4

Str cture
Objectives
The Changing America
The Literary Context of Theodore Dreiser
Naturalism:, The European Legacy
American Naturalism
Let Us Sum Up
Questions
Suggestions for Further Reading

will discuss the social and political situation in America at the turn of the
century. The significance of Theodore Dreiser lies in the fact that he
the inner conflicts of American society at a time when the modem America
g shaped. He also invented a new idiom to narrate the nature of this
reality. To fully comprehend his achievement it is necessary to know the
itical context that produced him. Since he was influenced by European
its legacy will have to be analysed briefly. The major voices in American
n before Dreiser also merit attention. Dreiser obviously learnt many things from
Dreiser's contribution as a novelist will have to be assessed against the
traditions in American literature.

1.1 . THE CHANGING AMERICA

nd half of the nineteenth century witnessed major transformation in every

of American life. From a predominantly agrarian country America turned into
al power. Large-scale urbanization changed the basic structure of
society. The population increased from 23 million in 1850 to 76 million in
a period of massive commercial expansion. Factories sprang up in urban
larly in the North which was getting heavily industrialized. Railroads
ous parts of the country opened up new modes of transport and
. All this meant new opportunities and possibilities. America was still
which attracted several migrants from outside, particularly Europe.

war that happened between 1861 and 1865 was a turning point in American
erica was divided into two camps on the question of slavery. While the
m States (Union) opposed slavery, the Southern seceded states (Confederacy)
factors such as regional conflicts, the moral indignation aroused
o wanted the abolition of slavery ("abolitionists7'), and disagreements
g federal control of states' rights contributed towards the civil war. Abraham
s Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 ended slavery but the Civil War
r three more yeas till the seceded Southern States conceded defeat. The
was tinged with grief as President Lincoln was assassinated on 14
e Civil War has had a deep impact on the psyche of American nation.
come to terms with its defeat while the country as a whole had to
of more Americans than in any other war. After the abolition of their
Americans entered a new phase of their history. The period between
known as the period of Reconstruction whed the South ravaged by
brought under the federal control and steps were taken to ensure
Sister Carrie civil rights for the blacks. However, the 'facial tensions continued to plague American
nation.

The massive industrialization that went on throughout the 19" century altered the
social structure of America completely. Clear divisions between the rich and the
poor, the Whites and the Blacks, the industrialized North and the Agrarian South
became visible now. The great expansion of American nation during the period
between 1810 and 1865 had left a trail of violence in its wake. The Native American
Indians were removed from their land forcibly, and on many occasions, exterminated.
Slavery spread from Virginia to Texas deepening the racial divisions in the country.
With the advance of market capitalism the household economy characteristic of an
agrarian society went into decline. American psyche had to come to terms with the
violence and guilt engendered by these events. It has been argued that the growth of
evangelical religion was a reaction to the deep-rooted anxiety that plagued American
nation during its formative period. Evangelical religion gave rise to several reform
movements and also led to antislavery sentiments.

The developments in socio-political field have their impact on intellectual domain.

The remarkable expansion of the public forum is reflected in the spread of the print
media. The number of magazines increased from 100 in 1825 to 600 in 1850.
Commenting on the growing popularity of newspapers C.F. Briggs remarked in his
Broadway Journal in 1945 that 'nine-tenths of the population read nothing else'. By
1833 there were three times as many newspapers being published in the United States
as in France or England. Through this impressive reach of the print medium a nen
sense of belonging was created in the reading community which comprised of
workers, women, children, farmers and professionals from various fields. lssucs of
public interest found articulation in the powefil medium of the newspaper u h ~ c h
now helped the people to come together and formulate their views.

The North and the South did not agree on many issues because of their separate
histories and social structures. Garrison's Liberator, a journal which appeared first on
January 1, 1831, soon became a platform for those who argued in favour of the
abolition of slavery. By the 1850s the North-South divide on the question of slave?.
was deepening into a major conflict. The prose writings of this period such as diaries.
letters and newspaper articles present the picture of a divided nation. It was during
this period of American history that the myth of a lazy, decadent and barbaric South
was born. As opposed to it, North was civilized, cultured, enterprising and vigorous.
This stereotype of a benign North and an evil South has played a significant rolc in
narrating the American nation. The South was identified with the Blacks. Charles
Eliot Norton referred to the South as "transatlantic Africa". The Noitherners saw both
the White masters and Black slaves in the American South as black. The North \\as
"progressive" while the South was "barbarous". These cultural stereotypes \\-ere
reinforced during the middle part of the 19" century through historical narratives,
travelogues and fictional works;

As we move from the first half of the 19' century to its second half, we find major
changes in the status of writing and writers. In the next section we would briefly
discuss the group of authors described as Transcendentalists. Here it may be
mentioned that this group of authors who rose into prominence in the 1830s and
1840s still wrote in the shadow of English romanticism. In the early 19Ihcentury
literary writing is not a klly institutionalised activity in America. Publishing houses
and literary magazines which help authors to live on writing are yet to be founded on
a large-scale. Of all American writers only one, James Fenimore Cooper. was able to
make a living by writing prior to 1850. Authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-
1864) and Henry David Thoreau (18 17-1862) did not enjoy wide readership, initially.
The authors were not clear whom they were addressing. Hence a Walt Whitman
chooses to address everyone while an Emily Dickinson addresses none in particular
 plete transformation in the cultural scene in the post-Civil War period. The Literary
in demand now. Best-selling women authors such as Susan Contest
mmins have a large readership. Literary peiiodicals such as
hly, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Century enjoy wide circulation.
ry culture that now gets defined has been described as genteel.
n the native Protestant culture. It shapes the literary sensibility of the
schools and libraries it gets disseminated to a larger audience. The
ssics become well-established in the minds of a large population. laying
r a coherent national liter& culture. This literary culture allowed
respectability and ensured their security and survival. Authors like Mark
(1835-1910), William Dean Howells (1837-1920) and Henry James (1843-
were the products of this environment. American realism of the late 19th
is the achievement of this high culture of letters. Three of its best knoxn tests
dventures of Huckleberry Finn, James's The Bostonions and
ofSilas Lapham were all published in The Century in 1884 and

influence their cultural values.

author like Theodore Dreiser was made possible by the culture of the popular

aging editor of The Delineator, a fishion-pattern magazine. It will be shown later

Dreiser's major works were influenced by the classics of the 19" century. But we

emerge in this discussion will help us understand its major achievements.

for a well-defined American identity is a recurring theme in the writings

ational literature which examines American experience from various points of view.
Sister Carrie In the place of British models, American modes of thought and expression are
evolved and perfected during this time.

The transcendentalists provide a good example of this trend. They re-interpreted the
British Romanticism in American context. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Harvard-
educated Unitarian minister and Henry David Thoreau, his close associate werc the
major exponents of transcendental ways of thinking. 'They believed in the primacy of
intuition and imagination. The Romantic idea of the artist as a prophetic seer is
central to their concept of the world and art. For them the inspired artist is a greater
source of spiritual vision than the priest or the,church. They challenged the prevailing
orthodoxies in religion and society. There is a strong reformist element in the
idealism of their philosophy. Their assertion of intuitive understanding owes much to
the G e m ideas of Kant and English Romantic poetry. Truth is accessible to every
individual who communes with his own inner spirit. The liberating aspects of
transcendentalist thinking can be seen in the renewed efforts for the abolition of
slavery. In "American Scholar" Emerson declared that America should look within,
and not depend on Europe for inspiration. In "Self-Reliance" Emerson declares his
faith in the uniqueness of each individual. He who conforms to the given norms of
the society will never create anything new. Emerson advocates non-conformism and
individualism. Henry David Thoreau put into practice many of the ideas propagated
by Emerson. Thoreau's Walden is an account of his secluded life in the words by the
Walden Pond, supporting himself without any assistance from the outside world.
q o r e a u strongly disapproves of the materialistic values which were gaining wide
currency in American society. Thoreau feels that human progress should not be
measured in terms of material comforts or prosperity. He is also against excessive
control of social life by the government. His essay, "Civil Disobedience" is a
landqxirk in the American thought of the 19' century.

The achievements of the transcendentalists are primarily in non-fictional prose and

lyric poetry. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) who discovered the structure and form of
the modem short story is a major figure of the first half of the 1 9 ' ~
century. His
aesthetic theory stresses the idea of beauty. He believes that the beautiful has a
universal appeal. According to him a sense of the Beautiful issues from the human
instinct for harmonious perfection. The intensity and elevation of poetic style has an
impact on the emotions of the reader. Poe's aesthetic of taste and beauty had a great
influence on the French symbolists later. Here it may be noted that American writers
like Hawthorne were also deeply influenced by him.

When we examine the development of the 19' century American literature we are
struck by the fact that despite the general mood of optimism and the Amer~can
emphasis on action and success, there is a brooding sense of agony and evil In the
major writers of the 19' century. This can be seen in Hawthorne, Melville. Poe and
Mark Twain Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1 864) was a friend of Emerson but was not
a transcendentalist. His best known novel, The Scarlet Letter tells the story of sin. and
retribution. Hester who commits adultery refiises to name her accomplice.
. Dimmesdale, a priest, in public. The novel portrays the undercurrents of desire, guilt
and remorse that torment the main characters It has been observed that Hawthorne
has portrayed a liberated woman in Hester. The novel has also been read as a moral
allegory represenbng the conflict between good and evil Hawthorne descnbed h ~ s
novels as romances. Making a distinction between the novel and romances.
Hawthorne held that the novel aims at "a very minute fidelity, not merel? to the
possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience". while the
romance allows greater room for deviation from realistic details.

Herman ~ e l v i l l emerits attention for his contribution to American fiction. He was

born in a middle class family in New York. He worked as a sailor in several ships and
undertook some adventurous journeys. All these experiences found their way into .the
books he wrote in 1840s. Among his best known works are Tvpee (1846). Red Bum
(1849), White Jacket (1850) and Moby Dick (185 1). He was a close fhend of
 in Hawthorne he found the same concern with the questions of evil The Literary
as he had found in Shakespeare.Moby LVck which is now recognised Contest
encan classic, explores the mystery of human mind with profound insight.
's quest is for his own identity. In Ahab we have one of the most mysterious
rs in American fiction. Ahab is obsessed with the white whale which he
with an animal-like single-mindedness.The thematic organisation of Mob1
s that Melville was trying to exorcise the Ahabian element in himself and
e presence of Ishmael gives it a rational
le for the menacing presence of evil it
ity makes his nafrafives parables on some of

name was Samuel Clemens had a varied career as an

entice printer, river pilot, journalist, editor and publisher. He is remembered for
isodic narratives, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Lve on the Mississippi
) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which are set against the great river of
elogue The Innocents Abroad was greatly popular. During his
acclaimed as a public speaker and newspaper columnist. In his
e of rustic speech in all its local colour. He portrayed his characters
h their picturesque local dialects. His novels could be read as a theatre of
voices that capture the essence of their ordinary lives. The great Mississippi
r becomes a central symbol in his major novels, suggesting the vastness and .
s novels have a strong undercurrent of satire as he directs his
the adult world of greed and folly.

above-mentioned writers have substantially contributed towards defining the

stream tradition of American fiction in the 1 9 century.
~ Thoreau's Walden,
Dick and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter have in common a deep
that investigates the inner life of man. What American fiction gained
ntury was the ability to conceive of man as a complex social
oncluding decades of the 19* century realism as a literary mode
came popular with several writers. In fact regionalism and realism which overlap in
ways can be traced in many works of the period. In the vernacular writing of
wain, Sarah Ome Jewett and Harnlin Garland, there is consistent treatment of
stions of race and class, thus highlighting the historical moment of the author.
I ism and regionalism can be seen as responses to the massive transformations
ve changed the social structure of America. By the end of the 19&century, land
become commodified and agrarian values have disappeared. Large-scale
ration of people from the rural to urban areas have displaced them both culturally
socially. The complex nature of the emergent reality demanded new modes of
ression. In Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser there is a hcination with the
y as in Charles Dickens, Feodor Dostoevsky or Emile Zola. The city becomes
erious because of its economic, social and aesthetic organisations. In the next
I
iscuss the European legacy of realism and naturalism as a preface to
t

I
-
1.3 NATURALISM: THE EUROPEAN LEGACY

In order to appreciate Theodore Dreiser's contribution to American fiction it is

necessary to place him in the context of naturalism. Sin& it is an essentially
European literary movement we shall discuss the legacy of European tradition of
naturalism in this section. The word 'naturalism' has been used for several centuries
to describe various writers ranging from Shakespeare and Rabelais to Byron and
Shelley. This only means that the term has been used in the literary contexts to
specify various phenomena. In the 18* century,naturalism signified a philosophical
system that defined man in purely materialistic terms. It denied the possibility of
transcending human existence to any higher metaphysical or divine realm. In the 19&
1 Sister Carrie century art criticism, the word 'naturalist' meant a painter who reproduced an exact
replica of natural objects on the canvas. The term entered literary criticism from the
field of fine arts. It was Emile Zola who used the term for the first time in the modem
sense, in the preface to the second edition of Therese Raquin (1867).

It is necessary to distinguish between 'naturalism' and 'realism' for a clearer

understanding of these terms. Realistic fiction in the 19' century was considered
distinct from romantic fiction. M.H. Abrams notes that "the realist is deliberately
selective in his material and prefers the average, the commonplace, and the everyday
over the rarer aspects of the contemporary scene". Hence there is a marked preference
in realistic fiction' for the middle and lower classes, and their struggles in life. It is
pertinent to remember that 'realism' was used in the 19' century primarily to refer to
a group of writers (Balzac in France, George Eliot in England and William Dean
Howells in America) whose works showed some of the tendencies mentioned above.
What the practitioners of realism and naturalism have in common is an unwavering
faith in the capacity of the written word to represent reality. For both art is basically
mimetic. Some critics like Harry Levin and L. Deffoux have argued that naturalism
is an intensification of realism. While realism implies a commitment to the mimetic
idea of art, naturalism has its own clear social philosophy. According to this
philosophy, human actions are determined by two kinds of natural forces namely
heredity and environment. Man is acted upon by social and economic forces in the
family, class and society he lives in. The following comments by M.H. Abrams will
. help us understand the attitude of naturalists better:

Zola, and other naturalist writers, such as the Americans Frank Noms,
Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser, and James Farrell, try to present their
subjects with an objective scientific attitude and with elaborate
documentation, often including an almost medical frankness about activities
and bodily functions usually unmentioned in earlier literature.. . The end of
the 'naturalistic' novel is usually ''tragd but not, in classical and Elizabethan
tragedy, because of a heroic but losing struggle of the individual mind and
will against gods, enemies and circumstance. The protagonist of the naturalist
plot, a pawn to multiple compulsions, merely disintegrates, or is wiped out.

This is a broad generalisation but will help us understand the general direction in
which a naturalistic novel moves. Here it may be added that 'naturalism' is a term
used in the context of fictional works while 'realism' may be used to characterise
whole or parts of a poem or a play.

The emergence of Naturalism has been variously traced to the impact of

industrialisation on human consciousness, the effect of the newly established sciences
and their empirical attitude to external reality. As we have seen above, the process of
industrialisation ushered in a new social structure in the Western world. As it brought
prosperity on an unprecedented scale, it also subjected millions of urban workers to
subhuman existence. Naturalist writers depicted the plight of the urban working class
in their fictional works. Zola's Germinal and Hanptmann's Die Weber describe
scenes from workers' strike. In Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carne we shall come
across a similar scene.

Naturalism can also be understood as a reaction to Romanticism. Natural~sts

'
investigated the objective world of phenomena and described it in minute detail based
on their observations. The development of the scientific method in the 19' century
seems to have influenced their world-view. Charles Darwin's Origin ofspecies
(1859) had strongly argued that man had evolved from lower forms of animals. The
naturalists were greatly influenced by the Darwinian concept of man as a creature
shaped by the forces of environment and heredity. R. Chase has observed: "The
protagonist of a naturalistic novel is at the mercy of circumstances rather than of
himself, indeed he often seems to have no self'. One of the criticisms directed against
m as a literary movement is that its concept of man is highly limited as it The Literary
recognise any metaphysical or transcendental potential in man. Context

had its own separate features with writers in the same group adhering to their

of this movement. In their choice of commonplace themes, stress on

seems to have prevented the emergence of a well-defined Naturalist

in England. However, a few minor writers such as Gissing, George

ly. This may have something to do with the massive

Sister Carrie In America, Naturalism held sway for a longer period. It is possible to speak of two
groups of naturalist writers, one succeeding the other. The first group consisting of
Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane and Frank Noms were influential during the period
from the mid-eighties to the closing years of the lgh century. The second group
consists of Theodore Dreiser (187 1-1945), Jack London (1876- 1916), John Steinbeck
(1902-68), Sinclair Lewis (1885-1950), Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) and Sherwood
Anderson (1876-1941). The individual writers of these two groups also have marked
differences between one another. This gives American naturalism greater range than
the French movement. Very often it is indistinguishable from realism. Hence
American naturalism of the twentieth century has also been described as the new
realism. It may also be added that outstanding poets such as Vachel Lindsay and Carl
Sandburg also contributed substantiallytowards the ideology of naturalism.
We have mentioned in the earlier sections that there were strong regional traditions in
American fiction in the 19&century. Bret Hark portrayed the life of the Californian
mining camps in his famous book, The Luck of Roaring Camp. Joel Chandler Harris
wrote about the South in his Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, which
contained stories and tales from Negro-life. Mark Twain's fiction brought alive the
manners of common people he encountered in daily life. W.D. Howells, as a very
influential editor, strongly rejected the tradition of romance and argued in fhvour of
'Truth and Sanity' in fiction. His own works are well known for their realistic
portrayal of life,
Stephen Crane also subscribed to the tenets of realism. Though we have grouped him
as one of the first generation naturalists, he was known as a 'veritist' in his own time.
Veritism was a creed which asserted an underlying unity between aesthetic and
practical life. It held that art is mimetic and great art has its base in the personal
experience. His well-known novel The Red Badge of Courage is set against the
background of American Civil War. The ironic awareness of Henry Fleming about
his own cowardice even as he is being feted as a hero imparts this novel a
psychological realism which is not seen in American fiction earlier. Here we also
note that Crane aims af the articulation of a higher truth through his depiction of
reality.
During the lgh century several slave narratives appeared in America. Though all of
them do not merit attention, as a group, these narratives are strongly autobiographical
and realistic. A book like Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American -
Slave, published in 1845, with a preface by William Lloyd Garrison, describes in
minute detail the dehurnanising aspects of slavery in a dispassionate tone. This book
xky be read as a social document on slavery in America. The relevance of this kind
of slave nanatives to the history of realism and naturalism needs to be underlined. An
Afro-American novel such as The House Behind the Cedars by Charles Chestmutt
(1858-1932), published in 1900 can be seen as a continuation of the tradition of Afro-
American fiction which begins with slave nanatives.
The above comment on Afro-American initiatives in the world of fiction is meant to
underline the varied so'luces of realistic and naturalistic traditions for American
fiction. In effect, something kndamental about American life gets articulated through
these traditions. Hamlin Garland wrote in Crumbling Idols (1894) demanding a
native literature free from all imitation and fistinguished by such "quality of texture
and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by any one
else than a native". American naturalism was attempting to respond to this call by
creating a literature that would represent America in all iG complex d h l s even as it
searches for a native voice and identity.

1.5 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit I have focused on the socio-political and cultural situations in America
during the 1 9 century.
~ Dreiser's works can only be understood against the
 of the social transformationtaking place in America in the late 1gh The Literary
. The impact of the civil war, the effects of industrialisation and urbapisation Context
rise of a well-defined public-spherehave been discussed in this unit in detail.
ion of Naturalism as a literary movement brings out the nature of literary
the fbr-reaching changes in the social and intellectual life of the lgh

1.4 QUESTIONS

What were the major changes that happened in American society during the
1 9 century?
~

Examine the socio-political factors that contributed towards the emergence of

Naturalism as a literary movement.

3. What do you understand by the term 'American Renaissance'? Outline its

major achievements.

American nationhood.

University Press, 1988

Methuen, London, 1971.

Evolutionary Thought in America, Brazziler, Inc, New Haven, 1956.

gar, Pelham, "American Realism, Sex, and Theordore Dreiser", The Art of the
Novel, Macmillan, New York, 1933.

issen, F.O.,mer rich Renaissance.