Naturalism in literature

The romantic and naturalistic schools of literature have long been pitted against each other by talented theorists best on divorcing freedom (romantic) from determinism (naturalistic) and using literature to promote the extreme they decide is either morally good (freedom) or effectively caused (determinism). In Negligence in the Garden, the characters are faced with deciding if they are free to determine the courses of their lives, or if their lives are set in motion by endless chains of cause and effect. Their world is the place where romanticism meets naturalism. They discover that through acting free, they can become free, but that the importance of understanding where they might stand in relation to any string of cause and effect is also of the utmost importance in determining how to use their freedoms.

As realist and naturalist writers at the turn of the twentieth century adopted a scientific spirit of objectivity, they reflected the emphasis many contemporary scientific studies laid on the forces of the natural world in shaping the character, behavior, and ultimate destiny of man. In this literary mood of "pessimistic determinism," fantasy literature began to experience a resurgence, providing a marked contrast to naturalism's portrayal of the impotence of man to effect change in his circumstances. I examine fantasy's restoration of efficacy to the human will through a study of two representative works of the opposing genres: Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie and Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter. As I demonstrate, the former naturalistic novel emphasizes the impotence of its characters in the face of powerful natural world, while the latter contemporary fantasy novel uniquely showcases man's ability to effect change in his world and his destiny.