Naturalism.pptVIP

Chapter 6 American Naturalism The last decade of the 19th century Background about American Naturalism Industrialism produced financial giants, but at the same time created an industrial proletariat entirely at the mercy of external forces beyond their control. Slums appeared in great numbers where conditions became steadily worse. New ideas about man and man’s place in the universe began to take root in America. Living in a cold, indifferent, and essentially Godless world, man was no longer free in any sense of the word. French naturalism, with its new technique and new way of writing, appealed to the imagination of the younger generation. American Naturalism As a literary movement, Naturalism was initiated in France. It came to America in the last decade of the 19th century. It is a more deliberate kind of realism in novels, stories ,and plays, usually involving a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces social environment. The novelists and storytellers associated with Naturalism include Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris in the United States, and George Moore and George Gissing in England. The most significant work of naturalism in English is Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. 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. Features Some important novels: Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) is the first naturalistic novel in America. Norris’ McTeague is the “first full-bodied naturalistic American novel” and “a consciously naturalistic manifesto.” （第一部真正意义上具有浓郁自然主义色彩的作品，是美国自然主义流派小说的宣言） Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie is the gre