American Literature

The literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1900s was called Naturalism. Naturalism utilized realism in entirety and suggested that social conditions, inheritance, and surroundings had an unavoidable strength in determining human characters. It was portrayed as a literary progression that seemed to copy the day to day reality out of our lives, in contrast other movements such as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which characters might have received an extremely figurative, impractical, or even paranormal treatment. Naturalism stemmed out from Realism, a significant literary movement which commenced in the in middle of the nineteenth century in France and elsewhere. Naturalistic writers got their influences from Charles Darwins Theory of Evolution. They believed that ones inheritance and environment shape ones character. Whereas realism looks forward to only describing central characters as they actually are, naturalism also steps ahead in determining logically the fundamental forces (e.g. the setting or inheritance) empowering the actions of its characters. (Pizer, 1984) Naturalistic works uncovered the dark realities of life, including racism, sex, poverty, discrimination, ailment, prostitution, and dirt. As a result, naturalistic writers were often said to be too blunt. Naturalist literature and Realistic literature share one thing in common and that is their attention to social conditions.

Stephen Crane is probably the first naturalistic American writer. Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind is one of Stephen Cranes poem about war and its consequences. In twenty-six lines, the theme of the poem carefully draws attention to the beloveds of the soldiers who lost their lives in the war fields in the middle of the disorder and commotion. The blank verse used by Crane is well matched to the topic of war because it lacks the pleasant patterns rhyme and portrays the real and natural pictures of the war. This poem uses anaphora to impact the theme into the readers mind. Towards the middle and end of the poem, Crane moves more towards realism with his writing. And field where a thousand corpses lie(Crane  Jacob 22). Stephen Cranes interpretations of life are seen to be his own thoughts about life and these matches the naturalistic train of thought.

In the story Maggie by Stephen Crane, Maggie is used as a central character to depict the treacherous results that one has to confront when heshe violates the norms of the society and takes over prostitution as a profession, breaking the social boundaries set upon them since birth. People like Maggie are rear in the world that she lives in and according to Crane she blossomed in a mud puddle. She grew to be a most rare and wonderful production of a tenement district, a pretty girl. (Crane, 16) Cranes views of the poor allow him to create his characters as shells absent of conscious thought, leaving them susceptible to the ills of their environment. In Cranes short stories, he depicts the reality of life for the poor. Crane sees the poor as sub human and gives them no voice in his pieces. They are absent of inner lives. Crane, in his absence of a real knowledge of how the poor felt, is unable to put their thoughts into words.

Edith Wharton was another popular American writer of the Naturalist movement. She is known for her detailed depiction of life among citizens of New York who belong to the elite class. (Lee, 2007) A very common theme of Whartons story Roman Fever is social determinism With envy and jealousy among the characters as depicted in words such as Alida Slades awfully brilliant but not as brilliant as she thinks, decides Mrs. Ansley (Wharton, 1119). This is also evident from the very first sentence in the introduction of the story where the two women are introduced with the words ripe but well-cared-for middle age (Wharton 1116). It is clearly seen from this line that stereotypes are at issue. The story is about two year long friends, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, who have actually grown up together and one day they are defied by the fact that they dont know much about each other. This clearly justifies that Naturalist literature and Realistic literature share one thing in common and that is their attention to social conditions and relationships.