Melodrama Research Paper

John Steinbeck 's novel Of Mice and Men is a famous Naturalist work in American literature. Various elements of Naturalism is exhibited in this novel through its character types and story plot. Charles Darwin, an English Naturalist proposed a theory called natural selection, meaning that nature selects the best adapted varieties to survive and reproduce. Darwin also identified this theory as survival of the fittest. Steinbeck incorporated this belief of natural selection in many instances throughout Of Mice and Men using characters and their circumstances. One character named Candy has an injury and is old in age. They were leading factors in his fear of being unemployed. His dog’s old age and uselessness also resulted in its death.

“[A] manner or technique of treating subject matter that presents, through volume of detail, a deterministic view of human life and actions.” (dictionary.com) Naturalism is defined as a word and type of literature Crane uses in the novella, Maggie. In order to avoid proper names along with pronouns in specific scenes, Crane uses a naturalistic device as a tendency. This throws the reader off-balance conveying a pure( documentary explanation. In this naturalistic work of literature, there is an unusual occurrence where the appearance of Maggie seems as if it's a miraculous event. Someone outside of nature. (“Death is treated...”)

Naturalism is a literary movement that encapsulates the struggles of the common population. Hamlin Garland presents an excellent example of Naturalist literature in his short story “Under the Lion’s Paw”, published in 1889. In this short story, many of Dr. Stephen doCarmo’s characteristics of Naturalism are visible. Dr. doCarmo describes three broad characteristics of Naturalism: individuals are subjected to larger uncontainable forces, political undertones are prevalent within the work, and the subject matter of the work appeals to the middle-class. “Under the Lion’s Paw” possesses all three of these characteristics and radiates naturalism.

    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.

In the short story, An Episode of War by Stephan Crane, Naturalism is exhibited in two different situations. Naturalism is described by ordinary people doing everyday things who believe that there are forces beyond their control. The first example of Naturalism appears in this story when the lieutenant was shot. He was shot while giving out coffee to the soldiers, and this incident is a form off Naturalism because he was minding his own business and did nothing to provoke it. This quote explains why it was out of his control, “During this moment the men bout him gazed statue like and silent, were not expected…” Another example of Naturalism in the story is when the lieutenant’s arm was amputated. After being shot and returned to the medical

Some authors decide to create a utopian universe using the power of words. Other authors write novels which portray an exceedingly tragic civilization. But, a few distinct authors chose to show readers the sickly sweet truth of reality. John Steinbeck was one of those unique authors. He was born in 1902, attended Stanford University for six years, and even won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. This great American author died six years after he won the award. Two of the many books he wrote are two novellas: The Pearl and Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck’s naturalistic writing style shines brightly in these two short stories making them naturalistic. and does not go unnoticed.

To avoid being penalized and fined for presenting theatre , playwrights quickly found ways to get around the law by producing these pieces composed of short scenes with musical interludes. Melodramas typically told the story of a hero or heroine (a middle class worker), up against a stereotyped villain (from the aristocracy/ upper class) and dealt with basic issues of morality and romance. Though Shakespeare was the most performed play in terms of quantity, melodramas faired very well and would often out perform dramas. Melodrama became a popular form of theatre, as it appealed to the working class with it’s easily accessible and relatable content. It relied heavily on visual and scenic imagery to relay what was happening to the audience.

After the Revolution the theatre changed to help people deal with what was going on in the world. “Many European playgoers, like their counterparts in Paris, also sensed that the older forms of comedy and tragedy could no longer accommodate what they were reading about in their newspapers” (Zarrilli, 247). To adjust to the changing events, Melodrama had much to offer their new audiences. .“ Melodrama elevated nature and intuition over reason as better guides to morality and possible utopia. “The first melodramas presented a traditional utopia of order and happiness was just around the corner if only the good people used their intuition to root out and banish the bad people from society” (Zarrilli, 247). There was a high demand for melodramas,

61. naturalism- a literary movement that sought to achieve every day realism. Jack London's Call

Romanticism gave liberty to the author to express his thought in such terms as seemed to him most appropriate, without regard to what his predecessors had said. Only the drama could give a truly national character to the Romantic Movement. The battle of the Romanticists and Classicists was fought on the field of the drama. The dramatic changes have not been of the greatest value or most permanent character. One of the distinctive type of drama was tragic-comedy, it was very popular in the theatre, the French called it drame, a modified mixture of the old divisions of the art. It admits a greater variety of personages on the stage, and rejects the stock characters of the old style. It even allows that disjointed action, which has always been characteristic of the English stage, but was positively prohibited by the canons of the French, and even of the Greek

Cather wrote this book to show a family's not perfect, and that spending time complaining about life’s a waste of time. I also believe that Cather wrote this book to prove a message to people such as be careful with your choices because they can affect you in the future. She split the book between three main philosophies of life, realism, romanticism, and naturalism. All the characters went through all of these at different times, and some at the same. I think she made the book more romanticism because of the different types of love stories.

“Naturalism, sometimes also called reductive physicalism, scientism, scientific naturalism, or materialism, holds that all that exists is physical and can be reduced to its elemental material composition.” (Sanford, Wilkens, 2009) In other words, what you see is what you get. The scientific naturalism worldview holds to the belief that all reality is physical and natural and operates according to natural order and the laws of nature. This worldview denies the possibility of God and claims that all things are made of the same natural material and nothing new has ever been created, just reconfigured to take the shape of something else. Instead, scientific naturalism recognizes cause and effect as the basis to explain and predict the events of the world and that there is no other realm, outside of the physical one we live in. Naturalism insists that there is no mind, no self, no soul, and no choice. Ultimately, scientific naturalism is a scientific way to try to deny and disprove the existence of God.

To start things off, both versions touched on the four traits in which naturalism convey. Those four traits being heredity, passion, instinct, and environment. However, not all traits were expressed the same, and not all traits had the same substance or background information within the stories.

Naturalism was a literary movement that took place from the 1880s until the 1940s. It used realism as a mechanism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had a monumental impact in changing or defining human character. Naturalism exposes the dark areas of life and how they affected people, such as sex, violence, disease, prejudice, abandonment, disease, and even death. Naturalism, in short, is a need to return to the earth. (Williams, 571) A prime example of this literary theory

Naturalism is a philosophy which emphasizes “the effect of heredity and environment on human nature and action” (Zhang) and incorporates realism to “suggest that social conditions… and environment [have] inescapable force in shaping human character” (Zhang). Furthermore, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Natural Philosophy explains that to Naturalists, “reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality” (Papineau). Naturalism (in literature) is an idea that suggests everything about humanity is measurable, detectable, manipulatable, and traceable to a cause, and therefore the characters of Naturalist literature would be illustrated as simply the products of their environments; vessels devoid of spiritual guidance or fate that are subject only to their environments. An example of a Naturalistic novel is The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton; a novel set in late 19th century New York that follows Lily Bart: a young woman who was born rich but is slowly losing both her societal status and her money whilst she repeatedly avoids marriage, her only option to escape her fate: a life of poverty. With this in mind, The House of Mirth is an exemplary example of a Naturalistic novel because of its portrayal of characters as the product of their environments.