American realism and naturalism: trends, names, masterpieces.
Realism and naturalism are the two literary movements that dominated American
literature between the years 1865 and 1920s. Although they existed in the States
independently, they had their roots in the European tradition as the New World's authors were
strongly influenced by the continental thought and trends. Among the greatest names, it is
worth to mention Emile Zola, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud, to all of
whom American realism/naturalism1 owes a lot. Nevertheless, these artistic style developed
into a truly American, distinctive body of literature with its own tendencies such as for
instance the whole subgenre of the so-called local color fiction and vernacular writing. They
were also well grounded on the indigenous experience in the country since they came into
being as a response to social change that occurred in the US in the 19th century. It was an era
of transition, shaped by the Civil War as well as recent urbanization and industrialization,
which altogether rendered Romanticism with its idealized world and noble hero/ine to be no
longer appropriate. The character of the times changed the nation's ideas about the nature of
human beings and the laws that ruled their fates. The XIX century realties of the America
resulted, thus, in employment of realism/naturalism in literature which better met the
requirement of the then public and the Zeitgeist that drove it.
Realism
"If he was not commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in his mind,
which was simply clear and practical, but through some combination of
qualities of the heart that made men trust him, and women call him sweet - a
word of theirs which conveys otherwise indefinable excellences."
W. D. Howells2
Even though there were some earlier symptoms of the nascent literary movement,
realism didn't become a dominant style in the American literature until the 1870s. A
combination of economical, political and cultural factors contributed to the sense of
disillusionment that the nation in the postbellum United States felt. It was a time of enormous
1
for the purposes of this essay, unless specified separately I should treat realism and naturalism as one general
movement occurring in the American literature form 1865 to 1920s since the bounds of them are not always
clear and some even treat them as unity, hence "realism/naturalism"
2
Howells, H. D., The Rise of Silas Lapham. New York: Penguin Books Ltd, 1983.
1
growth and prosperity in the North and West that attracted millions of immigrants from
Europe. The progressive industrialization expanded the country's economy into new branches
like railroads and mining and at the same time the factory system and labor unions gained
importance. Capitalism became rampant thus resulting in birth of the "robber barons" and
unimaginably wealthy industrialists whose fortunes were sky-rocketing at the expense of the
workers. The discrepancy between the luxurious lives of a lucky few and the hundred-hour
week for pennies of the majority became evident. Also, the whole South remained
economically devastated as the region still bore the consequences of the war. These extremes
of wealth and poverty, and progress and decline exposed the country's underlying problems
which gained the era name of "the Gilded Age". The urban dwellers of the crowded cities
started to notice that the triumph of industrial capitalism brought as many benefits as
difficulties so there was a widespread disenchantment with the harsh realities. The above-
mentioned social problems of the second-half of the 19th century USA arouse the writers
interest and were reflected in the realistic literature.
A great awareness of these issues may be seen in the writings of William Dean
Howells. The arrival of the realistic trend in American fiction is usually associated just with
him and so is he claimed to be a founding father of the movement in the USA. Although his
works are not equally popular as those of his contemporaries, he was an influential promoter
of realism and had a strong position on the literary scene of the time, cause not only was he a
writer himself, but also a critic and a keen supporter of the new realists. The latter may have
deserved him even more recognition and at the end of his life he was entitled the "dean of
American realism". Howells actively encouraged the young generation of writers to follow
guidelines of his conception of the rising tendency in literature which principles he contained
in Criticism and Fiction (1891). In the book he advocated the concept of "fidelity to life" and
stated that realism is "nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material".
Therefore, the whole idea of realism was to deal with the world and the life as it is, without
any embellishments. The authors tended to describe it objectively without direct moralizing
and the subject matter was usually an ordinary life and the commonplace. The preferred style
of writing was very accurate to the extent of resembling an account by the abundance of
details.
Since one is able to be factual and convey some sense of everydayness while having to
do with things s/he knows intimately, the realists wrote especially about their own experiences
and places they have lived or grown up. This kind of writing about specific regions came to be
2
known as "local color" or regionalism. In the 19th century many Americans were interested in
the customs and lives of their folks from the South, West, and rural New England, mainly due
to the development of railroad system but also as a reaction to growing standardization and
unification of urbanized and industrialized areas. Setting their works in specific places led
local colorists to reach for specific dialects and speech patterns that were characteristic for
certain locales. The characters of realist fiction started to speak vernacular language so they
sounded like real American. This helped to create a genuinely American body of literature and
the father of it is regarded Mark Twain. He is the first thoroughly American author who turn to
his native land in search of subject matter and language. The autobiographical elements in
order to contribute to the notion of being realistic. Character types, oddities of their speech,
localities and life-like situations of their communities were described in his books with such
familiarity and verisimilitude because they came from the first-hand experience. His fiction
evolved from his travel sketches (Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, A Tramp Abroad) where he
assumed a mask of ignorance in order to ridicule his fellow travelers and his most popular
book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, also may be interpreted as nothing else as
innocent's travel abroad, only in a figurative sense. Autobiographical elements are seen in his
other works as well. In Life on the Mississippi is about his experiences as a steamboat pilot on
the river, and in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer there is accounts of an ideal boyhood which is
in a way idealistic about the past. This tiny romantic flavor is characteristic for the early
realism and the contemporary US where there was a tendency to associate the past with
innocence and somehow an equivalent of Eden. Twain was raised in the South, then lived in
the West, and he wrote of both. His fiction is therefore characterized by the rough humor of
the frontier and by the frontier folklore. The subject matter of The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn also resulted from his childhood in a slaveholding state of Missouri. Although the story
about Jim and Huck may be perceived as a tale for children entertainment, it touched upon the
serious questions such as inequities of slavery, basic humanity, and civilization. Generally,
Twain as a colorist wrote of the world he knew and loved, and of the issues that mattered to
him. These familiarity with subject matter allowed him not only to fit into the trend of realism
but also create a whole new subcategory of local color and vernacular writing which led to
Mark Twain being regarded as a founder of a distinctive American fiction with its own themes
and language.
Due to the fact that realism was about common people dealing with the troubles of
their average lives and that it avoided any extraordinariness and fantastic situations, the
3
realistic mode of fiction had to focus on the internal action rather that on the external. The plot
therefore was usually about some moral struggle of a central character who was responsible
for his or her ethical choices as realism was fascinated by individuals and their personalities.
Since the characters lived in the everyday world where not much of interesting events occur,
the writers had to concentrate on what was going on inside their heads, and so the reader
learned a lot about their psychologies. On of the greatest analyst of human nature was Henry
James. He probed the manners of society and its conventions mainly by capturing the
complexities of his characters' consciousness. Due to that focus on the states of mind in his
writings, he is often called a psychological realist and his mode of writing is referred to as
interior or psychological writing. James's novels was realistic through an internal
verisimilitude of human psyche so his characters appear in their real intricacy of temperament
and motive. In his books he also drew from his own experiences, namely his familiarity with
Europe where he spent quite a lot of time. This fascination resulted in his non-fictional travel
books (Transatlantic Sketches, A Little Tour in France, English Hours) as well as in his
famous "international novels" about American and Europeans (Daisy Miller, The American,
The Europeans, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, The
Golden Bowl). What is worth of noticing in these works is his study of social manners and a
close analysis of human consciousness. Having placed his American characters in Europe or
the other way round bringing strangers from the continent to the New World, the author
demonstrated their relations, actions and response to the new surroundings. He contrasted the
two cultures, showing their advantages and shortcomings, but he refrained from being
judgmental. Rather, he was an observer and that quality of him may be also seen in a different
aspect of his craft. James was as skillful in depicting peoples internal life as in giving detailed
descriptions of the external world. His novels are rich in minute details of physical settings
and external appearances, such as peculiarities of dress and gesture. Drawing attention to these
nuances served the purpose of defining his characters social standing and their relations.
Another feature of James writing was a focus on upper classes which stemmed from the need
for minds that were not preoccupied with down-to-earth problems. In order to fully exploit the
potential of his characters, the author had to remove usual social attachment (such as native
land and regular milieu) and leave their conscious as the only point of reference. The above-
mentioned let him to examine interiors and to see person as an individual in control of his fate,
which is yet one another characteristic of realism. This emphasis on complex ethical choices
and moral struggle as well as on the characters personalities and inner life made up a mode
4
called interior or psychological realism of which Henry James was one of the most prominent
representatives.
Naturalism
A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
S. Crane3
However strongly associated with realism, American naturalism was a distinct
movement which came into prominence in the 1890s and was paramount until the 1920s. It
shares with realism emphasis on depicting surface reality in faithful and detailed way.
Nevertheless, there are substantial differences between the two movements. Naturalism has its
origins in the theories of Darwin and Marx and in the social sciences that developed in the
19th century. The darwinian theory of evolution and marxist criticism of capitalistic system
gave rise to conviction that the world is cruel and only the fittest survive. The philosophy of
determinism, which was very popular at the time, said that man life is predetermined by the
internal and external forces s/he cannot control. This refuse people free will so they were
reduced to something only a little bit more than animals. This kind of a scientific analysis of
human beings as biological creatures was introduced into literature by the French writer Emile
Zola. The attitude of treatment characters with emotional detachment caused that they were no
longer perceived as individuals with the power of choice. Naturalists saw people as being
driven by heredity and environmental factors and to best show it, they chose lives of lower
classes in oppressed settings such as factories or slums as a subject matter. What is stressed
are more ugly, unpleasant, and often shocking aspects of reality than it was in the case of
realism. Consequently, the general tone of the naturalistic novels is pessimistic and the
atmosphere of degradation prevails.
The movement of naturalism may be basically divided into two main subgenres in
terms of their focus of attention. One of them was based on the Marx' conceptions and
examined the social and economical dynamics of urban life. The emphasis on how these
forces determine human life and behavior may be seen in writing of authors such as Stephen
3
Crane, S. War Is Kind and Other Lines. New York: Library of America, 1899.
5
Crane, Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser. In Crane's Maggie, A Girl of the Streets is set in
the poor district of New York and presents such unpleasant issue as alcoholism, physical
abuse and prostitution. It shows the realties of everyday misery on which an individual has no
influence so s/he descents into a complete degradation. In the novel the main character finally
commits suicide. Today, the book is considered exaggerated but none the less it has a historic
value as it opened the way for other writers of the movement. Another classic of the genre is
Norris' McTeague set in a poor are of San Francisco. His work is a perfect example of
naturalistic mode due to it meeting all the theoretical requirements of the genre nearly to the
extent of a parody. The reason for that is the author's lack of a personal experience needed to
describe life of simple people in working-class area. Still, the topic of the fate of the individual
during the rapid industrialization and urbanization made the book fits into the naturalistic
trend. It was an opposite with Dreiser, however, whose works are full of autobiographical
elements. Sister Carrie's characters' experiences are based on the author's own and those of his
family. The central protagonist arrives to a big city of Chicago and faced numerous
humiliations and disappointment while struggling to make it. The book was perceived
immoral at the time because of the fact that in the end Carrie manages to succeed and avoids
punishment for her wrongdoings. The lack of judgment of characters' conduct is another
feature of naturalism. Because of their inevitable subjection to external larger forces as the
US's capitalist economy people are unable to make any choices thus cannot be fully
responsible for their actions. Due to the setting which is usually a poor urban area of the big
city, all the titles mentioned belong to the subgenre of the city novel which is connected with
the notion of social determinism. Their main theme is an inevitable subjection of people to
external larger forces as the US's capitalist economy and their exertions under this oppression.
The second type of the writing characteristic for naturalism is associated with Darwin
and the biological aspects of deterministic thought. This branch explores the idea of the
survival of the fittest and the notion of humans being controlled by sort of animalistic
instincts. Also the influence of the thought of Sigmund Freud can be traced here as he claimed
that we are all at the mercy of dark internal drives which we tries to control as civilized
people. The most influential writer known for such a portrayal of "human beasts" is Jack
London. In his The Sea-Wolf, The Call of the Wind and White Fang the distinction between
people and animals is blurred. The writer draw a parallel between the violent world of wild
animals and the equally violent world of humans. It is shown how in extreme circumstances
the raw passion and basic craving for survival take over the reason and decency. In his
6
writings London often probed the conflict "a man against the nature" which is indifferent and
acts upon human fates. In that fight a man struggles not only with external conditions but also
with the "brute within" himself which battle he usually loses. Seeing that, the mankind is
presented dehumanized and governed by forces of heredity and environment, hence, again, it
lacks free will and is viewed as a race rather than individuals. The other frequent feature of the
London's books' plot is presence of violence and physical effort. Since they are set in extreme
conditions such as for instance the Alaskan frontier, they also overflow with desperate
moments which considerably drifts away from the commonness and ordinariness of realism.
Naturalists are thus more likely to deal with the extraordinary so that they can more
expressively show how larger forces rule and manipulate people, which id one of the main
subject matters of Jack London's writing.
American realism and naturalism
Although there is a lot more of notorious authors and their books, these specified best
render the character of the literary movements in question. Following the peculiarities of the
works mentioned, we are able to track down specific tendencies in realism and naturalism and
see how they differ. Now, it is well-grounded how the transfer from the genteel realism of
Howells to the more "ugly" mode of naturalism occurred as it all has its justification in history
of social changes in the 19th century USA.
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