American Naturalism am Beispiel von Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Honor"

During the 1860’s France saw the development of a literary movement that was closely connected to the works and novels of Emile Zola and is now known as literary naturalism. As an extension of literary realism it shares a lot of similarities with that movement but unlike realism, naturalism is also strongly influenced by a philosophical position. By the 1890’s the movement had also entered American literature through the works of Stephen Crane, Jack London, Frank Norris or Theodore Dreiser. Although their works were influenced by their French contemporaries, American writers such as Stephen Crane soon developed their own uniquely American style that can only be understood in an American context. In my term paper, I want to analyze American naturalism as a literary movement that arose out of realism and introduced a lot of features and characteristics that would later be adopted and further developed in modernism. For this reason, I want to investigate the peculiarities of American literary naturalism and apply these findings to Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” as an exemplary novel of this literary movement. As mentioned before, naturalism developed while realism was the dominant style in American literary history. Thus, I will take a closer look at the relationship between these two literary movements with the purpose of providing a comprehensive understanding of the naturalist movement. The paper will therefore be structured accordingly by starting with a general analysis of American literary naturalism. For this purpose, I will take a closer look at the historical background and the literary style and structure of naturalist novels. In the first subchapter of the main part I will explore some key differences between naturalism and realism by taking a brief look at the historical situation during which these movements emerged and developed. In doing so, I will investigate and elaborate whether American literary naturalism can be understood as a different reaction to the historical developments that were taking place in America at the time. While the first subchapter will take a closer look at the historical background of American naturalism, the next subchapter will pay attention to the unique characteristics of American naturalism in terms of literary style, character development and plot structure. In chapter three, Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” will then be examined against the backdrop of the historical and theoretical implications of American naturalism that were developed in the previous chapter. In essence, I will examine “The Red Badge of Courage” as an exemplary work of American literary naturalism and discuss it with regard to its unique literary style and impact on modernism. Importantly, I will not be able to 2 focus on all aspects of literary naturalism and The Red Badge of Courage, which is why this paper will try to explore some key aspects that I consider important in that context. In order to present a comprehensive and diverse analysis, I will consult a variety of early and more recent literature to develop the different issues that my term paper will deal with. Within the first chapter of the main part, I will mainly refer to works of Donald Pizer, Charles Walcutt, Louis J Budd and Paul Binford, who are acclaimed scholars and devoted a lot of research to the investigation of American realism and naturalism. With the aim of applying my findings regarding naturalism to “The Red Badge of Courage”, I will also consult works and essays of respected Crane scholars such as Robert Gibson and Rodney Rogers. In the closing conclusion, I will come to a final assessment by addressing the questions and issues that were raised in the introduction. Furthermore, I will try to present an outlook regarding further research and raise some points which could be worth investigating in that context.