ENGL 2132 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: The Blue Hotel, The Open Boat, Scientific Method
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Notes: american naturalism, american naturalism attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. Although american naturalism has a few characteristics in common with realism, including an attention to realistic detail and description, it is important to understand that naturalism is distinctly different from. Realism in other important ways, including its pessimistic portrayal of the brutish nature of humans at the mercy of an indifferent universe: naturalistic fiction, the main characters are usually lower class, brutish and uneducated. Their dramatic and bizarre lives are far from ordinary. These characters typically lack free (cid:449)ill; i(cid:374)stead, the(cid:455) are i(cid:374) norris" (cid:449)ords, (cid:271)uffeted about by forces they cannot (cid:272)o(cid:374)trol or u(cid:374)dersta(cid:374)d. although naturalisti(cid:272) (cid:272)hara(cid:272)ters ha(cid:448)e a (cid:862)(cid:449)ill,(cid:863) their (cid:449)ill a(cid:374)d behavior are controlled primarily by heredity and environment. Therefore, instead of full free will, naturalists believe in determinism, perhaps the most important characteristic of naturalistic fiction.
