Naturalism重点.pptVIP

Chapter 6 American Naturalism;Background about American Naturalism ;American Naturalism;They wrote about the helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world and his lack of dignity. They are concerned with the less elegant aspects of life. Its typical settings are the slum, the sweatshop, the factory and the farm. They broke into such forbidden regions as violence, sex and death. They got great amounts of data from actual life and then reported the life of the lower class truthfully and objectively. They painted life as it was.;Some important novels:;Stephen Crane(1871-1900);Works;The Red Badge of Courage Against the romantic view of war as a symbol of courage and heroism, Crane talks about war in alarming honesty. War in The Red Badge of Courage is a plain slaughter-house. There is nothing like bravery or heroism on the battlefield. If there is any, it is a fear of death, cowardice, the natural instinct of man to run from danger. He looks into man’s primitive emotions and tried to tell the elemental truth about human life.;Comment;Frank Norris （1870-1902);Theodore Dreiser(1871 – 1945);Works ;Dreiser embraced social Darwinism. He was critical of his own country. His sympathies were always with the oppressed and the weak. The amorality of Dreiser’s world is best illustrated at the beginning of The Financier P.149 ;Sister Carrie;Plot (P.149) Dreiser portrays three different worlds and shows the crude and the savage aspects of social life at the turn of the 20th century. He expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and impotence(无能为力) of men.(p.150);Writing Features;Dreiser, more than any other man, marching alone, usually unappreciated, often hated, has cleared the trail from Victorian and Howellsian timidity and gentility in American fiction to honesty and boldness and passion of life. Without his pioneering, I doubt if any of us could, unless we liked to be sent to jail, seek to express life and beauty and terror. --Si