Naturalism and Realism

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Throughout the early 1840’s up to the early 1900’s American authors were either classified as realist or naturalists. Realism is a faithful representation of life that focuses on middle class people and their problems and a form of writing where god is absent. Naturalism is an exaggerated form of realism where nature is an independent force. Some of these authors like Kate Chopin, Jack London, and Ambrose Bierce are all naturalist because of their exaggeration of life and life events. Stephen Crane and Mark Twain both are realist authors because they write about middle class people that face day to day problems.
“Naturalism is conformity to nature: realistic or factual representation, esp. in literature and art. The system of natural causes and laws without attributing supernatural significance to them.” (page 746, Webster’s New College Dictionary) “An inclination toward factual truth and pragmatism. Artistic or literary representation intended as an accurate and idealized portrayal of real life or of the objective world. (page 944, Webster’s New College Dictionary)
Throughout Kate Chopin’s writing in “The Story of an Hour” she shows to be a naturalistic writer. Kate uses nature to explain life to her audience with the addition of faith towards God. One of her paragraphs states “she breathed a quick prayer that life might be long.” (page 475, Chopin) On this line Kate is saying that she prayed quickly in hope that her life would be long. Praying must mean she was praying to something else that nature alone could not have explained such as a god. On another one of her lines Louise is saying “Free! Body and soul Free!” (page 475, Chopin)The fact that Kate Chopin decided to add this says that she believes in a God. A major sentence ...

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... was one to envy. Twain writes about a little town in Mississippi that comes to life when the steamboats arrive. In his story it states “S-e-a-m-boat a-comin’! And the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every house and store pours out human contribution, and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving.” (page 438, Twain) This shows the regular life of middle class people living their normal routines.
Throughout the 1840’s and early 1900’s authors were either classified as naturalism or realism authors. The three main authors of that era are naturalistic authors are Kate Chopin, Jack London, and Ambrose Bierce because of their exaggeration of life and of life events. The two main naturalistic authors are Stephen Crane and Mark Twain because they write about middle class people and their problems.

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