PREFACE

Despite the fact that the naturalistic novel of most countries in the New World has been studied individually at considerable length, little attention has been given to a comprehensive examination of the genre in this hemisphere. The studies that have been produced on the subject to date generally concentrate on a specific country, author, or work. Because of this narrow focus, the naturalistic movement is seldom viewed as the worldwide or hemisphere-wide intellectual phenomenon that it was.

My aim in this book is to examine three leading New World natu-ralists in a comparative context. Their works are central to the movement in three major national literatures: American (Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets), Brazilian (Aluísio Azevedo's O cortiço), and Mexican (Federico Gamboa's Santa). I propose to investigate certain aspects of the discontinuity between European naturalistic ideology and literary practices in the New World and to explore the ways in which these writers differ among themselves as naturalists. Analyses of charac-ter and plot, along with questions that probe the authors' cultural and religious backgrounds, provide the setting for a discussion of their works. Foremost among these considerations are the authors' attitudes toward the fallen woman, desire, prostitution, and religious salvation.

New World naturalistic writers of the latter half of the nineteenth century for the most part are believed to have uniformly adopted the theoretical precepts of European Naturalism. However, an examination of the literature of that period reveals that these precepts were violated to varying degrees in different countries. My study demonstrates that although they wrote their respective novels according to a Zolaesque model of the roman expérimental, Crane, Azevedo, and Gamboa differ significantly from Zola as well as among themselves. Specifically, I argue 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 of carnal sin (Gamboa).

Of the works examined, O cortiço comes the closest to an orthodox model of the roman expérimental. Maggie and Santa stand at the oppo-site ends of this prototype. In Crane's case, this distancing results from his novel's puritanical tone and harsh denouement, whereas Gamboa sets himself apart from other naturalistic writers because of the sense of clemency and redemption that permeates his work. Azevedo at times goes beyond his French mentor in his depiction of the sordid and the crude, while Gamboa skillfully indicts the traditional view of Naturalism as little more than an outgrowth of Realism infused with a pessimistic determinism.

My readings of Maggie, O cortiço, and Santa are based on a combination of two approaches. The first part of the study relies on a traditional analysis of the language, theme, and structure of the texts, while the second half is couched in René Girard's theory of mimetic desire. In addition to questions pertaining to character and plot develop-ment, some of the theoretical principles set forth in Girard's Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, specifically those that deal with the notion of mimetic desire, serve as the critical backdrop against which these works are analyzed.

In addition to having been written according to a prescriptive model of the roman expérimental, the three novels in question share another important common denominator. All three present a prostitute as a major character: the protagonist in Maggie and Santa, and a central figure in O cortiço. I pay special attention, particularly in the first part of my study (Chapters 1 through 3), to the ways in which Crane, Azevedo, and Gamboa conceive and develop the prostitutes in their novels. Some of these characters are also examined in Part Two (Chapters 5 through 7), but to a lesser extent than in Part One. Maggie, O cortiço, and Santa were selected for the present study because they are works of relevance, historically as well as textually, and are prime examples of the naturalistic movement in general in their respective countries.

A note on the translations: 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 book are my own.

An earlier and abridged version of Chapter 6 appeared in Studies in Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures I, ed. Fidel López Criado (Madrid: Orígenes, 1987): 83-90.

Sacramento, March 1993

João Sedycias, Ph.D.
Department of Foreign Languages
California State University, Sacramento
Sacramento, California, USA

Additional information on this publication:

The Naturalistic Novel of the New World: A Comparative Study of Stephen Crane, Aluísio Azevedo, and Federico Gamboa. Lanham, MD: University Press of America (a member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group), 1993. Online reading samples from this book: Chapter 3 – “Beyond Naturalism: Federico Gamboa and the Mexican Background of Santa;” Chapter 6 – “Violent Symmetries: Self and Other in O cortiço.”

Book reviews and short descriptions of this work can be found on the following websites or individual home pages:

• Sam Hill – Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at California State University, Sacramento. Book review.
• Harry Dennis – Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at California State University, Sacramento. Book review.
• Evangelina da Roza – Professor of Spanish at California State University, Sacramento. Book review.
• Amazon.Com – Editorial review, book description.
• University Press of America – Editorial review, book description.
• Earl E. Fitz – University of Iowa Press, Inter-American Literature and Criticism, book description.
• Hispania – Volume 79, Number 4, December 1996, pp. 819-820. Book review by Darrell B. Lockhart.

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