Compare and

Contrast: The
Similarities and
Differences
Between Realism
and Naturalism

First of all, it has to be noted that

realism and naturalism are quite
alike, but still different. Sometimes it
can be quite challenging to find out if
a text or a picture is from the realism
or naturalism movement if one does
not know anything about it.
Realism happened before naturalism
and has two forms: the poetic and
the civil realism.

The two forms of Realism

Civil realism, it is a narrative literature and it
is always about society and the normal life of
people. The people do not long anymore for
higher values as it is in classicism and
romanticism. They should function in the
society and be like a wheel in a big machine.
Poetic realism, itis about the same aspects
and themes as the civil realism. But as the
name already suggests it is more poetic. Stories
and books are loaded with symbols often and
idealized and in many epistolary novels morals
are taught and told.

Naturalism (an exaggerated form of realism)

Naturalism evolved out of civil realism and

one could say it is simply an exaggerated
form of realism (civil). Philosophical or higher
values are non-sense in the eyes of
naturalists, because naturalism is purely
materialistic. It seeks pure objectiveness
(which is impossible to get completely), and
no deeper sense or moral, philosophical
values are of no importance. The language is
the dialect. The protagonists are often
wealthier people like doctors, lawyers etc.

Variously
defined
as
distinct
philosophical
approaches, complementary aesthetic strategies, or
broad literary movements, realism and naturalism
emerged as the dominant categories applied to
American fiction of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Included under the broad umbrella of
realism are a diverse set of authors, including Henry
James, W.D. Howells, Mark Twain, Bret Harte,
George Washington Cable, Rebecca Harding Davis,
Sarah Orne Jewett, and Hamlin Garland. Often
categorized as regionalists or local colorists, many
of these writers produced work that emphasized
geographically distinct dialects and customs. Others
offered satirical fiction or novels of manners that
exposed the excesses, hypocrisies, or shortcomings
of a culture undergoing radical social change. A
subsequent generation of writers, including Stephen
Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Edith
Wharton, and Jack London, are most often cited as

Governed by a combination of heredity,

environment, and chance, the typical
characters of naturalist fiction find
themselves constrained from achieving
the transcendent goals suggested by a
false ideology of romantic individualism.
Over the past century, critics and literary
historians have alternately viewed realist
and
naturalist
texts
as
explicit
condemnations of the economic, cultural,
or ethical deficiencies of the industrialized
age or as representations of the very
ideological forces they purport to critique.
Accordingly, an exploration of these texts
raises important questions about the

Though of little regard in the wake of the

New Critics emphasis on metaphysics and
formal innovation, a revived interest in
realism as the American adaptation of an
international movement aligned with
egalitarian
and
democratic
ideology
emerged in the 1960s, as did an effort to
redefine naturalist fiction as a more
complex form belonging to the broader
mainstream of American literary history.
More
recently,
the
emergence
of
deconstructive,
Marxist,
and
new
historicist criticism in the 1980s afforded a
revised, and often skeptical, reevaluation
of realism and naturalism as more

Relate Naturalism and Realism to

Social Darwinism
Naturalistic writers were influenced by Charles
Darwins theory of evolution. They often
believed
that
one'sheredity
and
environmentlargely determine one's character.
Whereas realism seeks only to describe
subjects as they really are, naturalism also
attempts to determine "scientifically" the
underlying forces (e.g. the environment or
heredity) influencing the actions of its subjects.
Naturalism almost entirely dispensed with the
notion of free will, or at least a free will capable
of enacting real change in lifes circumstances.

The theories ofCharles Darwinare 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