Naturalism

Naturalism, a literary movement which espoused the application of scientific principles to fictional works, emerged in late nineteenth-century France. A combination of factors, including an increasing interest in scientific experimentation, widespread economic disparity, and political repression, gave rise to a group of writers committed to the eradication of social ills through objective observation and faithful description of human experience. Adherents to Naturalism therefore viewed all of life as their province: they pledged to defy conventional restrictions on subject matter through the frank treatment of sex and the graphic portrayal of brutality, corruption, and decay. Applying to literature theories of determinism, derived primarily from the works of Charles Darwin, Naturalistic writers in Europe and America portrayed characters as helpless victims, subject...