Aspects of Euro-American Realism (ca. 1865-1914)

• an acceleration in the growth of the Industrial Revolution, rapid transportation, and population growth.
• a number of reactionary movements, some reconsidering medieval social cooperation, Christian or Marxist socialism, or "art for art’s sake"
• Darwinian evolution, French positivism, and social evolution
• growing doubts in eventual progress and superiority of Western civilization
• British utilitarianism

1. Realistic portrait of contemporary life; to present life as it really occurs. Often, it focuses on either middle-class life or the perverse, the vulgar, and the criminal.
2. Stress on a belief in scientific materialism, a rejection of romanticism
3. Stress on political, social reforms
4. Distrust of traditional novelistic patterns; life, after all, lacks symmetry and form.
5. Stress on inner lives of characters; seeks to give an honest portrait of human inwardness.

Aspects of Naturalism (ca. 1870-1930)

1. A belief in scientific determinism, that humans are a product of evolutionary and social determinism.
2. Life and history are fueled by competition
3. The novel is, like a laboratory, studying life empirically.
4. Tends to see life and nature as amoral, a product of chance forces.
5. Humans are one more species of animal controlled by hunger, anger, fear, and sexual desire.