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The (Dysfunctional) Family Unit:

The (Dysfunctional) Family Unit:. Realism and Naturalism in the wake of Darwin, Freud, and Marx. Realism: 1865-1900. Develops as a reaction to Romanticism Truthful treatment of material Twain, Howells (smiling realism)

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The (Dysfunctional) Family Unit:

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  1. The (Dysfunctional) Family Unit: Realism and Naturalism in the wake of Darwin, Freud, and Marx

  2. Realism: 1865-1900 • Develops as a reaction to Romanticism • Truthful treatment of material • Twain, Howells (smiling realism) • Growing skepticism after Civil War, industrialization, manifest destiny, science, photography, journalism • Truth = verifiable by experience

  3. Realism cont. • Material = commonplace, average, everyday, local color, dialect, specific actions and consequences, ordinary people, believable situations • Concern with effect on reader and development of character over plot • Central issues of life/conduct • Complex ethical choices (Huck)

  4. Naturalism: 1890s-WWI • Extreme realism • Application of scientific determinism to fiction • Philosophical rather than literary • Characters studied through their relationship to environment • Man=Helpless victim in uncaring universe

  5. Influences on American Naturalism • French writer and founder of Naturalist movement Emile Zola 1880s and his idea of “human beasts” • French psychologist Claude Bernard’s medical model • Joseph LeConte’s influence of sociology on perception (birth order, prejudice) • Sir Isaac Newton’s observable laws of motion/physics Émile Zola by Cézanne

  6. Influences on American Naturalism cont. • Karl Marx’s economic theory of the effects of materialism on man • Sigmund Freud’s theory of subconscious behavior, causes actions beyond our control • Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, genetics

  7. Definition of Naturalism • Human beings as products studied impartially without moralizing • Laws behind forces governing human lives can be studied and understood using scientific method • Conditioned/controlled responses: instinct, passion, heredity, chance, environment • Pessimistic, materialistic determinism

  8. Components of Naturalism • Survival=applying determinism to biological competition, supreme motive in animal life, fastens man to physical roots • Determinism=natural law and socio-economic influences more powerful than will • Violence=survival depends on force against force • Taboo=improper topics such as sex, disease, bodily functions, obscenity, depravity, graphic situations

  9. Forms of Naturalism • Chronicle of Despair=tired protagonist trudging through life • Clinical=step-by-step tracing of disease as it destroys the individual • Panoramic=forces operate through whole body of society • Slice of Life=minute, faithful reproductions of bits of reality • Stream of Consciousness= smallest detail of thought

  10. Character Traits • Ill-educated, lower class • Lives governed by heredity, instinct, passion • Attempts to exercise free will hampered by forces beyond their control • Social Darwinism • Urban setting

  11. Themes • “Brute within” = warring emotions, passion, lust greed, dominance, pleasure • Fight for survival in amoral, indifferent universe • Man v. Nature or Man v. Self • Nature=indifferent force acting on their lives (Calvinistic, Predestination without religion) • Forces of heredity and environment affect and afflict • Indifferent, deterministic universe

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