Question

A mode of fiction that was developed by a school of writers in accordance with a particular philosophical thesis. This thesis, a product of post-Darwinian biology in the nineteenth century, held that a human being exists entirely in the order of nature and does not have a soul nor any mode of participating in a religious or spiritual world beyond the natural world; and therefore, that such a being is merely a higher-order animal whose character and behavior are entirely determined by two kinds of forces, heredity and environment.................

Answer 1

Naturalism is a literary movement that emphasizes humans as higher-order animals determined by heredity and environmental forces, which was heavily influenced by the scientific ideas of the 19th century, including those of Emile Zola and Charles Darwin.

Step-by-step explanation:

Naturalism in Literature

The mode of fiction in question is Naturalism, a literary movement that arose in the late 19th century. Naturalism built upon Realism but took it a step further by incorporating a deterministic view of human life, one heavily influenced by post-Darwinian biology. Writers like Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and Jack London, under the influence of Emile Zola and Charles Darwin, portrayed human beings as products of heredity and environment. Their works often featured characters whose lives were predetermined by their instincts and socio-economic circumstances, showcasing the harsh realities of life without the intervention of spiritual or idealistic considerations.

Naturalistic writers delved into controversial and taboo subjects such as prostitution, violence, and poverty, incorporating a sense of pessimistic materialistic determinism. In these narratives, human beings are often shown as helpless against the forces of nature, with their fates being inevitable due to the combination of their genetic traits and the environment in which they live. Characters rarely exercise free will, and plots usually follow a "plot of decline", with individuals spiraling towards degeneration or death.