“It was easy. All men must die,” wrote Jack London in “The Law of Life” (748). London is a Naturalist who sees humans as helpless from forces beyond their control. Naturalist writers are pessimistic, conveying life as a trap. Typically, the endings are not happy. Naturalism came about after World War I, when society was melancholy and essentially hopeless. Writers of the time realized that life is not always happy, and wanted to convey that in their writing. These concepts led to the literary movement, Naturalism. Naturalistic writing includes the power of nature, pessimism, and irony to reveal that humans are not in control of their fate.
The main concept of Naturalism is the belief that nothing exists beyond the natural world, or the power of nature. One can conclude that nature has a mind of its own and is impossible to terminate. The characters in “Open Boat” quickly realize how powerful nature can be when they are abandoned in the sea. In “Open Boat” the narrator said, “When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers,” (Crane 728). This passage serves as a preamble which notifies that the sea lacks consciousness of the characters’ existence. At this particular point, the characters grasp the concept of how their problematic situation means nothing to nature. This demonstrates the power of nature, an important element of Naturalism.
Naturalistic writers also articulate life in a pessimistic view, implicating life as a trap. From a passage in “...
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... essentially not happy, which, once again, relates to Naturalism.
The perception of the power of nature, pessimistic views, and ironic situations leads to Naturalism. Naturalism originated because of the many deaths that occurred during World War I when life was gloomy and had a depressing feel. Naturalistic writing informs the reader that life eventually leads to death, which is unavoidable. In today's society, Naturalistic writing still exists because of all of the tragedies that occur around the world. Recently, a typhoon hit the Philippines and completely wiped out thousands of houses and buildings which nearly caused five-thousand deaths. This demonstrates that no matter how much tragedy strikes the world, an excessive amount of sadness cannot be redeemed by happiness. In the end, "all men must die," (London 748) and that is something everyone must comprehend.
...r even the risk of one’s life to reach, like those in the little dingney. The sea is the world- the jungle- we humans live, and everybody starts his/ her lifelong journey in the open boat, independent yet luckily to have a small community. The Correspondent experiences the journey, witnesses the change and speaks every grown- up man’s voice, and certainly the voices of Stephen Crane and Naturalism. Nature is detached and life is tough, so all we can do is to fight on our own and with our community, give up false hopes and accept deterministic moments. Hence, "The Open Boat" exceeds the scope of Naturalism and harmoniously combines individuality and community: the two central themes in American society.
In the short story “ The Open Boat,” by Stephen Crane, Crane does an outstanding job creating descriptive images throughout the entire story. With saying this, Crane uses symbolism along with strong imagery to provide the reader with a fun and exciting story about four guys who 's fight was against nature and themselves. Starting early in the book, Crane creates a story line that has four men in a great amount of trouble in the open waters of the ocean. Going into great detail about natures fierce and powerful body of water, Crane makes it obvious that nature has no empathy for the human race. In this story, Crane shows the continuous fight that the four men have to endure in able to beat natures strongest body of water. It 's not just nature the men have to worry about though, its the ability to work together in order to win this fight against nature. Ultimately, Crane is able to use this story, along with its vast imagery and symbolism to compare the struggle between the human race and all of natures uncertainties.
In contrast to their romantic and realist predecessors, the literary naturalists “emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no freewill, that their lives were controlled by hereditary and the environment, that religious “truths” were illusory, [and] that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death” (McMichael 7). The naturalist writer Stephen Crane, for instance, explored the absurdity of the human condition. His writing most often portrayed humanity as lonesome singular entities relying on their unproven belief in the benevolence of God and freewill, led by their persistent illusions of being the center of the universe, and clueless to the disparity between their greatest expectations and their equalizing bouts of impendent doom. These realist and naturalist writers, with their revolutionary new method of portraying humanity as capable of evil and as likely victims of an often tempestuous environment or seemingly spiteful heredity, were a powerful influence on...
The words “indifferent” or “indifference,” regarding the attitude of Nature, occur repeatedly in the important responses to “The Open Boat.” In fact, this is found in the story itself, where the correspondent thinks of Nature, that she “was indifferent, flatly indifferent” (Crane 215). The correspondent comes to the realization, “When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples” (Crane 213). While the men may try to pin their trouble on the “mythicized deity,” that really does not serve them.
Naturalism is about bringing humans into the “natural world”. We, as humans, are seen as aspects of nature collectively not separate like they once were. “Naturalism holds that everything we are and do is connected to the rest of the world and derived from conditions that precede us and surround us. Each of us is an unfolding natural process, and every aspect of that process is caused, and is a cause itself ” (“A Guide for Naturalism”). Humans are like “animals” they contain the same drives that animals have. They are just plain “natural”. Many authors express naturalism in their writings such as Kate Chopin. She expresses a naturalistic view on sexual drives which classify her as a naturalistic writer.
Edgar Allan Poe's deplorable life was filled with unfortunate calamity, endless tragedies, and pathetic misery, which inevitably led to his pessimistic view on life and obsession with death. His personal mind frame is automatically conveyed in his essays, which for him was a primary form of expression. Thus, a strong emphasis on somber despondency has proven to be a thematic element of his literary career.
Important aspects of naturalism are the ideas that people are essentially animals responding to their basic urges without rational thought, and the insignificance of man to others and nature. In The Jungle, Sinclair portrays Jurgis as a man slowly changing into animal as well as a man whose actions are irrelevant to the rest of the corrupt capitalist world of Chicago in order to show the reader the naturalist ideas of the struggles between man and society.
In society today, people tend to go with their feelings instead of reasoning or recalling situations to have happened to them before for insight. The reasoning behind this is due American Romanticism, created in 1800 and lasting through 1860. In this period literature, music, and art was created on how the writers and artists felt instead of logic and reasoning. American Romanticism is clearly shown in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”. Both Moby Dick and “The Masque of the Red Death” show the struggle of everyday life with vivid use of the five senses, the all-being truth of the cycle of nature, and the wonder, awe, and fear of supernatural beings.
...t when he began to panic as the second fire extinguished. He seemed as though he had lost all knowledge of his survival skills. He thought about killing the dog and wallowing in its steaming insides for refuge from the cold. "The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. He remembered the tale of a man, caught in a blizzard, who killed a steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved."(1752). When the man realized that the dog would not let him come near he was forced to concoct another plan. His idea was that if he ran all the way to the camp, he would be able to survive. Unfortunately, that plan failed as well and the man perished in the cold, numbing snow of the Yukon. Overall, naturalism is the most realistic literary movement. It parallels life more than any other movement because it reveals the fact that nature has not heart and no emotions. Nature feels no compassion for human struggles and will continue on it's path of destruction and harm regardless of the circumstances.
The connection between Romanticism and nature was said by Marjorie McAtee, to have strengthened with the idealism of folk cultures and customs. Many romantic artists, writers, and philosophers believed in the natural world as a source of strong emotions and philosophies. The artists and philosophers of the romantic period also accentuated the magnificence and loveliness of nature and the power of the natural world (McAtee, Marjorie, and W. Everett. WiseGeek. Conjecture, 03 Mar. 2014. Web. 05 Apr. 2014.) . Mary Shelly and many other writers like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were romantic writers who were apprehensive toward nature, human feelings, compassion for mankind, and rebellious against society. Romanticism, which originated in the 18th century, is something that emphasized motivation as well as imagination (Adjective Clause). In Frankenstein, Shelley cautions that the initiation of science and natural rational searching is not only ineffectual, but unsafe. In endeavoring to discover the mysteries of life, Frankenstein assumes that he ...
Relationship between the Individual and Nature in "The Open Boat" From the beginning, the four characters in the aftermath of a shipwreck do not know "the colour of the sky" but all of them know "the colours of the sea." This opening strongly suggests the symbolic situations in which human beings are located in the universe. The sky personifies the mysterious, inconceivable cause of reality, which humans cannot understand, and the sea symbolizes the earthy, mundane phenomenon, which humans are supposed to perceive. The symbolic picture generated by the above conflict implies the overall relationship between the individual and nature.
Naturalist writers of the early 20th century convey the notion that persons are fated to whatever station in life their biological heredity and social environment prepare them for. Those who profess to be proponents of the naturalist perspective see literature as a means to understand the nature of man. Since “the naturalist found in scientific discovery only a confirmation of humankind’s helplessness in the face of indifferent and inscrutable forces,” their writings usually generate an uninspiring idea of humanity’s frailty (Strengell 11-12). While the deterministic worldview is logical, it is difficult for many to resonate with powerless and doomed characters. Thus, the only way for the naturalistic frame of mind to reach a wider audience is to present it in a different and less monotonous way.
There have been many movies concerning varying world views, and director Terrence Malick is known for the representation of philosophical and religious topics in his films. In his movie titled Days of Heaven (1978), he elegantly utilized parallelism to explore the metaphorical world view of Christianity, along with the intimate perspective of naturalism. There were three leading adult characters, along with a fourth major role played by a young girl, who also narrated the storyline, and one could discern the probable philosophy they lived by. To help set the stage for contextual purposes, the movie took place during 1916 which, would be indicative of the progressive era when minimum wage laborers struggled to find their place in the workforce amidst the rise of industry. In the interest of etching out a better life for oneself
Within Death of a Naturalist, Seamus Heaney explores many different aspects of life in Ireland. With his constant references to both the natural world and the very different topic of human emotion, Seamus Heaney designed a book of poems that shows readers that a connection between the two can exist. Death of a Naturalist is a book that in a totally unique way bonds love, death, nature and emotion in a fashion that echoes both Patrick and Margaret Heaney’s dominant character traits.
An important principle in literary criticism is the call to follow Nature. Since the Renaissance, this could mean either realism or idealism. In the neoclassical epoch, the principle of following Nature might be realistic, as in satirical comedy. Also, the concept of man is thus singular and collective. There is little opening for the individual. The main ideologies of truth to nature are the idea of the universal, reason as a guide to nature and as being common to everything,