The American, Daisy Miller, and A Portraitof a Lady (VanSpanckeren, The Rise of Realism). Some of Whartons famous novelswere The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, Summer, The Age of Innocence,and a novella Ethan Frome (VanSpanckeren, The Rise of Realism).Campbell states in Naturalism in American Literature, that the term naturalismdescribes a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivityand detachment to its study of human beings. Unlike realism, naturalism implies aphilosophical position that human beings are human beasts which can be studiedthrough their relationships with their surroundings (Campbell, Naturalism in AmericanLiterature). Through this study of human beings, writers of naturalism believe that thelaws behind the forces of human nature could be studied and understood (Campbell,Naturalism in Literature). Naturalistic writers studied human beings governed by theirinstincts and passions and well as how their lives were governed by forces of heredityand environment (Campbell, Naturalism in Literature). The naturalists used the sametechniques as the realists to accumulate detail, they had a specific object in mind whenthey chose the segment of reality they wished to convey (Campbell, Naturalism inLiterature). Naturalism is the literary expression of determinism, associated with bleak,realistic depictions of lower-class life (VanSpanckeren, The Rise of Realism).Determinism denies religion as a motivating force of the universe and perceives theuniverse as a machine (VanSpanckeren, The Rise of Realism). In that same light,Naturalists imagined society, instead, as a blind machine, godless and out of control(VanSpanckeren, The Rise of Realism).In naturalist writings, characters are frequently but not invariably ill-educated orlower-class characters whose lives are governed by the forces of heredity, instinct, andpassion (Campbell, Naturalism in Literature). The characters attempts at free w...
