M. Mustafa Riad Al ajeely : TRANSCENDENTALISM &
NATURALISM IN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD's NOVELS التسامي
والمذهب المادي في روايات الكاتب الامريكي فتزجرالد
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
دراسة عن
TRANSCENDENTALISM
AND NATURALISM
IN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD's
NOVELS
التسامي والمذهب المادي
في روايات الكاتب الامريكي فتزجرالد
BY
M. Mustafa Riad Al ajeely
أ. مصطفى رياض علي العجيلي
مدرس اللغة الانكليزية في
ثانوية صلاح الدين للبنين/ الانبار
(ماجستير في الادب الانكليزي)
(1430هـ - 2009 م)
ملخص
يعد ف سكوت
فيتزجيرالد (1896 -- 1940) احد الكتاب الرائدين في عصر الحداثة
البارزين في الرواية الأمريكية الحديثة.
فضلا عن تجربته الفنية في الكتابة , أشتهر الكاتب بقدرته على تجســيد تلاقح منوع لعدة مدارس فكرية متباينة في كتاباته.
تهدف هذه الدراسة من تتبع هذا المزج
بين مدرسة التسامي في الأدب والمذهب الطبيعي كمفهومين فلسفيين من وجهات النظر في
روايات فتزجرالد .
فضلا عن تتبع تأثير المدرستين في رواياته ,
وأقتفاء أثرهما في موضوعات روايته وأسلوب كتابتهما وشخوصهما وإحداث المجتمع
الأمريكي الحديث.
وتندرج موضوعات الدراسة هذه في فصول ثلاثة وخاتمة:
فقد فصّل الفصل الأول في مقدمته أحوال
المدرستين وأثرهما في فن الرواية الأمريكية وموضوعاتها واشتملت موجز لسيرة الكاتب
وأثاره الأدبية.
وتدارس الفصل الثاني روايات
فتزجرالد المبكرة مع التركيز على رواية (هذا
الجانب من الجنة) 1920 . والتي تعتبر الرواية الأولى للكاتب حيث تجلت فيها مفهوم
التجلي أو التسامي بشكل واضح.
بينما يدرس الفصل الثالث
روايات فتزجرالد المتأخرة مع التركيز على رواية (غاتسبي العظيم) 1925
. حيث يسود مفهوم الطبيعية بشكل واضح.
وقد انتهت الدراسة بسرد للأفكار الأساسية
التي تناولتها الدراسة والاتجاهات الأدبية السائدة في حقبتي من الحياة الأدبية
للكاتب وجملة من المستخلصات والنتائج.
ABSTRACT
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896- 1940) is one of the major pioneers of the Modernism
in the Modern American
Novel.
Apart from his technical experimentation, he is famous of blending of generic
types like Transcendentalism and Naturalism literary schools in his writing.
The aim of this study
is to trace this blending of Transcendentalism and Naturalism as two plaited
philosophical points of views in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels.
As well as to see the
influence of such literary schools in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels. And how
their influenced on the themes, styles, forms, characters, and events of the
modern American society in general.
The study falls into three chapters and Conclusion:
Chapter one is an
introduction which provides detailed explanation of these two literary schools
and their influence on American Modern novels and thoughts. As well as a brief
summary about F. Scott Fitzgerald's Life and career in order to make the reader
familiar with the author.
Chapter two, studies
Fitzgerald's early novels represented
; This Side of Paradise 1920. Fitzgerald's first
novel. In this novel Transcendentalism predominates.
Chapter three studies Fitzgerald's
late novels, represented; The Great Gatsby 1925. In this novel Naturalism
predominates.
Finally, the conclusion sums up the views and findings the
study.
Chapter One
Introduction
1-1: F. Scott Fitzgerald's
Life and Career in Brief.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
(1896)- (1940) is one of the major pioneers of Modernism in American novel.
''He was born in ST Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896,
the namesake and second cousin three times removed of the author of the
National Anthem. His father Edward Fitzgerald, was from Maryland
Fitzgerald attended ST. Paul Academy
Fitzgerald summarized his 15th years as ''A year of real
unhappiness excepting the feverish joys of x Mas''3. But in his 17th year he describes this
year as ''A year of work and vivid experince''4.
He wrote at that age; scripts and lyrics for the Trangle
club musicals and contributed to the Princeton Tiger Humer Magazine and the Nassau
''In June 1918 Fitzgerald was assigned to Camp Sheridan
near Montgomery , Alabama
Fitzgerald's more ambitious
stories, such as May Day and The Diamond as Big as the
Ritz, were published in the smart set, an influential magazine with a
comparatively small circulation.
This Side of Paradise , was published on March
26, 1920. Set mainly at Princeton and
described by its author as a quest novel.
The novel traces the career
ambitions and love disappointments of Amory Blaine, a highly
autobiographical character who shares Fitzgerald sense of the possibilities of
life and his aspiration towards the fulfillment of his unique destiny. This side of Paradise, is significant for its
serious treatment of the liberated girl and of college life.
It was also a milestone in American
Literature for its attempt to combine the normally in congruous elements of
Transcendentalism and Romanticism.
His early success became a formative
influence on the rest of his career, shaping his romantic emphasis on
aspiration. ''Fitzgerald spent a riotous summer in Westport, Connecticut, where
he began to write his second novel; The Beautiful and Damned (1922).''7. It shows
structural advances from the looseness of his first novel. Fitzgerald's
ambivalence toward his highly autobiographical characters fluctuating from
approval to contempt creates problems with point of view.
It occupies an interesting position
in his career as a transitional novel that shows him experimenting with and
refining his craft. Literary opinions made were reluctant to accord Fitzgerald
full marks as a serious craftsman. His reputation as a drinker fed, the myth
that he was an irresponsible writer yet he was a painstaking reviser whose
fiction went through layers of drafts.
Fitzgerald's clear, lyrical,
colorful, witty style evoked the emotions associated with time and place. His
prose is recognizable by warmth of the authorial voice. When critics objected to
Fitzgerald's concern with love and success, his response was; ''but, my God! It
was my material and it was all had to deal with''8.
The chief theme of Fitzgerald's
work is aspiration, idealism, Transcendentalism and Naturalism.'' He regarded
as defining American character''9. Another major theme was mutability or loss
as a social historian Fitzgerald became identified with the Jazz Age. '' it was
an age of excess, and it was an age of satirc''10.
Fitzgerald's third novel was The Great Gatsby (1925). Marking as
striking advance in Fitzgerald's technique, utilizing a complex structure and
controlled narrative point of view. Much of the novel's significance is rooted
in, is exploration of the American Dream. Jay Gatsby as self-made man, achieves
financial success, but he does not understand how wealth works in society. He
believes in the promises of America
We can see in The Great Gatsby, an exploration of how
wealth affects characters and how wealth operates in America
Fitzgerald's fourth novel was; Tender is the Night (1934). It created
tremendous anticipation, but Fitzgerald's most ambitions novel was commercial
failure, and its merits were maters of critical dispute.
It examines the deterioration of
Dick Diver a brilliant American psychiatrist, during the course of his marriage
to wealthy mental patient.
Fitzgerald's depiction of Dick's
decline illuminates his sense of a loss of purpose after the success of Great
Gatsby as later chronicled in his 1936 , Crack up essay.
Fitzgerald is more than a novelist but is
also a great short stories writer. He has many shot stories like for instance
;-
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), All the Sad young
Men (1926), Taps at Reveille (1935) and the like…. ''
F. Scott Fitzgerald died believing himself a failure''11. The obituaries were
condescending and he seemed destined for literary obscurity. The first phase of
the Fitzgerald resurrection ''revival'' does not adequately describe the
process occurred between 1945 and 1950. By 1960 he had achieved as cure place
among America
.2: Transcendentalism:
Transcendentalism is one of the schools of literature
appeared in New England States of United States, where it become both a
philosophy and a literary, religious and social movement.
It reached its peak during the
1840's. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the leading American Transcendentalist. ''He
taught that the physical world is secondary to the spiritual world; but the
physical world serves humanity by providing useful goods and by making human
beings a ware of beauty''12.
Therefore Transcendentalism was a
philosophy that became influential during the late 1700's and 1800's. it was
based on the belief that knowledge is not limited to experience and
observation.
Transcendentalist wanted to reclaim the
mystic and the divine and supernatural light, delivered immediately to the soul
by the spirit of God. ''They also emphasized that the solution of human
problems lies in the free development of individual emotions.''13. they
believed that reality exists only in the world of the spirit. What a person
observes in the physical world are the only appearances, transient reflections
of the world of the spirit. People can learn about the physical world through
their senses and understanding. But they learn about the world of spirit
through another power called; ''Reason'' meant ''insight''.
''The Transcendentalists defined Reason as the independent
and intuitive capacity to know what is absolutely true''14.
Emerson and his followers believed
that human beings find truth within themselves and so they emphasized
self-reliance and individuality.
''They believed that society is a necessary evil''15. They
argue that to learn what is right, a person must neglect and ignore customs and
social principles and rely on Reason.
'' The Transcendentalists believed that the doctrines and
organized churches of orthodox Christianity interfered with the personal
relationship between a person and a God''16.
They declares that individuals
should reject the authority of Christianity and gain knowledge of God through
insight.The American Transcendentalists never became influenced American
intellectual history and literature, besides Emerson, the leading American
Transcendentalists including Margret Fuller and Henry David Thoreau.
'' American Transcendentalists believed in a God existing
inside every creature''17. And in the significance of intuitive thought. It was
based on a mouism holding the unity of the world and God, and the immanence of
God in the world. ''The Transcendentalist believed that the soul of each
individual is identical with the soul of the world and contain what the world
contians''18.
Therefore Transcendentalism began
as a religious movement: an attempt to substitute a Romanticized version of the
mystical ideal that humankind is capable of direct experience of the holy for
the rationalist view that the truths of religion are arrived at by a process of
empirical study and by rational inference from historical and natural evidence.
Emerson in Nature (1836) states: ''That
belief we term Transcendentalism maintains that man has ideas that come not
through the fives senses or the power of reasoning; but are either the result
of direct revelation from God, his immediate inspiration, or his immanent
presence in the spiritual world…''19.
The Greek philosopher Plato
developed the philosophical concept of transcendence; that is ''the notion of
higher reality that exists beyond the powers of human comperhension''20.
He affirmed the existence of
absolute goodness, which he characterized as something beyond description and
as knowable ultimately only through intuition. Later religious philosophers
influenced by Plato, applied maintaining that God can be neither described nor
concerned.''21. ''The doctrine that God is transcendental existing outside
nature is a fundamental principle in the orthodox forms of Christianity,
Judaism and Islam.''22.
Other philosophers have applied
this concept to describe the unknowable reality of God. After the Renaissance,
the chief source of Transcendentalist ideas was the German philosopher Immanuel
Kant, later German idealist philosophers who were influenced by Kant,
particularly Fichte (18th and 19th c.) Schelling (19th c.) and Husserl (20th c.) described their views
as transcendental. While transcendentalism was, in part a reaction to certain
18th c. rationalist doctrines,
it was strongly influenced by deism.
''Transcendentalism also involved a rejection of the strict
puritan religious attitudes that were the heritage of New
England , where the movement orginated''23.
In addition, it opposed the strict
ritualism and dogmatic theology of all established religious institutions the
transcendentalists were influenced by Romanticism, the celebration of
individualism and the exultation of the beauties of nature and human kind.
Consequently, transcendentalists
writers expressed semi-religious feelings towards nature, as well as the
creative process;
remember the concept ''Organic Unity by Coleridge,
and saw a direct connection between the universe (macrocosm) and the individual
soul (microcosm)''24.
In this view, divinity penetrated
all objects animate or inanimate and the purpose of human life was union, with
the over-soul intuition rather than reason i.e.: rationality; note the
difference between ''reason'' and ''Reason'' was regarded as the highest human
faculty. Fulfillment of human potential could be accomplished though mysticism
or though and deep awareness of the beauty and truth of the surrounding natural
world. This process was regarded on individual activity and no orthodox
tradition was accepted.
Thus , ''Transcendentalism, on
another level, was a protest against the materialism of American society and
the creation of artificial wants for things which were unnedded''25.
Therefore Transcendentalism began
as a protest against the general state of culture and society and in
particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the
Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity school. Among transcendentalists'
care belief was an ideal spiritual state that transcends the physical and
empirical and is only realized through the individual intuition rather than
through the doctrines of established religion. ''Prominent transcendentalists
included; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Orestes Brownson, Margaret
Fuller''26. And the like…
''Transcendentalism was rooted in the transcendental
philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the German idealism more generally''27.
The transcendentalists desired to
ground their religion and philosophy in transcendental principles : principles
not based on or falsifiable by, sensuous experience, but deriving from the
inner, spiritual or mental essence of the human. Immanuel Kant had called ''all
knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode
of knowing objects''28.
Transcendentalists were strong
believers in the power of individual and divine message. Their beliefs are
closely linked with those of romantics.
The movement directly influenced
the growing movement of mental sciences of the mid 1800s which would later
become visualized as the ''New thought'' Movement. Another alternative meaning
for transcendentalism is ''the classical philosophy that God transcends the
manifest world.''29. ''the transcendentalists adopts the whole connecting of
spiritual doctrines''30. They believe in miracle in the perpetual openness of
the human mind to new influx of light and power; they believe in inspiration
principle should suffered to demonstrate itself to the end of man without the
admission of anything unspiritual; that is anything positive, dogmatic,
personal. Thus they spiritual measure of inspiration is the depth of thoughts.
''After the two wars; American war of independences
(1775-83) and the civil war (1816-65), New America begins to focus internally
no longer on the force of weapons and diplomacy but on strengthening the values
of this new nation''31.
Where true individualism, free
thought views of democracy and much more. This new revolution builds a national
literature and philosophy with pens rather than guns. In many ways
transcendentalism dominates the intellectual life of this period. It is
believed that this is the true beginning and even source of American humanism.
Moreover by the 1860s America is no longer just a nation of soldiers, authors,
farmers and merchants but of individual free men, later free women, later free
blacks, free minorities, scientist, technologists diplomats, artists, leaders,
visionaries, writers, pragmatists, philosophers, industrialists,
environmentalists, intellectuals, construction work and engineers, immigrants
and migrants.
People from all parts of the world
came to America
Whitman said ''the United States
themselves are essentially the greatest in his preface to Leaves of Grass''32.
In many mind he is picturing
transcendentalism merger into American patriotism. ''the echo major principles
of Transcendentalism ; non-conformity, growth and renewal of the individualism,
revolt against traditions and established institutions, civil disobedience,
brotherhood of man, nature and spiritual unity and educational reforme''33.
American Transcendentalism
curiously found itself in a similar situation to our own. Theodore Parker
described the Transcendentalists desire for spiritual growth when he wrote in
his journal; ''I felt early that the liberal ministers did not do justice to
simple religious feeling… all their preaching seemed to relate too much to
outward things not enough to the inward pious life… most powerfully preaching
to the understanding, the conscience and the will, the cry was ever
''Duty,Duty''! work. Work! They failed to address with equal power to soul and
did not also shout ''Joy, Joy''! Delight, Delight!''34.
As a result, the transcendentalist
developed what we might indentify as a set of behaviors that I believe offers
us a unique opportunity to share- across the religious paths we fellow as
individuals – a uniquely Unitarian universalist spiritual practice. That
spiritual practice begins with what Robinson Calls a ''Theology of self- culture''.
''self- culture is a term the transcendentalists used to convey an overarching
philosophy of the spirit.''35.
The word ''self'' was a religious
word that meant ''soul''. When Emerson coined the term ''self- reliance'' for
instance, he did not mean it was we do today to refer to rugged individualism,
but as an inner reliance on our own divinity as opposed to what the literary
critic Harold Bloom calls; ''God- reliance, self- culture then refer to
the cultivation of the soul in individual.''36.
In this address on self- culture,
William Ellery changing defined it by writing to cultivate anything, be it a
plant, an animal, a mind, is to make it grow. Growth expansion is the end. He
therefore who does what he can to unfold all his power of capacities,
especially his nobler ones, so as to become as well- proportioned, vigorous,
excellent, happy being, practices, self- culture.
''The transcendentalists believe in a process of life long
spiritual growth''37. In her memories, Margaret Fuller acknowledged this
process when she wrote; ''very early I knew that the only object in life was to
grow. I was often false to this knowledge, in idolatries of particular objects,
or impatient longings for happiness, but have never lost sight of it,
have always been controlled by it, and this first gift of love has never been
super ceded by a later love''38.
Nature served as the dominant trope
in transcendentalism discourse. In nature the transcendentalists saw the
presence of the divine. In his Journal, Henry David Thoreau wrote; '' my
profession is always to be on the alert to find God in nature to know his
lurking places to attend all the oratories the operas in nature… to watch for
describe all the divine features which I detect in Nature.''39.
In his essay Nature, Emerson
depicts nature in this way; ''The greatest delight which the fields and woods
minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the
vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them.
The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by
supervise, and yet is not unknown, it effects is like that of a higher thought
or a better coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing
right.''40.
For transcendentalists, they
appreciation of nature meant being in and with nature. As a spiritual practice,
this relationship and interactivity between human beings and nature may take
many forms and it helps to be creative at a time in history when it is more
difficult to enjoy nature the way the transcendentalism did. It means spending
time in natural environments, outside of and separate from our life at work or
appreciating the plants, animals, and all sentient beings that surround us,
even in a bustling city. In his essay ''Walking'', Thoreau suggests the purpose
of time spent walking in nature as this; '' I am alarmed when it happens that I
have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.''41.
As a spiritual practice, then nature is something we experience.
Therefore, ''American
transcendentalism in fact really began as religious movement an attempt to
substitute a Romanticized version of the mystical ideal that humankind is
capable of direct experience of the holy for the Unitarian rationalist view
that the truths of religion are arrived at by a process of empirical study and
by rational inference from historical and natural evidence.''42.
That belief of term
transcendentalism which maintains that man has ideas, that come not through the
five senses or the power of reasoning; but are either the result of direct
revelation from God, his immediate inspiration, or his immanent presence in the
spiritual world.
Transcendentalism posits a
distinction between ''understanding'' or normal means of perception. According
to Emerson, reason is the highest faculty of the soul- what we meanly by the
soul itself; it never reason, never proves it simply perceives it is
''vision''.
By contrast the understanding toils
all the sighed but strong sighted, dwelling in the present the expedient the
customary.
Here are some definitions and few
comments of Transcendentalism by different writers and critics:-
1- ''The spirit of the time
is in every form a protest against usage and a search for principles'' 43.
2- ''I was given to
understand that whatever was unintelligible would be certainly
transcendental''44.
3- ''I should have told them
at once that I was a transcendentalist, that would have been the shortest way
of telling them that they would not understand my explanation.''45.
4- ''The word
transcendentalism, as used at the present day, has two applications. One of
which is popular and indefinite, the other is philosophical and precise. In the
former sense it describes man, rather than opinions, since it is freely
extended to those who hold opinions not only divers from each other, but
directly opposed''46.
5- ''Transcendentalism is
the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively or of
attaining a scientific knowledge of an order of existence transcending the
reach of the senses and of which we can have no sensible sperience.''47.
6- ''Literary a passing
beyond all media in the approach to the Deity, transcendentalism contained an
effort to establish mainly by the discipline of the intuitive faculty direct
intercourse between the soul and God''.48.
7- ''Transcendentalism was
not… speculative, but essentially practical and reformatory''49.
8- '' Transcendentalism was
a distinct philosophical system. Practically it was an assertion of the
inalienable worth of man; theoretically it was an assertion of the immanence of
divinity in instinct, the transference of supernatural attributes to the
natural constitution of mankind… transcendentalism is usually spoken of as a philosophy.
It is more justly regarded as a gospel: as a philosophy it is … so far from
uniform, that it may rather be considered several system, that one …
transcendentalism was … an enthusiasm a wave of sentiment, a breath of
mind.''50.
9- ''The problem in
transcendentalism philosophy is no less than this, to revise the experience of
mankind to test ethics by conscience, science by reason; to try the creeds of
the churches, the constitution of the states, by the constitution of the
univers.''51.
10- ''We feel it be a solemn
duty to warn our readers and in our measure, the public, against this German
atheism, which the spirit of darkness is employing ministers of gospel to
smuggle in among us under false pretenses.''52
11- ''The fundamental of
transcendentalism are to be felt as sentiments or grasped by the imagination as
poetical wholes, rather than set down in propositions.''53.
12- ''First and foremost, it
can only be rightly conceived as an intellect reasoned doctrine. It was a
renaissance of conscious, living faith in the power of reason in the reality of
spiritual insight in the privilege, beauty and glory of life''54.
13- ''The transcendentalism
adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. … if there is anything grand
or daring in human thought or virtue, any reliance on the vast, the unknown;
any presentiment, any extravagance of faith, the spiritualist mind has always
tended to this loneness. Buddhism, for example is an expression of it. The
Buddhist … is a transcendentalist … shall we say then that transcendentalism is
the Saturnalia or excess of faith; the presentiment of faith proper to man in
his integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience lenders the
satisfaction of his wish?''55.
14- ''Transcendentalism was a
blending of platonic metaphysics and the puritan spirit of a philosophy and a
character… taking place at a definite time in a specially fertilized soil under
particular conditions.''56.
Transcendentalists believe in
Nature, when we speak about Nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most
poetically sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by
manifold natural objects.
The major tenets of Transcendentalism can be summarized as
follows:
1- Transcendentalism
essentially is a form of idealism.
2- ''The transcendentalists
transcends or rises above the lower animalistic impulses of life (animal drives
) and moves from rational to spiritual realm.''57.
3- The human soul is part of
the over soul or universal spirit to which it and other souls return at
death. Therefore every individual is to be respected because every one has a
portion of that over soul or life force or God can be found every where- travel
to holy places is, therefore not necessary.
4- ''God can be found in
both nature and human nature.''58
5- More important than a
concern about the afterlife should be concern for this life. ''the only thing
in the world of values is the active soul''59.
6- ''Death is never to be
feared, for at death the soul merely passes to the over soul''.60.
7- Emphasis should be places
on the here and now. ''give me one world at a time'' 61.
8- ''Evil is a negative
merely an absence of good light is more powerful than darkness because one ray
of light penetrates the dark''62. In other words, there is no belief in the
existence of Satan as an active entity forcing humans to commit immorality.
Humans are good and if they do immoral acts they do so out of ignorance and by
not thinking.
9- Power is to be obtained
by defying fate or predestination, which seem to work against humans by
exercising one's own spiritual and moral strength. Emphasis on self- reliance.
Hence, the emphasis is places on a human thinking.
10- The transcendentalism see
the necessity of examples of great leaders, writers, philosophers, and others
to show what an individual can become through thinking and action.
11- The unity of life and
universe must be realized there is a relationship between all things.
12- ''One must have faith in
intuition for no church or creed can communicate truth''63.
13- ''Reform must not be
emphasized true reform comes from with.''64.
1.3: Naturalism :
''Naturalism is
an approach or method insisting on the analysis of reality in terms of natural
forces, e.g. heredity, physical drives and environment.''65.
It attempts to apply scientific
theory and methods to imaginative writing. ''Naturalists concentrated on the
physical world to exclusion of the supernatural…''66.
''The chief literary theorist on naturalism was; Emile Zola,
who asserted that the novelist should belike the scientist, examine various
phenomena in life and drawing unquestionable conclusions dispassantely.''67.
As a result of the advances science
made in the middle of the 19thcentury, thinkers started to adopt
mechanistic ideas once again. They adopted their ideas not from physics and
mathematics (Bacon, Newton , Decartes) but from
biology (Herbert, Spencer, Charles Darwin), under the influence of Darwin
It was against Realism tendency of
running the danger of simply gathering minute details which result in nothing
that the naturalists rebelled. But, they themselves are often guilty of
oversimplifying and of using non representative characters, resulting in
doctrinaire statement. Both schools were artistic responses to the growing
power of science during the 19th century.
The Realists used the scientific
value of the material without putting it in a fully deterministic pattern. The
naturalists, who were obsessed with evolutionary biology, Marxian history and
depth psychologies (Freud), sought to understand the forces that control human beings
and their actions.
''Naturalists have been the most uncompromising realists.
They believe that knowledge is acquired through the senses, and that the
function of the writer is to report accurately. What he or she observes'' 68.
The naturalists tries to be as
objective as a laboratory scientist. He refers to the novel as a laboratory,
and implies a philosophy of deterministic materialism. For him, human beings
are; ''human beasts''; thus characters can be studied through their
relationships to their surroundings.
''Zola follows the historian Hippolyte Taine in observing
that human beings as ''products'' should be studied impartially without
moralizing about their natures on the whole'' 69.
We can assume that naturalism had
its origins in scientific through and the philosophy of materialism of the 19th century. Naturalists
writers saw man as the products of social conditions, a mechanism that
responded to behaviorists stimuli in the circumstances around him. They try to
show that people are trapped by great forces surrounding them over which they
have no control. In their theory of life, naturalists are more pessimistic that
Realists. The Realists believe people can make moral choices, but the
naturalists believe they cannot. Must influenced by historians August Comte and
Kart Marx (his economic determinism). Zola insisted on the role of the detached
recorder and like Flaubert believed that the author should entirely erase
himself from his material and report without sentiment or moralizing.
''Naturalists chose their materials from
the ugly side of life: sex, hunger, poverty, disease''70.
In picturing people as trapped by
their environment the naturalists usually deals with the harsh and degraded
aspects of life characters in naturalistic literature are driven by their most
basic drives. For instance, in Flaubert's Madame Bovary, the instinct of sex is
determine force in the degeneration of a weak young woman seeking escape from
the monotony of every day life in the French country side.
''The language of naturalists
writers is often coarse''71, their view of life hopeless and their mood
depressing. Yet in the best naturalistic works there is a tone of compassion
and even admiration for those characters who struggle against overwhelming
disasters. The principles of naturalistic fiction were first stated Emil Zola
in The Experimental Novel(1880). Zola argued that
novelists should treat their material as scientists treat theirs. Before 1880,
psychological and physiological studies such as what Zola recommended had
appeared in works by Honore de Balzac, Jules and Edmond
''Notable naturalists include
Goncourt brothers, J. Huysmans, Maupassant, the English authors George
Moore(his master piece is Esther Waters) and George Gissing (odd woman), and
American writers, Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane.''72.
''Determinism is pervasive in Thomas Hardy's
novels''73.
Who is the last great English 19th century, novelists. His
final novel,Jude the Obscure. Represents the limit of pessimism. While
reading his works one is aware of new science, initiated by the biologists
Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin and T.H.H Uxley , which rejects man as a free
being capable of choice. It is a view of humanity as the product of blind
mechanistic forces over which he has no control. Hardy reduced human character
to pain frustration, and impotent anger.
The most important characteristics of Naturalism can be summarized
as follows:
1- In America
a- ''Prostitution and
seduction in The Octopus by Frank Norris(1901) and Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
(1900).
b- Exposure of social evils-
the Octopus.
c- As determinists, they
believe in the existence of the will, but the will is often enslaved on account
of different reason.''74.
2- Naturalists attempts to
represent the intermingling of the controlling forces and individual worth in
life. They don't dehumanize their characters.
3- The subject matters :
a- 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 the lower middle or the lower classes- they are poor, uneducated and
unsophisticated.
b- The milieu is the
commonplace and the un heroic; life is usually the dull routine of daily
existence. But the naturalist writer might discover those qualities in
characters 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.
4- The conflict : often
''man against nature'' or man against himself'' as characters struggle to
maintain a ''façade of civilization'' despite external pressures that threaten
to release the ''brute within'' 75.
5- ''Sociological or
environment determinism''76, the weak is destroyed and the strong survive in a
world of struggle and chance.
6- ''The fight for survival
in an a moral, indifferent universe''77. Nature is an indifferent forces acting
on the lives of human beings. The romantic vision of Wordsworth (that nature
never did betray the heart that loved her, becomes Stephen Crane's view in 'The
Open Boat') this tower was against standing with its back to the plight of the
ants. It represented in a degree… the serenity of nature amid the struggles of
the individual… she did not seem cruel to him then, but she was indifferent
flatly indifferent.
7- ''The 'brute within' each
individual comprised of strong and often warring emotions: passions such as
last greed or the desire for dominance or pleasure''78.
8- Key terms of Naturalism
are: survival, determinism, violence and taboo.
Therefore there are many characteristics of literary
Naturalism, in addition to the previous ones pessimism is one of these
characteristics in which very often one or more characters will continue to
repeat one line or phrase that tends to have a pessimistic connection, most
likely about death.
Another feature is detachment from
the story. The author often tries to remain objective by detaching from the
story, the author can achieve objectivity.
The author will often achieve
detachment by creating nameless characters. This puts the objectivity. This
puts the focus more on the plot and what happens to the character, rather than
the characters themselves.
Another feature of Naturalism is
determinism. Determinism is basically the opposite of the notion of free will.
With determinism, the power of characters influence over their own lives is
taken away by nature or fate. Often, the author will lead the reader to believe
the character's fate has already been predetermined, and he/she can do nothing
about it.
Another characteristic is a
surprising twist at the end of the story where the author will lead the reader
in one direction at the beginning and through the middle of the story, but
ultimately go in a completely unexpected direction. So that, naturalism is a
type of literature that used scientific principles of objectivity and
indifference to the study of human beings. Through the study of human beings.
''Naturalistic writers think that
the laws behind the forces that rule human lives could be studied and
understood''79.
They believe that people are
governed by their nature and their own enthusiasm. ''naturalists believe that
the judgment of people is based on their own thoughts and opinions of
things.''80.
Naturalism is a newer style and a
logical extension of the old term realism. The term naturalism came from Zola,
Emile is believed that he sought for a new idea to convince the reading public
of something new and more modern in his fiction.
''He argued that his dedication to
fictional reading was to create characters and plots based on the scientific
method.''81.
Many of the American naturalists,
especially Norrric and London
Although Zola (one of the
most important French writer of naturalism 1480-1902) was a touch stone
of contemporary debates over genre, Dreiser, perhaps the most important of the
naturalist writers, regarded Balzac as a greater influence.
Naturalism in American literature
is therefore best understood historically in the generational
manner outlined in the previous paragraph. In philosophical and generic terms.
American naturalism must be defined rather more loosely, as a reaction
against the realist fiction of the 1870s and 1880s, where scope was limited to
middle class or 'Local Color' topics with taboos on sexuality and violence.
The most significant elements of
this reaction can be summarized as follows: ''naturalism or naturalists fiction
in the united states
The naturalists were not the first
to concentrate on the industrialized American city, but they significant in
that they believe that the realist tools refined in the 1870s and 1880s were in
adequate to represent it. Abraham Gahan, for instance, sought both to represent
and to address the Jewish community of New
York
The fiction of Theodore Dreiser,
the son of the first and second generation immigrants from central Europe features many German and Irish figures. Frank
Norris and Stephen Crane, themselves from established middles Allied to this,
naturalist writers were skeptical towards or downright hostile to the notions
of bourgeois individualism, that characterized realist novels about
middle-class life. Most naturalists demonstrated a concern with the animal or
the irrational motivations for human behavior, sometimes manifested in
connection with sexuality and violence. Here they differed strikingly from
French counterparts.
''Nature is simply what we have
good reason to believe exists.''83 we can see therefore, that naturalism is a
metaphysical thesis is driven by a desire for a clear, reliable account of
reality and how it works, a desire that generates an unflinching commitment to
objectivity and explanatory transparency.
The naturalists understands not
only that we are not exceptions to natural laws, but that we don’t need to be
in order to secure any central value (freedom, human rights, morality, moral
responsibility or capacity, reason, empathy, ingenuity, originality), we can
positively affirm and celebrate the fact that nature is enough. Indeed, the
realization that we are fully natural creatures has profoundly positive effects
in creasing our sense of connection to the world and others, fostering
tolerance, compassion and humility, and giving us greater control over our
circumstances. This realization supports a progressive and effective engagement
with the human condition in all its dimensions. So we can justly call it
worldview naturalism.
Naturalism according to certain
writers is the understanding that there is a single, natural world as shown by
science, and that we are completely included in it.
''Naturalism told that everything
we are and derived from conditions that precede us and surround us.''84
''Each of us is an unfolding natural
process, and every aspect of that process is caused, and is a cause itself.''85
we are fully caused
creatures and seeing just how we are caused gives us power and control, while
encouraging compassion and humility, by understanding consciousness. Choice and
even our highest capacities as materially based, naturalism re-enchants the
physical world, allowing us to be at home in the universe.
Naturalism shows our full
connection to the world and others, it leads to an ethics of compassion and it
gives us for greater control over our circumstances.
''Naturalism, in essence is simply
the idea that human beings are completely included in the natural world.''86.
Naturalism is based on science as
the best most reliable means for discovering what exists. ''science shows that
each and every aspect of a human being comes from and is completely connected
to the natural world and is understandable in term of those connections.''87
The naturalistic view of Man is of
course very different from traditional religious or supernatural understanding
and it has profound implications. They confirm that we don't have souls that
continue after death. Instead we are fully physical creatures, we don't have
free will.
We are as Muslims entirely against
Naturalism's notion and thought about life and death. Because we have the
evidence one of the most important evidence is our book ''Koran''. Koran has
all the answers for any question in the world that related with life and the
life after death issues.All religions speak of two levels of existence. One is
that of this phenomenal world, which we experience with the five senses
characteristic of our body made of matter. The other is that of the
transcendent world where we are believed to exist as a spirit.
In this life itself, we have both the body and
the spirit. The body is measurable or quantifiable, whereas the spirit is
abstract, incommensurable. Only measurable entities can be subjected to
scientific studies; and only those entities that are subject to some form of
scientific scrutiny or observation by qualified persons can be
"proved" (in the
The term naturalism describe a type
of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and
detachment to its study of human beings. unlike ''realism, which focuses on
literary technique, naturalism implies a philosophical positions''88
For naturalistic writers, since
human beings are naturalistic writers, since human beings are Emile Zola's
phrase ''Human Beasts''89. Characters can be studied through this objective
study of human beings, ''naturalistic writers believed that the laws behind the
forces that governed human lives might be studied and understood.''90.
Naturalistic writers thus used a
version of the scientific method to write their novels; they studied human
beings governed by their instincts and passions as well as the ways in which
the characters lives were governed by forces of heredity and environment.
Although they used the techniques of accumulating detail pioneered by the
realists, the naturalists thus had a specific objects in mind when they choose
the segment of reality that they wished to convey.
In George Baker's famous and
much-annotated and contrasted phrase, naturalism's philosophical framework can
be simply described as ''pessimistic, materialism, determinstic''91.
The naturalistic novel usually
contains two tensions or contradictions, and the two of conjunction comprise
both an interpretation of experience and a particular esthetic recreation of
experience.
In other words, the two constitute
the theme and form of the naturalistic novels the first tension is that,
''between the subject matter of the naturalistic novel and the concept of man
which emerges from this subject matter.''92.
The naturalist populates his novel
primarily from the lower middle class or the lower class . His fictional world
is that of the commonplace and un heroic in which life would seem to be chiefly
the dull round of daily existence, as we ourselves usually conceive of our
lives. But the naturalists discovers in this world those qualities of man
usually associated with the heroic or adventurous such as acts of violence and
passion which involve sexual adventure or bodily strength and which culminate
in desperate moments and violent death.
''A naturalistic novel is thus an
extension of realism only in the local and contemporary.''93 The naturalist,
however discovers in this material the extraordinary and excessive in human
nature.
The second tension involves, ''the
theme of the naturalistic novel.''94 The naturalist often describes his
character as through they are conditioned and controlled by environment, heredity,
instinct or chance. But he also suggest a compensating humanistic value in his
characters or their fates which affirms the significance of the individual and
of his life. ''the tension here is that between the naturalist's desire to
represent in fiction the new discomfiting truths which he has found in the
ideas of life of his nineteenth century. World and his desire to find some
meaning in experience which reasserts the validity of the human enterprise''95
Notes
1. (1): Mary Jo Tate,
Forward by Mathew J. Broccoli. ''Critical companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald: A
literary reference to his life and work''. (San Francisco
2. Ibid. P. 4
3. Ibid. P. 5
4. Ibid. P. 6
5. Ibid. P. 9
6. (7 ): Kirk, Curnutt.
''The Cambridge London : Cambridge University
7. Ibid. P. 14
8. Ibid. P. 15
9. Ibid. P. 24
10.
(11) : Prigozy, Ruth. ''The Cambridge London :Cambridge University
11.
(12): Yesganeh ,Farah.
''Literary Schools'' ( Iran :
Rahnama Publications, Tehran
University
12. Ibid. P.2
13. Ibid. P.3
14. Ibid. P.4, 5
15. Ibid. P. 6,7,8
16.
(17): Abrams, M. H, ''A Glossary of Literary Terms of
Transcendentalism'' ( USA: New York University Press print in 1993). P. 18
17. Ibid. P. 33
18. (19): Ralph Waldo
Emerson. ''Nature''.(Massachusetts: King Printing Company,1836) . P. 20.
19. (20):Yesganeh,
Farah. p. 4.
20. Ibid. P. 22
21.
(22):
Albanese, Catherine L, ''Corresponding Motion: Transcendental Religion and the
New America
22. Ibid. P. 13,14
23. (24): Gura, Philip F,
''American Transcendentalism'' (Pennsylvania : Pennsylvania
24. Ibid. P. 22
25. (26): Encyclopedia
Britannica. 2001.
26.
(27): Kern,
Alexander. ''The Rise of Transcendentalism in Transitions in American Literary
History.'' (California: California university Press, 1954). P. 17,18
27. Ibid. P. 19
28. (30): Boller, Paul F,
''American Transcendentalism: an Intellectual Inquiry''. (New York: DNP
America, LLC, 1974 ). P. 49,50
29. (31): Reuben, Paul
P, ''American Transcendentalism: A Brief Introduction'' ( Washington
30. (32): Emerson, Ralph
Waldo. ''Ralph Waldo Emerson, selected Essays, Lectures and Poems''
(Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania university press 1990) p. 36
31. (33): Reuben ,Paul
P, P. 18
32.
(34):
Myerson, Joel ''The Transcendentalists: a review of research and criticism''
(Florida:Marrakech Express Printing Inc,1984) . P. 73,38
33. (35): Gura, Philip
F, P. 44,45
34. (55): Reuben ,Paul
P. P. 40,44
35. Ibid. P. 50
36.
(57):
Buell, Lawrence. ''Literary Transcendentalism: style and vision in the American
Renaissance.'' ( New York: New York University press, 1973) . P. 28,29
37.
(58):
Simon, Myron & Thornton H. Pasons. ''Transcendentalism and its legacy'' (
Michigan: Color House Graphics, Inc., 1966 ).
P. 11
38.
(59): Barbour, Brain M. ''American
Transcendentalism an anthology of criticism'' (Washington: Star Print Brokers,
Inc, 1973). P. 36
39. (60): Halengran, Anders.
''The code of Concord
40.
(61): Thoreau, Henry David. ''Walden and other writings'' (Washington:
University Press, 1981) p. 48
41.
(62): Loving, Jerome.
''American Transcendentalism'', In Arch Literary Journal, 6, (Feb, 2007).
P. 18,19
42. (63): Myerson, Joel.
''Transcendentalism'' (Colorado
43. (64): Encyclopedia
Britannica ''American Literature'', 2009.
44. (65): Yesgeneh, Farah.
P. 117
45. Ibid. P. 118
46. Ibid. P. 119
47. Ibid. P. 120
48. Ibid. P. 121
49. Ibid. P. 122
50.
(71): Williams, Raymond. ''Keywords: A
Vocabulary of culture and society'' (Washington: University Press, 1988)
p. 14
51. (72): Reuben, Paul
P, p. 50
52. Ibid. P. 51
53. Ibid. P. 52
54. Ibid. P. 53
55. Ibid. P. 54
56. Ibid. P. 55
57. Ibid. P. 56
58. Ibid. P. 60
59. Ibid. P. 61
60. Ibid. P. 62
61.
(82): Combell, Donna M, ''Naturalism in
American Literature, Literary movement'' (New York :
New York University
62. Ibid. P. 34
63. Ibid. P. 35
64. Ibid. P. 36
65. Ibid. P. 37
66. Ibid. P. 40
67. Ibid. P. 41
68. Ibid. P. 42
69. Ibid. P. 44
70. Ibid. P. 59
71. Ibid. P. 60
72. (93): Williams,
Raymond. p. 70
73. Ibid. P. 71
74. Ibid. P. 72
75. Ibid. P. 73
(للدراسة تكملة ان
شاء الله)
Thank you
Regards,
Mustafa
( M. Mustafa Riad Al ajeely )
E-mail : mustafa2007ra@yahoo.com
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