Literary Realism Essay
By Julia A. Keirns
Literary Realism was a literature movement in the nineteenth century that portrayed the daily existence of middle-class reality in story form. Things were portrayed as they really were. Realistic authors sought to portray a faithful representation of life. Ordinary characters experiencing ordinary life. During this period writers moved away from the exotic poetic forms of the romantic writings and brought literature back down to earth where normal everyday people could relate to the stories they wrote. Realism then was a technique of writing that denoted mainly the representation of daily life in the middle class. Realists centered their attention on the immediate, the here and now.
As part of learning about Realism, we must examine a form of Realism called Naturalism. Naturalism was an extreme form of realism that was influenced mainly by Darwin’s theory of evolution. It was a type of writing based on the idea that the environmental factors determined and governed the characters actions. Writers began exploring the belief that science and nature could explain all social and environmental phenomena. They moved away from religious causes for any of these events. As naturalism grew, writers focused more on how nature and natural forces determined a character’s decisions, causing them to act in certain ways. The characters could decide what and how they reacted to their circumstances, but essentially, they were powerless against the forces of nature. They were at the mercy of their environment.
Realism and Naturalism are very much alike. They both tell stories like it is and are far from exotic or poetic. Instead, they are real. One main difference seemed to be that Realism focused a lot on middle-class families, as in the story “The Revolt of Mother,” while Naturalism seemed to be more aligned with lower-class and poverty. They both avoided fantasy and magic or anything supernatural. Literature always seems to have a natural process of moving from one idea to the next. Once one author exposed a new idea or way of thinking in their writing, other authors followed suit. In both Realism and Naturalism, the characters themselves seemed to be much more important than the plot. The authors wanted to portray the characters feelings and thoughts and decisions. It was more about how the character handled the situations they were put in. No one really cared about why the character was battling nature, only whether he would survive his situation or not.
There are so many wonderful examples of beginning naturalist writers in American Literature including John Steinbeck and his book The Grapes of Wrath, Kate Chopin and The Awakening, Jack London and To Build a Fire, along with many of his other wonderful works based in the Alaskan wilderness. I have especially enjoyed The Call of the Wild, White Fang and the Sea Wolf. Finally, one of the other top naturalist writers of the time was Stephen Crane and his work The Open Boat.
This short story portrays four men stuck on a small boat on the ocean after their ship sinks. The story tells of their struggle against the waves and wind out on the open ocean. It highlights their human endurance against a harsh natural environment and how each one of them feels and acts towards this environment. They continue to struggle for survival and wonder why they have been placed in this situation. Each man has a different opinion on their situation. They are all determined to survive but have their doubts. The Open Boat symbolically places men against nature in a huge universe that is indifferent to their plight. The ocean just goes about its business not caring a single bit about a tiny boat filled with four tiny insignificant humans in it. There is no fantasy, no magic, and basically no religion in the entire story. It is simply about these men and their struggle to survive in a horrible environment. This story actually came out of a personal experience, when Crane himself was shipwrecked and rowed towards land with three other men in a dingy boat but was eventually forced to swim ashore.
Stephen Crane was born six years after the American Civil War, but his writing was highly influenced by that time period. He created stories about the battlefield that were praised for their realism. One of his best known novels is, of course, The Red Badge of Courage. He became one of the earliest and most important American naturalists.
Naturalism then grew into a type of writing that glorified nature and adhered close to natural elements and their effect on human nature. It portrayed humans in environmental and social conditions beyond their control. French writer, Emile Zola is credited as the founder of literary naturalism. He was one of the most prominent French novelists of his time and he actually came up with the term naturalism. His entire Les Rougon-Macquart Series of novels is about a family living under France’s Second Empire and the environmental influences on their daily lives such as violence, alcohol and prostitution. The series follows two branches of the family, the respectable and the disreputable for five generations. This entire series is a wonderful example of realistic naturalism. The only one I have read so far is Nana, but I would love to go back and read them all beginning with the first.
Many naturalistic works opened up the opportunity for writers to express opinions about the dark side of human nature such as prejudice, racism, poverty, filth and disease. Most naturalist writers seemed to want to bring light to many issues and used nature to bring out these problems. Mark Twain was known as the father of American Literature. His Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books highlighted poverty, racism and slavery in a time when no one wanted to talk about them, and he used survival in nature to do it. He focused on the actions and ways of the daily lives of these two boys and the choices they made because of their surroundings and environment. Everything was caused by the natural properties and causes. Somewhat different in these books are that there were supernatural or spiritual explanations of things in the stories. Huck Finn had to deal with his father’s alcoholism. Social issues were portrayed through the mobs and hangings. Many issues were brought to light in his stories. Twain was one of the most famous American naturalist writers of his time. Many American Naturalist authors of the same period were also devout followers of Emile Zola.
Two other authors in periods outside of Realism whose ideas differed from those ideas of Naturalism would include L. Frank Baum who lived from 1856 to 1919 and wrote mostly fantasy books including The Wizard of Oz, and Arthur Conan Doyle who lived from 1859 to 1930 and wrote mostly mystery novels including Sherlock Holmes. L. Frank Baum started his writing career as a newspaper journalist. He did not start writing for children until his late forties. It was in 1900 when he finally introduced the world to his wonderful wizard of Oz characters. Frank Baum died in 1919. It was twenty years later, in 1939, when Judy Garland portrayed Dorothy in the movie we all know and love, “The Wizard of Oz.” And, even though Arthur Conan Doyle tried to write many other stories, it always came back to the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, whom everyone loved.
Works Cited
Campbell, Donna M. “Naturalism in American Literature.” Naturalism in American Literature, Washington State University, https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/natural.htm
Campbell, Donna M. “Realism in American Literature.” Realism in American Literature, Washington State University, 7 Sept. 2015, https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm
“L. Frank Baum.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 Apr. 2019, https://www.biography.com/writer/l-frank-baum
MasterClass. “What Is Literary Realism? Definition and Examples of the Realism Genre in Literature – 2019.” MasterClass, MasterClass, 15 Aug. 2019, https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-literary-realism#what-is-literary-realism
“Naturalism – Examples and Definition of Naturalism.” Literary Devices, 2 Oct. 2017, https://literarydevices.net/naturalism/