwood, loses his grip on life and becomes a beggar. In despair, he commits suicide
by gassing himself in his hotel room one night. Meanwhile, Carrie achieves stardom, but
finds that money and fame do not satisfy her longings or bring her happiness. Sister
Carrie is a work of importance in American literature despite its inauspicious launching.
It became a beacon to subsequent American writers whose allegiance was to the realistic
treatment of any and all subject matter. With the publication of Sister Carrie in 1900,
Dreiser committed his literary force to opening the new ground of American naturalism.
His heroes and heroines, his settings, his frank discussion, celebration, and humanization
of sex, his clear dissection of the mechanistic brutality of American society, all were new
and shocking to a reading public reared on genteel romances and adventure narratives.
Dreiser received a reputation as a naturalist. He cleared the trail from Victorian timidity
and gentility in American fiction to honesty and boldness and passion of life. Sister
Carrie was the first masterpiece of the American naturalistic movement with factual
presentation of the vagaries of urban life. It depicted an ingenuous heroine, who goes
unpunished for her transgressions against conventional sexual morality. Dreiser does not
forget the basic principles of naturalism. On the one hand, the author says that "the world
only moves forward because of the services of the exceptional individual". But on the
other hand, Hurstwood is also a "chessman" of fate. Like Carrie, her success is mostly the
result of chance. Indeed, though turn-of-the-century readers found Dreiser‘s point of view
crude and immoral, his influence on the fiction of the first quarter of the century is
perhaps greater than any other writer‘s.

Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the outstanding American writers with naturalistic
tendency. His works have sometimes been read as an essentially negative commentary on
a modern world filled with sterility, inevitable failure and death, which is just the view of
naturalism. His primary concern was an individual‘s ―moment of truth, and his
fascination with the threat of physical, emotional, or psychic death is reflected in his
lifelong preoccupation with stories of war in A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell
Tolls. Hemingway‘s stature as a writer was confirmed with the publication of A Farewell
to Arms, which portrayed a farewell both to war and to love. Hemingway had rejected the
romantic ideal of the ultimate unity of lovers, suggesting instead that all relationship must
end in death. The Old Man and the Sea centered upon Santiago, an aging Cuban
fisherman who struggled with a giant marlin and sharks far out in the Gulf Stream. He
ended up with a defeat that the sharps ate the giant marlin which he pulled onto his skiff‘s
side and stabbed with all his strength. From portraying Santiago‘s images, the novel
embodies obviously environmental determinism. Human beings can react toward the
exterior but they are helpless before these forces, men and women are overwhelmed by
the force of nature. Yet to Hemingway, man‘s great achievement is to show grace under
pressure. The inside of Hemingway's books, is the spirit of the whole nation. He has great
influence on his fellow authors, such as J. D. Salinger, Hunter S. Thompson, and Elmore
Leonard.