ENG 266 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Bronco, Scientific Revolution, Social Forces
Document Summary
Naturalism - late 19th century and early 20th centuries. Human influences: darwin: biological determinism, law of the jungle, marx: life as a battleground of economic and social forces, freud: determinism of iner ad subconscious self. Scientific revolution produced the basic assumption that everything can be explained through application of principles of scientific inquiry: environmental forces - i. e. born into a toxic environment. 2: genetic makeup - who you are is determined by this. Novelists set up laboratory conditions in a novel or story and then observed what would happen. Naturalistic writers basically see people as animalistic, reacting to forces that they don"t understand or are unable to control -- specifically fear, hunger and sex. Tend to be amoral, pessimistic, seeing life as a vicious trap. There is no message, no moral to the story. Authors well known for naturalistic technique: stephen crane, emile zola, theodore dreiser.
