The term Naturalism is used to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. It also exemplifies how characters can be studied and identified through their relationships with their surroundings as well. Naturalism is displayed through the works of Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser in Zola as a Romantic Writer and Sister Carrie, by classifying the characters by their surroundings, their relationship with others, and their personality changes. .
Frank Norris was a major theorist of Naturalism. He argues that Howell's realism is simply uninteresting. He wants something more romantic, more idealists, more extreme; even though these literary characteristics might be seen as going counter to the deterministic view that supposedly dominated naturalism. Norris, who believes that Naturalism is an extension from Realism, wrote Zola as a Romantic Writer. Realism is described as accepting a situation for what it really is. Norris describes Naturalism as a kind of inner circle regarding realism. He describes it as a kind of diametric opposite of romanticism. As understood by Zola, Naturalism is a form of romanticism after all. Norris seeks to redefine romance and naturalism. Realism is described as being confined to what is generally agreed on by middle-class readers to be a "normal life ", while naturalism penetrates the surface of things (Norton 556). The naturalist takes no note of common people, common in so far as their interests, their lives, and the things that occur in them are common, are ordinary. Emile Zola states that, "We must leave the rank and the file, either run to the forefront of the marching world, or fall by the roadway; we must separate ourselves; we must become individual, unique " (Norton 557). Naturalism as expressed by Norris no longer happens among the noble, but among the lowest classes; those who have been thrust or wrench from the ranks, who are falling in the roadway (Norton 558).