Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser and Stephen Crane´s...

Literary naturalism was a movement that began in the late 1800s to the mid-1900s that used detailed realism to show the readers that the human character is shaped by many things that are outside of human control. This movement tried to depict everyday reality where the characters would receive symbolic, idealistic, or supernatural treatment. Literary realism was a prominent movement in the mid-1800s in Europe, and naturalism was derived from this movement; the writers were influenced largely by Darwin’s theories on evolution. Many writers believed that a person’s character was determined by social status and heredity, and they try to determine any and all underlying forces that may influence the characters’ actions. Naturalist writers often write about taboo subjects, such as sexuality, but also many other subjects, such as Theodore Dreiser’s â€Å"Sister Carrie,† which is about a young country girl who moves to the big city to follow her dream of m aking it big. Stephen Crane’s â€Å"The Open Boat† is another example. His story is an autobiographical story about how he and three crew members survived a shipwreck. Other subjects often written about by naturalists are poverty, racism, violence, prejudice, disease, corruption, prostitution, and filth. Due to the topic they wrote about, critics often targeted naturalist writers for focusing too much on the darker side of human life. Literary naturalism is where the effect the environment has on the human characters is emphasized. TheShow MoreRelatedRealism And Realism Of The Late Nineteenth Century3010 Words   |  13 Pageseasily defined as influential and can be pointed to as to have directly contributed to the quality of literature we have today. The two, realism and naturalism were both movements that occurred in American, European and English literature that encompass the feelings of early well-known writers such as Edith Warton, Stephen Crane, Jack London, and of course, perhaps the figurehead of naturalistic literature, Emile Zola. A great number of other early writers utilized this technique, just emphasizing the