In The Portable American Realism Reader (Penguin 1977) James Nagel writes about “the dominant theme in Naturalism of pessimistic Determinism, the notion that characters are the victims of Promethean [gargantuan, let’s say] forces of heredity, society, and a hostile nature, powers outside the control of the protagonists…” (xxviii). Nagel goes on to say that “Naturalistic fiction is often set in a hostile environment, in urban slums, in rural poverty, in the jungle, or the arctic” (xxviii). The suggestion is that Naturalists place their protagonists in such “hostile environment[s]” in order to dramatize just how little “control” human beings really have. Bearing this Naturalistic critique of control in mind, compare and contrast Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” with Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” Is this critique evident in both stories? If so, is it more thorough in one story than in the other? As ever, argue, evince, quote, analyze, explain.
