King's Gothic Naturalism

Naturalism is an ongoing literary movement that has been apparent since the 1900’s. It depicts how the environment, social conditions, and even hereditary characteristics influence and shape the way a human character will develop. It is believed that there is no escaping this realism, and each situation one experiences is what will establish the route of life that they will partake. A short story called “My Antonia”, written by Willa Cather is merely categorized with Realism and Naturalism, though it is evident that several aspects portray supernatural occurrences. The specific characters throughout these excerpts show the reflection of Naturalism by experiencing struggles of deprivation which resulted in their lives being shaped by

Jack had finally killed the pig and he knows it. The show of twitching can be shown as the lasting exhilaration from the kill. It is supported by this quote “He danced a step or two, then remembered his dignity and stood still grinning.” (Golding 69). That shows that jack enjoyed the killing of the pig. Jack now has had a taste in vitally harming another living being physically. This experience influences jack’s action to be more bolder with his new found confidence. Before he was restrained by his consciousness of killing another living being, but now all that has been lost. He starts to act like a savage becoming more domineering and careless of his actions towards others because of the skill experience that he has gained of hunting down an animal. “Jack smacked Piggy’s head.” (Golding 71). Jack’s action becomes more unrestrained and vicious. Before he would only verbally abuse Piggy because society restraining him from any physical violence. But after the killing of the pig, Jack begins to get violent and physical. As shown in the quote when he smacks Piggy’s head. This is one of the two main points of jack’s turn from civility into savagery. These actions without laws and persecution lets jack’s savagery flow out. He begins to act more unrestrained without the punishments voiced criticism of society. And as the leader of hunter’s he begins to influence others to act the

Jack's violence that had once been simply part of his disguise, seems to have become a part of him. And it seems to be something that Jack enjoys too much, somewhat like a psychopath. “Robert was screaming and struggling with the strength of frenzy. Jack had him by the hair and was brandishing his knife.” “Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands.” Jack's original plan of creating a new personality for himself seems to have gone to his head. And the psychopath within him has come alive.

All throughout his childhood, Jack always feels guilty or “unworthy” as he puts it. He is convinced that he is responsible for everything that is happening in his life and his mothers. It is almost as if he blames himself for his father leaving, and his mom’s shady relationships with abusive men. This reveals Jack as a very sensitive character who feels so bad for other people’s mishaps that he blames himself for them to cope with it, in my opinion. “I started loading up the rifle… I drew a bead on whoever walked by… and as they passed under the window I sometimes had to bite my lip to keep from laughing in the ecstasy of my power over them” (Wolff 25).

During the Transcendentalist movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous quote in his booklet, Nature, gave a lot of insight on the identity of the human race. His quote, “A man is a god in ruins” indicates a sense of the “fallen” nature, and really emphasizes our faults and our limits, and many authors during this time person also seemed to follow this philosophy. In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s other work, Self-Reliance, he is also able to capture this same essence from text to text. In addition to Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville all follow the same philosophy in their own respective texts. The reader is able to see a common theme consistently throughout Self-Reliance, Economy (in Walden), The Artist of the Beautiful and Bartleby the Scrivener and Benito Cereno. Throughout each of these texts, the reader essentially focuses on how the nature of the human race focuses on how we are more than ordinary stone ruins, but we are lesser than Gods. The optimism of Emerson’s quote exploring the nature of the human person is depicted in their own way and different writing style throughout all of these different texts.

Heredity, though seemingly insignificant, predetermines characters’ environment and how they react to it. Jack London’s short story describes the physical effects of heredity as it determines

Here's he's practically morphing into an animal, with the kind of "bloodthirsty snarling" you'd associate with a man-eating tiger rather than a 12-year-old choir boy. He desires to hunt constantly, but Ralph won’t let him. With the desire comes bad things, he forgets to do his jobs. Jack goes to the extreme by going hunting when Ralph would tell him that he shouldn’t. All he cared about was hunting. Jack allows hunting to cloud his frame of mind. He takes it too far when he decided to leave the group that everyone had made and start a new group where they hunted. All they cared about was hunting in the new

Freedom can be extraordinary, but for some people, too much freedom leads to the being of a devil. In the novel the Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a plane full of British boys crash-land on an island during World War II. Without adults, the children from age six to twelve go from many stages such as civilized and untamed. Their age and their maturity affect much of their behavior and actions. Some of the children start as innocent and then become plain savages through the course of events on the island.

    Challenging the strict deterministic confines of literary naturalism, which hold that "the human being is merely one phenomenon in a universe of material phenomena" (Gerard 418), Edith Wharton creates in The House of Mirth a novel which irrefutably presents the human creature as being subject to a naturalistic fate but which conveys a looming sense of hope that one may triumph over environment and circumstance if one possesses a certain strength of will or a simple faith in human possibility.

Through simile and telegraphic sentences, King reinforces Jack’s focus on his career and reputation, and by extension characterizes him as wholly selfish and uninterested in the safety of his family. Jack is losing interest in doing what is best for his family and remains controlled by his anger. Immediately after expressing love for his wife, Jack’s “hands were still clenched into fists. They felt like rocks on the ends of his arms”(King 394). This simile offers a contrast to the family man Jack is supposed to be; he says he cares about his wife and son, but feels like they are weighing him down. His line of work, both writing and caretaking, require use of his hands- by comparing them to rocks, it is shown that Jack feels unable to truly do what he wants to because of his family. Jack is

To begin with Jack, Jack wants power and leadership. The situation Jack is in makes his evil grow. Jack is letting the situation control him which is increasing the evil inside of him. The evil inside him is making him more selfish and violent. For example, at the starting of the novel when Jack had failed to kill the pig he cries to Ralph, “[Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up. ‘I went on. I thought, by myself-’ The madness came into his eyes again. ‘I thought I might kill.” (Golding 51). The quote shows how at the starting of the novel Jack had good inside of him as he had feared killing an animal which makes sense as he is a kid. This shows that Jack was not evil from the beginning. But the situation and atmosphere increase the evil inside of him when he says, “I thought I might kill” this shows how the

The Naturalist work, “To Build a Fire” by Jack London excels in the Naturalist idea of determinism. This means that what could happen, most likely will happen. Through the character’s treacherous journey in the snow and frigid temperatures we can see two pieces of masculinity exemplified by our author, the fighter’s mentality, and stubbornness. The masculine fighter’s mentality and will to never give up shows men’s perseverance through a Naturalistic view. One of these views was that behavior was determined by your environment (Darwin). This environment that are character was in was critical which lead to the man having a careful outlook but still end up

Human nature is something that never seems to change. While humans all seem to be different from one another through physical and emotional attributes, their psychological behaviors are all mostly very similar. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, many authors successfully could explain the characteristics of human nature and the effects that it has on everyone and everything surrounding human beings. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe all convey the behavior of human nature in separate ways. These three authors show the curiosity, drive for perfection, and fear of human nature throughout their texts in detail. With these characteristics being prominent in human nature itself, it

Naturalist literature incorporates scientific ideologies, and the studies of humans lives, environment, and forces of inheritance. Survival is a particularly significant theme in Naturalist fiction. Often Naturalist fiction is narrated from a detached, clinical narrative voice. The narrator, Maggie, is an exemplary example of an unconnected character. This relation adds to the scientific perspective of the work. Ideas of Social Darwinism and the survival of the fittest are incorporated in the novel by the author. A writer like Crane also uses literary methods such as imagery to further the perspectives of Naturalism. Stephen Crane’s nineteenth-century story, “Maggie: a Girl of the Streets,” illustrates naturalism and scientific perspective through the narrative voice, Social Darwinism ideologies, and literary techniques.

In American Literature many authors write about nature and how nature affects man's lives. In life, nature is an important part of people. Many people live, work, or partake in revelry in nature. Nature has received attention from authors spanning several centuries. Their attitudes vary over time and also reflect the different outlooks of the authors who chose to discuss this important historical movement. A further examination of this movement, reveals prevalence of nature's influence on man and how it affects their lives.