Realist and Naturalist Novel: Key Features
Philosophical Issues
Positivism
Positivism focuses on observable facts, setting aside speculative constructs inherent in idealism. Auguste Comte (1798-1857), in his Course of Positive Philosophy (1830-1842), emphasized observing phenomena and identifying the laws governing their behavior, rather than seeking ultimate causes.
Marxist Philosophy
The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels was published in 1848. In 1847, Marx began publishing Capital. Marxist philosophy aims not only to interpret the world but also to transform it. It proposes both theory and practical struggle to dismantle bourgeois society and establish socialism.
Construction of the Realist Novel
- Thematic Area: The conflict between the individual and society, analyzing its causes, social processes, and psychological processes. This involves examining both the individual and their environment.
- Character Focus: The center of the realist novel is the character, with their distinct and individual traits, developed and revealed through action. However, the character also embodies general characteristics of their class or social group. The portrayal of characters gives rise to the psychological novel, which thoroughly analyzes temperaments and motivations.
- Reproduction of Reality: The realist novel strives for an accurate depiction of reality. Influenced by scientific theories, it relies on direct observation of social reality. Novelists conduct thorough research to achieve environmental and psychological accuracy. They aim to represent the entirety of reality, often describing a variety of environments, predominantly urban spaces.
- Social Intention: There is almost always a social intention, aiming to expose societal flaws with a critical perspective, which depends on the author’s ideological orientation.
- Authorial Objectivity: Due to an ideal of objectivity, the author tends to be replaced. However, the author possesses complete knowledge, both internal and external, of all characters. This is known as omniscience.
- Style: The style prioritizes sobriety and attempts to reproduce the unique aspects of characters’ speech (slang, mispronunciations, regionalisms, etc.).
Naturalism
Naturalism is a literary trend initiated in France by Émile Zola (1840-1902), who aimed to be a scientist of narrative. He first articulated its principles, theoretically, in the preface to the second edition of his novel Thérèse Raquin (1868).
Characteristics of Naturalism:
- It is not merely a literary trend but a conception of humanity and a method for studying and transcribing human behavior.
- It applies the doctrine of biological determinism, emphasizing heredity and environmental influence. This approach aligns with positivist science, where individuals are seen as products of pre-existing and selected circumstances (biological inheritance and social conditions), thus challenging the notion of free will.
- Naturalism incorporates direct observation of reality and combines it with experimentation. The novelist experiments with their characters, placing them in specific situations to observe their behavior under biological and social determinism.
- It denounces misery, the corruption of bourgeois society, and individual hopelessness. This, combined with determinism and experimentation, results in a portrayal of sick, psychopathic, and miserable characters, along with descriptions of squalid environments. Characters may belong to different social classes to demonstrate how class status qualifies or exacerbates natural tendencies.