An Introduction to Realism and Naturalism

Realism was a literary movement in the last half of the 19th century in which writers opposed much of what the Romantics had stood for. Most critics give the dates 1850's to 1880's as the dates for the strongest examples of Realism in Western literature. (You'll notice that there is some overlap between the dates for Romanticism and Realism.)

The words with and without capital letter stand for very different ideas. The words "Realism" and "Realists" (note the capital letter 'R') refer to this particular literary movement. The words "realism" and "realistic" refer to any work at any time that attempts verisimilitude--that is, attempts to present the illusion in art (especially in literature) of life as it really exists.

Some Characteristics of Realism

The age of Realism is characterized by some recognizable ideas held by most of the thinkers and writers of the day. These ideas listed below are generalizations, and--as with most generalizations--need to be seen the the light of a particular piece of literature in order to present any verifiable detail.

1. Whereas the age of the Romantics valued the exceptional, the genius, and the uncommon individual, the age of Realism values members of the middle class.

2. Whereas the age of the Romantics valued the contribution of the genius and imagination of the writer/poet, the Realists wanted to de-emphasize the contribution of the writer and thought writers should "objectively" see contemporary life as the material for their writing. They attempted to keep themselves as writers from coming between the reader and the life they presented in their art.

3. Whereas the age of the Romantics valued the details of the present moment as a way to transcend the moment and the present world, the age of Realism values the surface details, the everyday life, and the common conduct of middle class individuals. They do this with the purpose of creating the illusion of reality. Herik Ibsen said that the effect he was seeking in his Realistic plays was to make "the spectator feel as if he were actually sitting, listening, and looking on events happening in real life" (Wilkie & Hurt 971).

4. While the Romantics valued the emotional, the intuitive, and the feelings and insight of the innocent child and the genius, the Realists explore the ethical choices made by common middle class individuals and the effects and consequences these ethical choices have on the lives of their middle class heroes.

5. While the Romantics value nature as a way of seeing God and man, the Realists question the existence, or at least the importance of, God and discount the beliefs of organized Christian religions. Instead of seeking transcendence as the Romantics did, the Realists focused on ethical choices and morality in the life of middle class individuals, often without supporting Christian beliefs.

In the world at large, the last half of the 19th century brought two thinkers, Darwin and Marx, who heavily influenced literary views and values.

Charles Darwin applied the scientific method to biology and detailed his laws of natural selection, survival of the fittest, slow speciation, the evolution of all biological life, and the essential unity of all living things through evolutionary descent. In his Origin of Species (published in 1859) he stated that species change over time as a result of the action of natural selection (individual members of a species survive if they are better adapted to their environment; over time, species as a whole change as a result of the reproduction of "better adapted" individuals within the species). The public interpreted this idea of natural selection to suggest that human races and classes survive and prosper to the extent that they are "fit" to survive. Social Darwinism, the extreme version of the idea as applied to thought about mankind and society, suggests that races and classes should prosper, live, or die according to how "fit" they were and that such was the "natural" law of societies and cultures. To a social Darwinist, it is useless to help people who cannot help themselves or who live outside mainstream society because "nature" has condemned them to die, like the dinosaurs, because they are not well adapted to their environment; they are not "fit" to live.

Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto (published in 1848) stated that history is the story of the control by various classes of the economic means of production and that as long as the upper classes hold the reigns of power over the means of economic production the poor will grow less and less powerful and will be crushed under the heels of those who do control the means of production.

These views and others gave rise in the last two decades of the 19th century to the school of literature called the Naturalists. Anton Chekhov, a Russian writer, compared the Naturalist writer to a chemist. He said, "To a chemist nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must abandon the subjective line: he must know that dung heaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones" (quoted in Mack, et al. 1065). The Naturalists often concentrated on the dung heap in the landscape of contemporary life.

Some Characteristics of Naturalism

1. Whereas the Realists portrayed middle class characters in their work, the Naturalists portrayed the lives of working class individuals and believed that members of the working class were controlled, oppressed, and brutalized by the societies in which they lived.

2. Whereas the Realists explored the ethical choices of middle class characters, the Naturalists believed that their working class characters struggled just to remain alive in a way similar to the way Darwin saw animals struggling for survival in the physical world.

3. Whereas the Realists focused on ethical choices and morality in the contemporary life of middle class individuals, often without supporting Christian beliefs, the Naturalist often portrayed working class individuals as animals struggling against an inhuman and unsympathetic universe where they competed for scarce resources in the same way as animals did in the physical world around them.

Mack, Maynard. "Realism, Symbolism, and European Realities." Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Maynard Mack et al. Exp. ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1995. 1061 - 1073.