An Involvement of Nature as a Key Principle in The Works of Naturalism

The concept of Naturalism first came about in the 19th Century and it was an exciting, thought-provoking, period that encouraged many playwrights to replicate reality onstage in a variety of ways. Naturalism’s emergence was defined by a commitment to social commentary, scientific objectivism, and its rejection of Romanticism. This was a movement inspired by the modification of a selection of mutual, natural sciences, specifically that of Darwin’s attitude towards the function of nature in both art and literature in the mid-nineteenth century. Romanticism was defined by the idea of the ‘sublime’, the ‘spontaneous overflowing of emotion’ as Wordsworth would say, painting vivid images of what was considered good, and, sometimes, how in touch humans were with the natural world around them. With the use of theatre, it enables the ability for playwrights to portray specific ideas in their performance; by way of invoking there particular ideas and questions directly to their audiences as an attempt to influence people in considering what similarities there are in their own everyday social lives. With naturalism, then, playwrights like Zola interplay factors of real life that influences his ideas, in order to show the importance and truth of how the environment and our interactions with it, reflect the complex intricacies of society and of our own choices. Arguably, it shows the truth of reality and of the reasoning why people may be unaware or unwilling to face its grimness. Realism, which analyses humans’ psychological responses to select social or economic situations, looks to describe certain subjects for what they are, whereas naturalism also looks at what underlying scientific significance has both shaped the way and shown what actions were undertaken, in the forming of the subject. Whilst this was what the deconstruction of Naturalism was thought to have consisted of, it was the French Naturalist Emile Zola who spearheaded the movement, especially within his novel Thérèse Raquin (1867), which I will explain later on in further detail. In his first essay Naturalism on the Stage (1881) Zola exclaims: “since the theatre is a material reproduction of life, external surroundings have always been a necessity there.” He goes on further “the naturalistic movement has brought about a more and more perfect exactness in stage scenery” demonstrating naturalism as an essential theatrical movement needed to emphasise the real world for what it is. In this essay, I will be exploring the functions in which Naturalism engages playwrights to include an involvement of nature as a key principle to their works, whether this is a fascination with what the natural world holds, or simply how human nature is perceived, experimented, and reformed through exposure to the environment. This essay will also examine these different attitudes to nature in light of the works produced, which will be examined alongside naturalist interpretations in order to map out a spectrum of different ideas.

It was in the preface of his novel that Zola bridged the gap between “methodical and naturalist criticism which has imbued science, history, and literature with new life…” through the highlighting of its unheard of qualities in society at the time. He even comments upon the fact that other “naturalistic writers to which I have the honour to belong” were forced by a certain group of critics to provide a “defence” for their great works, in which a preface must forcibly be made. For Zola, this is what he gives into, as he wishes to “crave the pardon of those intelligent persons” in order for them to fully understand the relevance of his novel in submitting a basis for what is to be expected through his ideas. The novel itself is read as if there is no moral voice intact, which essentially traps the reader in a nightmare to which they are forced to witness. Zola’s novel represents the inherent barbarity of man and the depth to which a kind of bestial nature is revealed that humans are at risk of degrading into; there is the suggestion that the novel attacks the idea of the ‘civilised’ man through the idea of naturalism perhaps reconciling with the idea of man as beast. It is interesting to see that, when analysing the characters of Therese and Laurent, their sexual nature undergoes a drastic change of tempo and tonality. What they in fact build between one another is not a traditionally romantic ‘emotional’ kind of love but one of a masochistic nature. Their relationship is not one of passionate love but one that is shaped through the horrors of their actions. This extends further still, where their marriage becomes devoid of its traditional roots; they become the murderous products of man giving into their primal selves. When Therese and Laurent murder Camille, we as readers are shocked by the act, but we are also helplessly complicit with the characters. Both of them gain a kind of dark, romantic thrill from their actions, which explains further that what was at first glance an early blossoming of love now comes through to them as a form of a desired adrenaline, filtered solely through their rush of excitement from murdering. As a result, their efforts are what catalyses their own eventual suicide that, in turn, instigates the readers need of relief after witnessing such horrific events. Zola even mentions in his preface to the novel that his intention was to: “study temperaments, not characters” highlighting how Therese and Laurent were not made to be seen as civilised but shaped to represent the potentiality of man falling to such a critical point. Naturalism firmly holds two attitudes according to Stroud, one being what is essentially “naturalism as a view of what is so, or the way things are, or what there is in the world. And there is naturalism as a way of studying or investigating what is so in the world”. He goes on to explain how naturalism holds firmly in place that there is nothing of real importance to the world except that of the natural world that is presented to us, which, arguably, can be entirely dependent on someone’s view of the natural world to begin with; leading to the consideration that novelists and playwrights can only right from true first-hand experience, or at best, what the generic moral opinion is. Zola’s novel looks to expand further on the relativity of the opposed issue of supernaturalism in what is considered his first naturalistic novel. The naturalistic guiding method that Zola sets out in his preface and in some of the main bodies of the novel, are an attempt to unite the book as a whole. Interestingly though, the text is read in a manner that is most misleading, as the supernatural is instead written of as the most integral element to the events in the narrative, separate from what was supposedly meant to be ‘naturalistic’ as to: “subvert the expressed intent as a reading effect”. Fundamentally, the natural in the novel is displayed outright in terms of the supernatural, which undermines what Zola initially set out to represent. The characters of Therese and Laurent are described externally as ‘monsters’ in the physical world that surrounds them, giving them this unshakable image of dread and uncertainty that even the reader feels plagues their very natures. However, the material world is what evokes the true fear at the heart of the novel, that which both gives way to the setting of a horror novel and the way in which the text is emotionally illustrated by Zola. As a scientific study, Zola’s use of hallucinations, ghostly visits and involvement of apparent telepathy, leaves little to suggest it is an entirely naturalist text that centralises nature as its product of illuminating human behavioural extremities. The fact that Zola gained large public and artistic success with its publication, demonstrates that it was positively received by critics, especially by Louis Ulbach. Ulbach is critical of how contemporary literature refuses to delve explicitly into the realistic impacts of social reality on human nature. In his essay, he comments: “This book sums up too faithfully all the putridness of contemporary literature not to provoke a certain amount of anger…” suggesting how newly explored ideas in literature are most likely to receive large amounts of criticism due to its exposing of the dark recesses of human psychology.

Fundamentally, this was what allowed Zola to create his literary manifesto of Naturalism. This was laid out in his essay Le Roman expérimental (1880; “The Experimental Novel”) to which Zola reforms naturalistic style, changing it from the angle of the novelist being an observer to a sequence of events that unfold, to a self-made scientist. The writer becomes an experimental practitioner who works with emotion, social influences and events, in order to observe the effect it has on both their own characters and the reader in question. Essentially, Naturalism is formulated through scientific methodology in which Zola specifically enlists certain aspects to be analysed, such as hereditary, environment, crowds, objects and nature. This enabled new opportunities of studying new subject matters that reflected the realities of life instead of art. The consistent reforming and evaluating of independent lives in select social circumstances contributed to an understanding of the truth behind human psychology and its conditioning in various environments. With this, it must be held important that nature, or the natural world, structures all things, and is man’s one and only inhabitable place of existence.