N.B. This page of notes is shared by all 3 sections of 399 since it is not assigned to a particular group. You are more than welcome to sketch out—in whatever fashion you would like—notes for these days of class. Doing so could be a useful way to prepare for exams. No one is required to contribute to these notes, and you will not be bound by the normal restrictions of the notes (word count and/or passage number limits). It’s simply an option in case you’d consider it to be useful.

Summary

We started the class with an introduction to Darwin's theory of natural selection and the effect it had on literature.  The category of Naturalism stems from the idea that the environment and heredity leads to the situation in which characters are placed. We also talked about how Frank Norris liked to call naturalism "romantic fiction."  Naturalism can be summed up as an offshoot from Realism, the darker/dirtier side of Realism and the characters are determined by heredity, environment, or chance.  We briefly discussed Sister Carrie and how it is Naturalism: city versus nature; nature is "saving hands" while city is "cosmopolitan standard" (941).  We also discussed Frank Norris and the relation of "Fantaisie Printaniere" to Naturalism.  The character descriptions are animalistic, implying humans descending from animals.  

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Key Terms

Naturalism: represents details differently from Realism; involves lower social classes and less polite activities ("dirty" compared to Realism"); We talked about how the character situations are determined by environment, heredity, or chance. Naturalism is not afraid to show the real substance behind the situation and usually the characters go through terrible events as opposed to Realism which only looks at the surface of things.