20th Century: An Age of Uncertainty and Chaos

In the 20th century, more than in any other period in its history, art has been a mirror of science. A scientific counterrevolution exploded certainties inherited from the 17th and 18th centuries. Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity directly questioned our long standing belief in the certainty and reliability of Time as a constant in the universe, something by which we could measure ourselves and our progress as a species. Henry Bergson proposed the idea of time being completely subjective, or something that is not a series of successive moments but a construct that arises in our own mind and which we project onto events. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution reaches mainstream thinking and gains credibility among scholars and laymen. The increasing discovery of dinosaur fossils fuels the public imagination of a lost past in earth's history, one that was not mentioned in ancient scriptures and historical texts. The discovery of radium and radioactive decay leads to very accurate methods of dating organic material, leading to the accurate discovery of the age of the earth being 4.5 billion years old. Niels Bohr and others explore the world of quantum physics and reveal a world of uncertainty and chaos as it is revealed sub-atomic particles, the building blocks of the universe, behave in inexplicable and chaotic ways. New and increasingly more powerful telescopes allow us to view deeper into the universe, leading scientists to learn more about our infinitesimal position in an infinite and, as Edwin Hubble discovered, an expanding universe. The age of the universe is calculated to be 15 billion years old. Our notion of the earth as existing for 6,000 years is shattered, and people begin to realize the earth has had a very long past, one that excludes humanity and minimizes our significance in the universe. We realize our brief history on the planet is insignificant and we, like many other species before us, are a small link in an infinite chain of events, and we, too, will be a mere historical reference of a long-forgotten past. New ideas had subverted or exploded the certainties of the past, and the universe seems chaotic and bewildering. And, oh yeah, we cannot forget about the unspeakable horrors and destruction of World War I and II.

Realism and Naturalism

In the later half of the 19th century, writers were interested in representing life as it truly is, or as William Dean Howells stated, realism is "nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material." Beginning with the "local color" movement, writers attempted to accurately observe human behavior and experience and portray life in writing; however, local color did not satisfy many emerging writers because of the sentimentality, humor, or moralistic qualities of the local color stories. In other words, local color was not keepin' it real enough for the writers of the Realism movement. Life is not always fair, good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people, and not all characters and subject matter are "literary" but that does not mean the writer should neglect or avoid addressing them. Realism sought to represent these aspects of life realistically and without censure. Naturalism grew out of Realism, but naturalist writers believed realistic writers to fall short of the ultimate goal of writing; realism was little more than a call to accurate observation, and it did not penetrate the surface of life- or of human character - to see the principles operating within. Highly influenced by the scientific explorations of the time, naturalist writers approached human character and society in the same spirit of scientific investigation the chemist and physicist bring to their study of the physical world. For these writers, the laws of individual and social development are as fixed as those of science. Determinism governs everything, and free-will is an illusion. The two principle forces in this determinism are heredity and environment. Human fate is controlled by these two forces and humans must exist in a universe that is completely indifferent to struggle and attachment.