Naturalism

Fourteenth Lecture
Naturalism
The logical outgrowth of literary Realism was the point of view known as Naturalism. This literary movement, like its predecessor, found expression almost exclusively within the novel. Naturalism also found its greatest number of practitioners in America shortly before and after the turn of the twentieth century. Naturalism sought to go further and be more explanatory than Realism by identifying the underlying causes for a person’s actions or beliefs. The thinking was that certain factors, such as heredity and social conditions, were unavoidable determinants in one’s life. A poor immigrant could not escape their life of poverty because their preconditions were the only formative aspects in his or her existence that mattered. Naturalism almost entirely dispensed with the notion of free will, or at least a free will capable of enacting real change in life’s circumstances. The theories of Charles Darwin are often identified as playing a role in the development of literary Naturalism; however, such a relationship does not stand up to investigative rigor. Darwin never applied his theories to human social behavior, and in doing so many authors seriously abused the actual science. There was in the late nineteenth century a fashion in sociology to apply evolutionary theory to human social woes. This line of thinking came to be knows as Social Darwinism, and today is recognized as the systematized, scientific racism that it is. More than a few atrocities in world history were perpetrated by those who misguidedly applied Darwinism to the social realm. Naturalism, for better or worse, is in some respects a form of Social Darwinism played out in fiction.
The dominant theme of Naturalist literature is that persons are fated to whatever station in life their heredity, environment, and social conditions prepare them for. The power of primitive emotions to negate human reason was also a recurring element. Writers like Zola and Frank Norris conceived of their work as experiments in which characters were subjected to various stimuli in order to gauge reactions. Adverse social conditions are taken as a matter of fact. The documentary style of narrative makes no comment on the situation, and there is no sense of advocating for change. The Naturalist simply takes the world as it is, for good or ill. The Naturalist novel is then a sort of laboratory of fiction, with studies underway that ethically could not be performed in the real world..etc.

Characteristics
1-Life is presented as deterministic or even mechanistic since heredity and environment control human actions rather than free will.
2- Naturalism applies scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to the study of human beings so that the characters in the story may seem like the subjects of scientific case studies.
3- There is more interest in the lower socioeconomic classes.
4- The moral failings of individuals or society as a whole, however, are considered dispassionately.
5- The tone is often detached, emotionless, and scientific. When it comes to diction, ugly and unpleasant words may be chosen rather than lyrical or elegant ones.
6- Artificial plot structures are avoided and the action seems more of a "slice of life" than an arc in which can result in characters who change, grow, and develop.



Fifteen Lecture
Code Hero
To bind these wounds Hemingway created another figure who has become to be Known as the “code hero” .The code hero is to be sharply distinguished from the hero. The function of the code hero is to balance the hero’s deficiencies, and to correct the hero’s stance. We call him the code hero because he represents a code according to which the hero ,by observing it,would be able to live properly in the world of violence ,disorder ,and misery to which he has been introduced and which he inhabits . The code hero thus offers and exemplifies certain principles of honor, courage and endurance which in a life of tension and pain make a man a man, and enable him to conduct himself well in the losing battle that is life . He shows ,in the author’s famous phrase for it, “grace under pressure”….etc

Santiago ,the Finest Code Hero
The finest and best known of these code heroes ,however, is Santiago of The Old Man and the Sea. The chief point about Santiago is that he behaves perfectly honorably , with great courage and endurance while losing to the sharks ,the giant fish he has caught .This is life : such is the massage of the code hero always brings ;one must lose ,of course; what counts how one behaves while one is being destro