ABSTRACT
Frank Norris attempts to define literary naturalism by comparing it with the two major literary modes available to the American novelist at this time: realism and romance. Norris's focus switches from nature to man, but the striking fact is the total absence of any significant tonal change when the transition is made. Man is engaged in violent conflict with this landscape, conflict like that between primitive man and some prehistoric beast. 'Like lice on mammoths' hides', men bore into the sides of the mountains. Nature and human nature both are caught up by a reality that defines itself in terms of power, struggle, strife, and unremitting violence. Ultimately, Norris believed that the novelist should aim at the bringing together of the modes of realism and romance, as he had defined these terms, thus creating a way of writing combining an accurate rendering of the surface details of life with an understanding of the underlying, general truths about man and nature.
