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in New World Naturalistic Fiction
New World naturalistic writers of the latter half of the 19th century are for the most part regarded by literary historians as having uniformly accepted and adopted the theoretical precepts of European naturalism.1 However, an examination of the literature produced in that period will reveal that these precepts were violated to varying degrees in different countries. The present study consists of comparatist readings of naturalistic novels representative of and central to the movement in three major New World literatures: Stephen Crane’s Maggie (U.S.), Aluísio Azevedo’s O cortiço (Brazil), and Federico Gamboa’s Santa (Mexico). I propose to examine certain aspects of the discontinuity between European naturalistic literary ideology and literary practices in the New World, and explore the ways in which these writers differed among themselves as naturalists. Careful analysis of character and plot development along with questions that probe the authors’ cultural and religious backgrounds – especially insofar as their attitudes toward the fallen woman, prostitution, and religious salvation are concerned – provide the setting for discussion of their works.
Stephen Crane’s Maggie is the story of a young woman who grows up in the Bowery district of New York City. Maggie, attractive though ignorant and ill cared for, somehow preserves an inner core of innocence in her miserable environment. She falls in love with her brother’s friend, Pete, and is seduced by him. For a brief time she lives with Pete, after having been melodramatically disowned by her mother. He eventually abandons her for another woman, and Maggie becomes a prostitute for a few months. Later, heartbroken and alone, she commits suicide.2
From the standpoint of literary history, Maggie appears to be a prime example of a novel that closely follows the prescriptive tenets of naturalism. The fact that the influence of Émile Zola and the French naturalistic movement in general is apparent in Crane’s work has led many critics to point out that this novel has a European antecedent in Zola’s L’Assommoir.3 However, other students of American naturalism such as Marcus Cunliffe note that in part Crane’s treatment of Maggie is naturalistic, but in other respects it is not. Altogether, Maggie is a somewhat unreal creature, and her life as a prostitute is handled by Crane at times with a conspicuous lack of certainty. Toward the end of the novel, for instance, she is described as “a girl of the painted cohorts of the city” who is skilled at “throwing changing glances at men . . . giving [them] smiling invitations.”4 Here, she is portrayed as an experienced streetwalker who has apparently overcome her initial scruples, and appears to have been reasonably successful since she is wearing a “handsome cloak” and has “well-shod feet,” and in all likelihood can afford to lead a life of relative comfort as a prostitute. For some reason, however, she decides to kill herself. While it may appear to be a fitting conclusion for a roman expérimental, the closing of Maggie reflects either a marked degree of inexperience on the part of the author or some other disposition to bring the novel to a close the way he does.
Cunliffe contends that the choice of denouement in Maggie reflects an important aspect of Crane’s background. He argues that “Crane is affected by the American religious heritage. To some extent, despite himself, he belongs to [it]. Against the logic of his novel, Crane . . . makes Maggie commit suicide. It could be said that this is a naturalistic convention. Possibly; but is it not, even more, a moralist’s convention?”5 Furthermore, Cunliffe detects in Crane’s fiction a “moral didactic motive, a slight preachiness,” and suggests that Crane could conceivably have drawn material for Maggie from popular religious writing of the day. For any of the preachers of Crane’s time, the wages of sin would be death, and that seems to hold true for Crane as well.6
One might argue that the connection between the religious-moralistic ambience of the time and Crane’s own fiction is a tenuous one, seeing that the author was markedly anti-clerical, as his correspondence and several passages in Maggie make clear.7 Still, Crane seems to be affected by the American religious ethos: he may have tried to rebel against the Christianity of his time, but it seems he was never quite able to escape its effects.
In various small ways, Maggie reflects the effect of the general American moral-religious climate. This does not come as a surprise when one remembers that both of Crane’s parents were closely associated with the church, and must have transmitted to their son some of their own loyalty to the moral teachings of Protestantism.8 As Percy Stein aptly observes, the rigid naturalistic interpretations of Maggie are inadequate because they invariably obscure the universal implications of Crane’s dramatic recreation of Bowery existence. It is not enough, for instance, to say that the novel is the sum of “innocence thwarted and betrayed by environment.”9 Such a categorical statement implies that Crane’s view of reality is unalterably objective, concerned only with the transcription of calculable sociological data. Actually his creative imagination is deeply stirred by the religious aspects of the setting. And that is not surprising, seeing that Crane was reared in a strict religious atmosphere, and was in all likelihood trained to think in the ideological framework of Protestantism and more specifically within the puritanical parameters of American ethical and religious thought. Even in youthful rebellion against institutionalized religion, he could not, it seems, completely subdue the incontrovertible affirmations of the Puritan ethic. On the one hand, he seems to fight religiosity, but on the other, he introduces scenes and incidents that are clear manifestations of an intuitive loyalty to the ethical teachings of Protestantism and to a tradition that is essentially puritanical and moralistic in character.10
Aluísio Azevedo’s O cortiço (“beehive” in Portuguese) chronicles the genesis and development of a tenement in Rio de Janeiro during the second half of the nineteenth century. Throughout the novel the message is one and the same, namely, that the promiscuity and the debilitating seduction exerted by the environment will invariably engulf those who wander into the amoral world of warm and voluptuous dissoluteness of the tenement.
Among the many accounts of moral ruin to be found in O cortiço, one is especially poignant. The story of Pombinha (“little dove” in Portuguese) closely resembles Maggie’s. In Crane’s novel, the catalyst of Maggie’s downfall is her seducer, Pete. In O cortiço, Pombinha is brought into prostitution by an older, more experienced courtesan named Léonie who eagerly seduces the innocent girl. After her first sexual encounter, Pombinha is overwhelmed by the prosmicuity that thrives around her, and willingly becomes an active part of that world. However, unlike Maggie, Pombinha uses her newly gained experience and insight to secure a place for herself – not as a victim, but rather as a predator – in the sex-hungry environment where she must dwell. She is no longer a defenseless, naive girl, but rather a woman who has become keenly aware of the conditions around her and is decidedly bent on being successful in her struggle for survival.
While Crane may have been influenced by the religious thinking and writing of his time, the influences that were exerted upon Azevedo are of a distinctly different nature. The latter was a conscious disciple of Zola. Like the French writer, he tried to divorce himself from the constraints of any religious or ethical tradition as he moved for a close-up view of his world. In Crane’s work, the choice of crude language and sensational material is restricted to a minimum. Viewed from this angle, Crane does not appear at all to be as orthodox a naturalist as Azevedo. This becomes all the more apparent when one is reminded that Maggie is a novel about seduction and prostitution, and yet has absolutely no passages dealing explicitly with sex. Azevedo, on the other hand, makes ample use of material that in his time would be considered sensational or crude, and does so most casually. Moreover, there is never any moralistic condemnation of sex in his work. If anything, there is an exuberant celebration of sensuality. In many ways, Azevedo seems to go further than Zola. The latter, in all his principled grimness, would, for instance, have serious reservations about observing and writing on lesbianism among prostitutes. Azevedo, however, has no qualms about dealing with the subject in his fiction, and at times actually seems to derive pleasure from it. His nonchalant description of his characters as individuals hopelessly caught in the grip of their own destructive animal instincts and his insistence on the ugly, the brutal, and on what his contemporaries would have regarded as immoral have led critics such as Dorothy Loos11 to observe that Azevedo quite often comes across as a writer who appears to be trying his best to “out-Zola” Zola himself.
Federico Gamboa’s Santa (“girl saint” in Spanish) is the story of a Mexican country girl who is seduced and subsequently abandoned by her first love, Marcelino. Dishonored and rejected by her family, Santa goes to Mexico City, where she becomes a prostitute. On account of her alcoholism and prosmicuity, her life disintegrates. Near death and abandoned, she is rescued by Hipólito, the blind piano player who has steadfastly loved and stood by her from the beginning. She dies during a hysterectomy and is buried by Hipólito in her native Chimalistac.
The language, theme, and structure of this novel clearly characterize it as a roman expérimental. Descriptions that emphasize the crude, obscene or grotesque, are used rather gratuitously throughout Santa. However, there is in Gamboa’s work a sense of propriety that is missing altogether from Azevedo’s O cortiço and, to a certain extent, from Crane’s Maggie. Even in the least consequential passages, Gamboa sees fit always to counterbalance the crudity of his naturalistic descriptions with dialogue or reflections that serve either to attenuate the acridity of such passages or to purge the feelings of repulsiveness and fear that these passages cause in his readers.
Gamboa is a naturalistic writer, but he is, before all, a Mexican responding to cultural directives that may be as strong and important an influence on his writing as the aesthetic tenets of European naturalism. Unlike Azevedo and, to a lesser extent, Crane, Gamboa infuses his work with religious images and symbols that create an atmosphere conducive to bringing the novel to a close the way he does.
This religious symbolism is apparent in the way Gamboa structures and develops the protagonist’s ordeal. Santa is given a good many chances to redeem herself before she sinks to the lowest levels of the canaille world, but for some reason she does not take advantage of these opportunities; she actually wastes them by cheating on both men who try to take her away from prostitution. It appears as though to Gamboa a true redemption would not be valid if it were not earned entirely by the person who is to be redeemed. Santa cannot have other people – lovers, friends – walk her path and carry her load for her; she must do it herself in order to be eligible to receive divine clemency and salvation. Gamboa, however, does not stop there. He goes to the opposite extreme, and chooses for Santa a road that is harsh at best and horrifying at worst. Not only is Santa not allowed to be redeemed by her two pleasant and worldly lovers, she is forced to traverse the most squalid brothels of Mexico City only to be rescued by the least physically attractive character in the entire novel, Hipólito.
Echoing traits of the mystic tradition in Spanish culture, Gamboa, after having subjected Santa to inordinate suffering and a brutal purgation of her sins, has the protagonist turn to death, to the transcendence of the actual world, as the only way out. And after having gone full circle from being an innocent country girl to a reluctant prostitute, to a concupiscent and successful femme fatale, to a contrite harlot, to a woman who has repented and received divine mercy and forgiveness, Santa dies a purified and dignified human being: “El sufrimiento, el amor y la muerte habían purificado a Santa.”12
It is perhaps at the very end of the novel where we are to find the one major trait that sets Gamboa apart from writers such as Crane or Azevedo. In Maggie, Crane tells us of the girl’s suicide in very grim, somber terms, and closes the novel with puritanical terseness and detachment:
The girl went into gloomy districts near the river, where the tall black factories shut in the street. . . . She went into the blackness of the final block. The shutters of the tall buildings were closed like grim lips. . . . At [Maggie’s] feet the river appeared a deathly black hue.13
In O cortiço, the last image we have of Pombinha stands in stark contrast to Maggie in that the former is alive, successful, and apparently having a grand time as a prostitute:
Agora as duas cocotas [Pombinha e Léonie], amigas inseparáveis, terríveis naquela inquebrantável solidariedade, que fazia delas uma só cobra de duas cabeças, dominavam o alto e o baixo Rio de Janeiro. Eram vistas por toda parte onde houvesse prazer . . . Por cima delas duas passara uma geração inteira de devassos. Pombinha, só com tres meses de cama franca, fizera-se tão perita no ofício como a outra.14
Now, the two coquettes [Pombinha and Léonie], inseparable companions, terrible in their steadfast solidarity, which transformed them into a kind of two-headed serpent, ruled all parts of Rio de Janeiro. They were seen wherever there was pleasure. . . . Over their bodies a whole generation of depraved men had passed. With only three months working as a prostitute, Pombinha proved to be the acknowledged equal of [her mentor, Léonie].15
Gamboa’s Santa dies, but not at all in the same way Maggie does. Between the days when she is the toast of her brothel and the time she finds herself transfigured and abandoned in the most squalid whorehouses of Mexico City, there is a long, drawn-out period of suffering during which Santa, in a characteristically Catholic fashion, reflects on her predicament, repents, and thus becomes eligible to receive divine mercy and forgiveness. This divine clemency is directly bestowed upon her by Hipólito, who, as a Christ-figure, suffers his own ordeal – namely, his desiring Santa and not being able to have her, or not willing to ‘possess’ her in the same way her clients and lovers do – so that she may be redeemed and saved.
Ana María Alvarado16 notes that Gamboa’s use of plot developments and names that have a very clear religious connotation plays an important role in this novel. The name of the protagonist, Santa, itself is an indication of the extent to which the author may be imbued in and responding to a cultural tradition that places great significance on religion. Even if this religious quality may sometimes manifest itself in the form of irony or criticism toward institutionalized religion, it, nevertheless, is pervasive throughout the novel and more often than not is used as a positive device to transcend the very predicament and suffering against which it is juxtaposed and by which it is criticized. Throughout the novel we witness the descent of this woman “de nombre demasiado simbólico,” only to experience a cathartic denouement in which Santa is finally redeemed, forgiven, and at last able to rest.
The sense of justice – whether it be naturalistic, i.e., applied or inflicted by the environment, or stemming from an ethical or religious tradition – is an important cultural element that sets these three works apart. In Gamboa’s novel, the feeling of tenderness and pity, the proclivity to forgive a weary soul who has suffered and repented stands in stark contrast to the rigid, puritanical sense of justice and right that can be perceived in Maggie. In the former, Catholic clemency triumphs over naturalistic justice; in the latter, a puritanical sense of morality compels the protagonist’s social environmennt to turn a deaf ear to her pleas for help. No doubt, Santa’s story bears some resemblance to that of Maggie in that both have a distinctly tragic ending, but Gamboa’s work is not imbued in the gloom, misery, violence, or despair that we find in Crane’s novel.
The puritanical strain present in Crane’s fiction is aptly exemplified by the factors that lead to the moral confusion of a character like Maggie. She is apparently successful, yet she suffers. She is eager for the pleasures of this life, for “elegance and soft palms,” and “adornments of person.” She wants to survive and enjoy the fruits of her labor, yet she is unable to give herself over to complete enjoyment of them because of scruples of conscience. As a result, she commits suicide, choosing the only alternative that can ensure permanent cessation of her ordeal.17
If Maggie, O cortiço, and Santa were to be classified with reference to an orthodox model of the roman expérimental, of these three novels, Azevedo’s O cortiço would be the one to come the closest to such a model. Gamboa’s Santa and Crane’s Maggie stand at the opposite sides of the said model; the latter because of its rigid, moralistic tone, plot development, and denouement; the former because of the cathartic sense of punishment, forgiveness, and redemption with which the author infuses his work.
In conclusion, we can say that there is as much naturalistic literary ideology in Maggie, O cortiço, and Santa as there is puritanical aversion to prostitution (Crane), irreligious enjoyment and celebration of sensuality (Azevedo), and Catholic condemnation and forgiveness of carnal sin (Gamboa). If we are to identify the elements that represent the measure of difference between these three novels – all of which clearly belong to the same naturalistic literary tradition – we will do well to turn to the cultures of the authors in question. The gap between theory and practice, the discontinuity between what Crane, Azevedo, and Gamboa received from European naturalists and what they actually produced can best be accounted for by their respective cultural backgrounds, specifically the ethical and religious heritages of which they are part.
Notes
1 A. On American naturalism and Stephen Crane, see:
Lars Ahnebrink, The Beginnings of naturalism in American Fiction (New York: Russell and Russell, 1961).
Russell Blankenship, American Literature as an Expression of the National Mind (New York: Cooper Square Publishing, 1973).
John Berryman, Stephen Crane (New York: William Sloane, 1951).
Rod Horton and Herbert Edwards, Backgrounds of American Literary Thought (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952).
Robert Spiller et al., Literary History of the United States, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1974).
Robert Stallman, Foreword to “Maggie” in Stephen Crane: An Omnibus, ed. Robert Stallman (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1966).
B. On Brazilian naturalism and Aluísio Azevedo, see:
Antônio Soares Amora, História da literatura brasileira (São Paulo: Edição Saraiva, 1960).
Alfredo Bosi, História concisa da literatura brasileira (São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1979).
Afrânio Coutinho, Introdução à literatura no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria São José, 1964.
Dorothy Loos, The Naturalistic Novel in Brazil (New York: Hispanic Institute, 1963).
Massaud Moisés, História da literatura brasileira, vol. 2 (São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1984).
José Veríssimo, História da literatura brasileira (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria José Olympio Editora, 1969).
C. On Mexican naturalism and Federico Gamboa, see:
John S. Brushwood, Mexico in Its Novel (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966).
Manuel Pedro González, Trayectoria de la novela en México (Mexico City: Ediciones Botas, 1951.
Francisco Mena, “Federico Gamboa y el naturalismo, como expresión ideológica y social,” Explicación de textos literarios 2 (1976): pp. 207-214.
Joaquina Navarro, La novela realista mexicana (Mexico City: La Carpeta, 1955).
Carlos González Peña, Historia de la literatura mexicana (Mexico City: Editoriales Cvltvra y Polis, 1940).
María García Barragán, El naturalismo en México (Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma de México, 1979).2 James Hart, ed. The Oxford Companion to American Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 463.
3 Berryman, Stephen Crane, p. 63.
See also Spiller, Literary History of the United States, vol. 1, p. 1022.
Ahnebrink, The Beginnings of naturalism in American Fiction, pp. 251 and 164. Ahnebrink sees a close connection between Zola’s romans expérimentaux and Crane’s early works, and writes: “Like Maggie, Crane’s second novel [George’s Mother] of the New York slums bears the stamp of Zola” (p. 271). Other works by Crane that also reflect the influence of French naturalism, particularly in the choice of milieu and sordid detail, include: “An Experiment in Misery,” “The Men in the Storm,” “A Desertion,” “A Dark Brown Dog,” and “The Scotch Express” (p. 276).
Stallman, Foreword to “Maggie” in Stephen Crane: An Omnibus, p. 6.4 Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1970), p. 144.
5 Marcus Cunliffe, “Stephen Crane and the American Background of Maggie,” American Quarterly 7 (Spring 1955), pp. 36-37.
6 Cunliffe, “Stephen Crane and the American Background of Maggie,” p. 41.
7 Ibid., p. 37.
8 Ibid., p. 42.
Crane’s father, the Reverend John Townley Crane, was a devout Christian, whom George Genzmer describes as “a strict methodist of the old stamp . . . deeply concerned about such sins as dancing, breaking the Sabbath, reading trashy novels, playing cards, and chess, and enjoying tobacco and wine, and too innocent of the world to do more than suspect of the existence of greater viciousness.” in Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), s.v. “Jonathan Townley Crane.” Crane’s mother is described by her son as “more of a Christian than a Methodist.” in Berryman, Stephen Crane, p. 9.9 Stephen Crane, Stephen Crane: Stories and Tales, ed. Robert Stallman (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), p. 71.
10 Percy Stein, “New Testament Inversions in Crane’s Maggie,” Modern Language Notes 73 (April 1958), p. 268.
11 Loos, The Naturalistic Novel of Brazil, pp. 42-45.
12 Federico Gamboa, Santa (Mexico City: Ediciones Botas, 1960), pp. 341- 342.
13 Crane, Maggie, pp. 147-149.
14 Aluísio Azevedo, O cortiço (São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1981), p. 155.
15 Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations of passages from O cortiço, Santa, and any other material quoted in the original foreign language (French, Spanish, or Portuguese) in this paper are my own.
16 Ana María Alvarado, “Función del prostíbulo en Santa y Juntacadáveres,” Hispanic Journal 2 (Fall 1980): pp. 57-68.
17 Horton and Edwards, Backgrounds of American Literary Thought, p. 48.
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