Emile Zola

Naturalism And Realism

Emile Zola

Biography

• Born in Paris, 1840

• Only child of Italian immigrant and French mother

• Father died when Zola at 9, leaving him in extreme poverty

• Learning about poverty, often appearing in many subsequent novels

Biography(Cont.)

• 1862 to 1877, struggling along, publishing about a novel a year• With L'Assommoir, becoming famous, gaining profit

Biography(Cont.)

• Rougon-Macquart series, his great contribution to French literature

• Twenty volumes depicting various aspects of life and society under second empire in France

• Nana, the most successful

• Reading from one to another, struck by tremendous imagination

Biography(Cont.)

• Later life, becoming a champion of many causes

• Intervention in Dreyfus affair

• Famous article "J'accuse"(I Accuse) A bible for left-wing radicals

Biography(Cont.)

• Famous for views about naturalism• Novelists utilize scientific method in creating characters for fiction• Theoretical criticism influenced course of modern literature• Making his presence felt in almost every area of literary world• Called father of naturalism

Introduction To Realism

• By 1840 Romanticism worn out• Variety of factors: political, economic, social, scientific, incidental• Death of main Romantics• Rejection of metaphysical / transcendental• New set of ethical, political, social challenges

Introduction To Realism(Cont.)

• Reflection, mirror, reproduction• Emphasis on daily life• Objectivity• Visible, observable• Middle class

The Medieval Outlook

• World and our lives Teleological (They have a purpose, an aim)

• Absolutist world in religious and political thought• Earth’s design and purpose centers on God’s plan for our Earthly

existence• Earth, center and centerpiece of God’s creations

Challenges to the Old World View

Copernican Model of Universe–Earth no longer center of God’s universe–New timetables for Earth’s age

Challenges to the Old World View(Cont.)

Shift from Religious tradition and authority to Scientific Method

Rise of inductive methods of scholarship

Mechanistic view of Nature

Expansion of Secular Learning

Rise of Humanism and democratic reform

The Rise of Naturalism

• Descartes: Universe purely mechanical and materialistic

The Rise of Naturalism(Cont.)

• Newton: Detailed formulas for physical determinism with study of inertia and gravity


• Hegel: Theory of historical determinism• we all play scripted parts in progress of world


• Charles Darwin: Theory of biological determinism


• Karl Marx: Idea of economic determinism• Arguing social class and economic conditions in which humans

found themselves largely responsible for what they are


• Freud: Psychological determinism• Prenatal and early childhood experiences determine much of life


• B. F. Skinner similar theory of psychological determinism• Human shaped by stimulus-response conditioning same Pavlov’s dogs

• Much of modern psychology based on such theories.

Yes, Master!

Characteristics Of Naturalism

• Humanity trapped by forces out of control• Restricted life to ugly and unpleasant• Reduced to level of animal• Caught in hostile universe• Pessimistic determinism

Characteristics Of Naturalism(Cont.)

• Objective• Detached method of narration • Darwinist--survival of the fittest• Language--formal; piling on of images ("wretched excess")• Deterministic natural and socioeconomic forces stronger than man• Human unable to stand against enormous weight of circumstances


• Characters--lower socioeconomic class

• Attention to setting, point of saturation

• Heredity determines character

• Violence--force against force

• Static characters

• Animal imagery

• Taboo topics


• Naturalists observe, then write. About the black, darker side of life.• "Pessimistic materialistic determinism" • Characters conditioned or controlled by environment, heredity,

instinct or chance but they have compensating humanistic value affirms the significance of individual

• Characters not have free will (determinism)

Zola And Naturalism

• Systematic, objective, and scientific extension of Realism

• Duty of the novelist: Presenting as accurate a picture of life as possible

• Functioning as scientifically and as objectively as possible

• Representatives of working class

Zola And Naturalism(Cont.)

• Purpose: presenting understanding contemporary social milieu

• A "corner of reality seen through a temperament“

• Character shown as product of his environment and heredity

• People's actions, like those of a beast

Zola And Naturalism(Cont.)

• Themes:• “Conflict 'man against nature' or 'man

against himself‘

• Characters struggling to retain a 'veneer of civilization' despite external pressures that threaten to release 'brute within'

• Nature, indifferent to man

• Universe, deterministic

The Experimental Novel

• Importance of hereditary and environmental determinism

• Application of “scientific method” to literature

• Man seen as another animal

• Novel as laboratory

• Godless universe

The Experimental Novel(Cont.)

• History, social and economic

conditions shaping protagonists

• Collective protagonists

• Including all aspects of human

experience

The Experimental Novel(Cont.)

• Not focusing on “beautiful”

• Sex, brutality, violence, crude

language

• Image of reality emphasizing social

injustices and defects

• Readers saw in it a means of

rebellion against dominant classes

THANK YOUPREPARED AND PRESENTED BY:

FATEMEH GHAHRAMANLITERARY CRITICISM 1

Emile Zola

Education

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