, Naturalism And Realism

The early years of the United States once held a Christian philosophy in which laid down the foundation for the American government and social institutions. Nevertheless, American society gradually shifted from a philosophical view on the nature of reality to be absolute and unchanging, to welcoming a philosophy that recognizes the nature of reality as consistently changing and progressing. From supernaturalism to naturalism, all aspects of recent American society—especially civil-social areas—has been naturally and unequivocally affected and transformed by process philosophy.

Note: The assignment requires me to express my understanding of worldviews and I did. Look over my assignment and determined another outcome.

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.

Discuss the historical context of the origins (emergence) of this perspective.  When did it arise?  Was it a response to any previous perspectives?

In Chapter 4 of Groothuis’s Christian Apologetics, he describes the Christian worldview using several major categories of belief. For this section of your paper, you will describe the worldview you have selected to write about using these same categories of belief. For example, what does the worldview you have selected believe about ultimate reality? What do they believe about the source of morality?

From as early as 408 B.C.E., iterations of the adage ‘misery loves company’ have appeared in written texts. First attributed to Sophocles in Athens, this popular dictum has traveled far from Greece, and has found itself at the core of Ethan Frome. In Edith Wharton’s tragic novella Ethan Frome (1911), the titular protagonist’s infliction of suffering encompasses the key principles of Naturalism. Illustrating this, Ethan forces Zeena, his wife, to disengage from her environment and retreat into silence. Further, he recklessly pursues Mattie, Zeena’s exuberant cousin, and dulls the radiance which first attracted him. And as the final nail, Ethan cages himself in obligation, desperately rattling its bars, but never stepping past them.

At the very core of naturalist beliefs however, matter is all that there was, is, and ever will be. The implications of this take on reality is that humans are merely complex machines, a result of evolution. How then, can one be sure that what one thinks to be logic and reason is really significant at all? Ironically, naturalism began as an Age of Enlightenment based on the affirmation of human intelligence, but a truly consistent naturalist leads to what is called a nihilist. Nihilists realize that they can place no confidence in knowing anything at all. In an attempt to escape the hopeless vacuum of nihilism, existentialism emerged, accepting all the propositions of naturalism except those regarding human nature and humans’

Realism, Naturalism, and Regionalism are just a few examples of the many styles of writing that exist. Each style of writing deals with a specific time period. Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”, Henry James’s “Daisy Miller”, and Mary E Wilkins Freeman’s “The Revolt of Mother” are just a few examples of the literary works that represent these time periods. These literary works are perfect examples of the specific time periods each writing style was popular among certain authors. These stories allow readers to compare the modern times that we live in currently to the period these authors were in. They also allow the reader to branch out and be different.

The religious context of The Sun Also Rises is mostly based off of Naturalism in some cases it can even be viewed as Nihilism. Naturalism is the belief of a “soulless universe”

Realism is a theory that depicts world politics as a ceaseless repetitive struggle for power. In other words, political realism seeks to explain international relations between states in terms of power. Realist “views that nation-state as the most important actor…because it answers to no higher authority;” in other words, it is an anarchic system (Kegley, 27). Some traits of realism are that states are sovereign, non-cooperation among states, and the exclusion if morality in policies.

When trying to comprehend international politics, current events, or historical context, having a firm grasp on the various international relations theories is essential to understanding patterns when looking at interstate affairs. Realism, liberalism, constructivism, and marxist radical theory are used to provide a framework by which we can dissect international relations.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Christian belief encountered significant opposition. Until then, most of the world shared the belief of the “Medieval world view” that not only was the earth positioned at the center of the universe, but that God was all knowing, all powerful and all good. God was thought to have created and sustained the wondrous workings of the universe. This belief told the people all they needed to know about the meaning and purpose of life. Then, scientific discovery and methods began to undermine religious beliefs. Scientists began to reveal that natural laws and natural forces governed the world. Opposing beliefs, e.g. the Marxism belief, criticized Christian views. People like, Bacon, Copernicus, Kepler,

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.

    Writers involved in the naturalist movement believed that actors' lines should be spoken naturally, and that mechanical movements, vocal effects, and irrational gestures should be banished. A return to reality was proposed, with the old theatrical attitudes replaced with effects produced solely by the voice. There was a call to individualise characters, instead of generalising them, to produce characters whose minds and bodies would function as they would in real life. Strindberg's 'Miss Julie' has been said to be an excellent example of this movement, as it involves stress on multiple motivation of action; a departure from the stereotypical depictions of character; and random, illogical

In terms of writing and dramatic style, naturalism is a heightened form of realism. Naturalistic dramas generally follow guidelines created by Aristotle, the Greek philosopher. These rules are known as “the three unities”: action, place and time. The general rule is that the events of the play should take place in the same location over a single day. Naturalism was made popular by the French writer Émile Zola, and his principles were modified by the French for the stage in the late nineteenth-century. Zola’s rules, known as “the three principles of naturalism” formed the basis for the naturalist movement in theatre. The first principle, faire vrai, was that the play had to be realistic and be as close a study of the human condition as possible. The second principle, faire grand, was that the play had to be meaningful and each theme or event had to be of some significance. And lastly, the third principle, faire simple, was that the play had to be simple and the writer should not to clutter the play with unnecessary sub-plots or dialogue. Naturalism spread through Europe in the twentieth-century until it reached the USSR. Stanislavski, a Russian theatre producer, thought that melodrama was unrealistic and unbelievable. Therefore, he set up the Moscow Art Theatre, in which he created new rules for theatre which all of his actors had to follow. In naturalistic acting, characters had to be realistic and believable, and the costumes needed to reflect the different character’s