Literature During the Naturalistic Period

Literature During the Naturalistic Period

What is the one struggle that all human beings have in common? It is life itself. As important as humans think they are, in the scheme of reality, the human race is not that significant. During the late eighteenth century and the earlier nineteenth century, authors such as Émile Zola, Jack London, and Stephen Crane and poets such as Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens were struggling with leaving behind traditional attitudes and finding a new philosophy of life. These writers, along with many others, are known for writing during the Naturalistic time period. Literature of Naturalism, just as all literature does, reflects the attitudes and events happening during this time. The world was changing in many more ways than ever before. Traditional unquestioned beliefs had fallen by the wayside because of many factors but especially with the introduction of Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species. Darwin's view that humans evolved and were not created by some Supreme Being startled society, especially the religious community. For the first time, society began to question the mainstay of their religious beliefs.

In the economic realm, Karl Marx was expounding his view of socialism. Economic factors had a profound effect on the people of this time as well. The industrialization and the urbanization that were occurring were forcing changes on every front of life.

Along with the scientific and social advancements of the world at this time, psychology was breaking ground to become an important science of its own. Freud with his view of why people act the way they do and Jung with his thoughts on the collective unconscious were offering new thought and insight about human behavior. However, with the removing of the old beliefs that gave humans a sense of direction and order in their lives, the search, which often included the loss of oneself, needed to be embarked upon so that people of this era could find some sort of direction in the new world of knowledge and confusion.

Never before or since this time has there been such a wandering in the desert of uncertainty. Therefore, it is quite natural that the authors of this period reflect all of the turmoil created by the amount of knowledge that was being shared and that was trying to be comprehended. Authors of this time were at the forefront of this investigation.

Naturalistic writers tend to write in a somewhat scientific method because their characters are placed in a situation where the forces of nature or the environment are imposed upon them.