NATURALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON JOHN STEINBECK Naturalism refers to a literary movement in American fiction that reached its peak popularity at the turn of the 20th century. Early naturalistic writers included Stephen Crane (“The Red Badge of Courage”) and Jack London (“The Call of the Wild”). At the heart of this idea is something called “pessimistic determinism”: the notion that the causes of human tragedy lie beyond the powers of the individual.

Naturalism This movement was influenced by Marxist theory (as in Karl Marx): the idea that class struggle is the central component of social change. This was coupled with economic and other problems that came from American changing from an agricultural to a more urban culture by the end of the 1800s. This combination portrayed socio-economic forces that overwhelm individual lives.

Naturalism Naturalists focused on the lives of lower-class characters struggling for survival in an alien and often hostile society – a society that was insensitive to their personal needs for fulfillment or self-expression. Often, these characters are in some way grotesque, mentally retarded, or misshapen victims of genetic accident. Sometimes, they are people obsessed by greed or a compulsive plan for success that ultimately destroys them.

Naturalism These characters’ stories are often told by an all-knowing narrator who knows about deterministic factors far beyond the knowledge of the characters affected by them. The plots of Naturalism tend to depict the downward spiral of impending tragedy, and there is normally very little suspense about the final outcome of events. No one emerges triumphant in a naturalistic novel, because simple survival equates to a moral victory.

Naturalism John Steinbeck was not a dedicated student of American Naturalism, yet his themes and methods are often closely tied to this literary tendency. We will look at this as we read “Of Mice and Men.”