Aesthetic Slippage in Realism and Naturalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 118-137
Author(s):  
Anita Duneer
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
Theodore Dreiser ◽  
Jack London ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Frank Norris ◽  
Literary Naturalism ◽  
Ann Petry ◽  
Breaking Bad ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Angelina Weld Grimke

This chapter considers slippages in realist and naturalist aesthetics that transcend traditionally defined genres, terrains, and time periods. It examines realism’s and naturalism’s fluctuating acceptances and critiques of the “natural” order, bringing nineteenth-century imperialist discourse into dialogue with Darwinian themes typical of literary naturalism. The chapter proposes better understanding of the relation between realistic and naturalistic modes by examining inclusion and exclusion based on assumptions about the “natural” in analysis of slippages between representations of civilization and savagery in Jack London and Zitkala-Ša; restraint, compulsion, and the beast within the divided self in Frank Norris, Henry James, and Theodore Dreiser; and evolutionary discourse and environmental determinism in Angelina Weld Grimké, Nella Larsen, and Ann Petry. Finally, TV’s Breaking Bad and The Wire suggest that we are still grappling with the intersectional forces of race, class, and gender that define territories of privilege and limitations of the American dream.

Jack London

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth K. Brandt
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
San Francisco Bay Area ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Jack London ◽  
Intellectual Curiosity ◽  
Literary Naturalism ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender

Recounting his 1897-98 Klondike Gold Rush experience Jack London stated: “It was in the Klondike I found myself. There nobody talks. Everybody thinks. There you get your perspective. I got mine.” This study explores how London’s Northland odyssey - along with an insatiable intellectual curiosity, a hardscrabble youth in the San Francisco Bay Area, and an acute craving for social justice - launched the literary career of one of America’s most dynamic 20th-century writers. The major Northland works - including The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and “To Build a Fire”- are considered in connection with the motifs of literary Naturalism, as well as in relation to complicated issues involving imperialism, race, and gender. London’s key subjects—the frontier, the struggle for survival, and economic mobility—are examined in conjunction with how he developed the underlying themes of his work to engage and challenge the social, political, and philosophical revolutions of his era that were initiated by Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, and others.

Naturalist Smellscapes and Environmental Justice

2020 ◽  
pp. 56-84
Author(s):  
Hsuan L. Hsu
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Frank Norris ◽  
Ann Petry ◽  
Airborne Particulates ◽  
Helena Maria Viramontes

Chapter 2 traces formal and thematic connections between naturalist fiction and environmental justice narratives by analyzing their pervasive, underexamined references to smell. In representative works by Frank Norris, Ann Petry, and Helena María Viramontes, descriptions of noxious odors indicate spaces and experiences of atmospheric intoxication as characters take airborne particulates into their bodies. Thus, olfactory references—whether they take the form of extensive or offhand descriptions, and whether or not characters are fully conscious of their implications—stage the biopolitical effects of unevenly distributed atmospheric risks.

Studs Lonigan and the Search for an American Tragedy

1963 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 46-54
Author(s):  
T. G. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Theodore Dreiser ◽  
Frank Norris ◽  
Sherwood Anderson

James T. Farrell was born in 1904 in Chicago, a city which has produced such characteristic American writers as Carl Sandburg, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Meyer Levin and Nelson Algren. Like several of his fellow–citizens he has become known, not altogether unjustly, as a ‘one-book writer’. But if there is Justice in the label which has thus been applied to Farrell his ‘one book’ has been less fairly treated and has suffered in reverse much the same wrong-headed fate as that which has over-taken some of the typical English novels of the last decade. While certain novels like John Braine's Room at the Top have been absurdly over-praised because apparent virtues of ‘realism’ and ‘toughness’ have obscured even more apparent literary shortcomings, Studs Lonigan has been under-praised because an extreme aversion to Farrell's undeniable ‘realism’ and ‘toughness’ has resulted in his equally undeniable literary merits being obscured. Studs Lonigan is not a novel to which can be applied R. P. Blackmur's phrase: “one of those books in which everything is undertaken with seriousness except the writing”.

scholarly journals On the Reflection of Naturalism in the Main Character in The Call of the Wild

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1530
Author(s):  
Xiu Zeng
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Jack London ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Literary Naturalism ◽  
Artistic Creation ◽  
Fighting Spirit ◽  
The Will ◽  
The One

Jack London is one of the most outstanding and celebrated critical realists in American literature in the 20th century, he is well recognized in his artistic creation of literary works with the feature of naturalism. The Call of the Wild is one of his naturalistic works filled with adventure and fighting spirit. The main character of the novel is a dog named Buck. By concentrating on Buck's gradual reversion from a civilized pet to a primordial beast, Jack London demonstrates the power of heredity and environment in determining and shaping one’s mind and behaviors. Naturalists believe that mankind is the product of environment, the power of heredity and force of environment are greater than the will of human beings. It is not the strongest of the species that can survive, but the one most responsive to changes. Humans have to adapt themselves to the environment for survival. In The Call of the Wild, the principle of literary naturalism is mainly reflected in the effects of the hereditary and environmental factors on the fate of the main character, Buck.

scholarly journals An Exploration of Beliefs about Gender Differences in Language Use

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-57
Author(s):  
Esma Latić ◽  
Amna Brdarević Čeljo
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Private University ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Women's Speech ◽  
Scientific Exploration ◽  
Language And Gender ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Mental Constructs

It is the natural order of things for humans to acquire beliefs and conform to stereotypes in an attempt to explain phenomena surrounding them. These mental constructs are known to have a pervasive influence on the way people think and act, and therefore are partly responsible for shaping our social reality. Thus, due to their impact, scientific exploration is needed to illuminate their nature and so enable humans to act upon these findings. Beliefs or stereotypes that are being studied in this particular research are those held about the differences in language use by men and women. Acknowledging that people in Bosnia and Herzegovina largely comply to traditional, patriarchal social norms, this study aims to elucidate the matter by investigating whether students of a private university situated in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, conform to widespread stereotypes about language and gender, women’s speech and men’s speech in particular, and whether males and females differ in conformity to the stereotypes.

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