Zola and Naturalism "I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation." Emile Zola: (from My Hates, 1866)

Zola and Naturalism His cycle of novels, Les Rougon-Macquart, set out to analyze French society under Napoleon III and the Second Empire (1852-1870) through the intersecting destinies of two families, tracing the supposed influence of hereditary traits.

Zola and Naturalism Zola's Naturalism was founded on the belief that it was possible to apply scientific methods to such sociological analysis - a belief that even the writer himself had modified by the time he completed the 20 novels that make up the cycle.

Zola and Naturalism Zola was the central novelist and theorist of naturalism, a literary movement whose objective was the exact and scientific description of social reality. Naturalism may be seen as an extension or a continuation of realism as it shares many of the same premises.

Zola and Naturalism As its name suggests however, there is an important shift in emphasis and it might be useful here to discuss some of the earlier associations of the term. From the seventeenth century onwards the term `naturalist' was used to designate those working in natural sciences such as botany, zoology and mineralogy.

Zola and Naturalism Moreover, Naturalism was used to describe a philosophical doctrine which denied the existence of metaphysical or supernatural phenomena and concentrated solely on the material world.

Zola and Naturalism Zola's writings are marked by an evacuation of metaphysical depth and a stress on the functioning - or, rather, dysfunction, of the natural world. One result of this concern with the natural world is an interest, shown in a number of naturalist novels, in disease, madness, alcoholism and pathological states.

Zola and Naturalism Thérèse Raquin tells the story of a a woman who conspires with her lover to murder her husband and who is found out and punished, not because of a guilty conscience but because of their nervous temperaments. Zola claimed not to be interested in such themes as morality, sin, guilt or atonement but with the workings of specific temperaments when brought together.

Zola and Naturalism Zola stated about Therese Raquin: “I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world”

Zola and Naturalism Hence, we have a writer who will strip away the artifice of flowery language and high-borne Romanticism and get to the root of the Human condition. It is not so much to analyze them as it is to portray how they think. Zola commented that his naturalist style was akin to performing autopsies on characters while they are living.

Zola and Naturalism Let’s look at a few ways to view the naturalist movements, because we must remember that it was not relegated to France alone. Remember that the Autopsy determines the cause of death..there is no pretense of Treatment.

Zola and Naturalism Two Approaches to the Concept Of Naturalism (from Pizer, Realism and Naturalism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1966.)

Zola and Naturalism 1. That it is an extension or continuation of Realism with the addition of pessimistic determinism. "... no more than an emphatic and explicit philosophical position taken by some Realists ... (that position being one of) a pessimistic, materialistic determinism." - George J. Becker It is Realism with a "necessitation ideology." - Richard Chase 2. That it is different from Realism.

Zola and Naturalism Donald Pizer further suggests specific changes in subject matter and characterization which help in defining Naturalism as different from Realism:

Zola and Naturalism 1. The subject matter: The subject matter deals with those raw and unpleasant experiences which reduce characters to "degrading" behavior in their struggle to survive. These characters are mostly from the lower middle or the lower classes - they are poor, uneducated, and unsophisticated.

Zola and Naturalism b. The milieu is the commonplace and the un-heroic; life is usually the dull round of daily existence. But the naturalist discovers those qualities in such characters usually associated with the heroic or adventurous - acts of violence and passion leading to desperate moments and violent death. The suggestion is that life on its lowest levels is not so simple as it seems to be.

Zola and Naturalism c. There is discussion of fate and "hubris" that affect a character; generally the controlling force is society and the surrounding environment.

Zola and Naturalism 2. The concept of a naturalistic character: a. characters are conditioned and controlled by environment, heredity, chance, or instinct; but they have compensating humanistic values which affirm their individuality and life - their struggle for life becomes heroic and they maintain human dignity.

Zola and Naturalism b. the Naturalists attempt to represent the intermingling in life of the controlling forces and individual worth. They do not dehumanize their characters.

Zola and Naturalism Realism was the literature of “every day life” the details of it… Romanticism was according to Frank Norris (Who wrote a great Naturalism Novel called McTeague),"the unplumbed depths of the human heart, and the mystery of sex, and the problems of life, and the unsearched penetralia of the soul of man." What is naturalism?

Zola and Naturalism These great terrible dramas no longer happen among the personnel of a feudal and Renaissance nobility, those who are in the forefront of the marching world, but among the lower - almost the lowest - classes; those who are falling by the roadway. This is not romanticism - this drama of the people working itself out in blood and ordure. It is not realism. It is a school by itself, unique, somber, powerful beyond words." It is naturalism."

Zola and Naturalism "Realism is a manner and method of composition by which the author describes normal, average life, in an accurate, truthful way." "Naturalism is a manner and method of composition by which the author portrays 'life as it is' in accordance with the philosophic theory of determinism."