Emerging in the late 1800s, Realism was a reaction to the popular literary style Romanticism. Realism was very life-like writing. While Romanticism focused on extraordinary people in extraordinary situations, Realism had stories of ordinary people in ordinary situations. Romanticism had improbable stories; Realistic stories were very believable. Realistic works had four distinguishing features: a believable plot; ordinary, everyday characters; the use of dialect, different language for different people; and a realistic, believable setting often with local color.
One of the most noticeable differences between Romantic and Realistic works was the plot: believable or not believable. Romantic works had unbelievable stories, Realistic works had ordinary, everyday situations. In "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," the outside "border story," the narrator is told (as a joke) to go talk to Simon Wheeler. This is realistic. In "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," a group of undesirables are cast out of the city and are caught in a storm in the Sierra Nevada Mts. Both stories have very realistic plots.
Another distinguishing feature of Realism is the use of ordinary people as characters. In "Miniver Cheevy," the character is an alcoholic. There is nothing extraordinary or heroic about that. In "The Celebrated Jumping Frog," Simon Wheeler is an old guy who talks much but doesn't mean much by it. Both characters could be real.
Dialect is another distinguishing feature of Realism. In "An Antebellum Sermon," dialect is used heavily throughout, the dialect belonging to a black American. Dialect can also be seen in "The Celebrated Jumping Frog," where the man within the frame story says, "I don't see no pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog." Bot the poem and the story clearly exhibit dialect.
Finally, realistic stories had real setting, often with local color. In "To Build a Fire," the setting is in the Youkon, along a frozen river. In "Outcasts of Poker Flats" the setting is the town of Poker Flats and the area nearby in the Sierra Nevada Mts. Both stories point out a definite place.
Realism has four distinguishing features. Realistic stories had believable plots. The stories had ordinary characters. The stories used dialect. The stories had real, definite settings with local color. These features helped to define Realism and to place it as one of the most outstanding literary movements of the nineteenth century.
Naturalism was an offshoot of the nineteenth century literary movement of Realism. It shared many of the same characteristics, but was not the same in all respects. Naturalistic stories were a response to the growing awareness of science, human behavior, and social thought. These stories were written differently than Realistic stories. Naturalistic stories were written in a graphic, facts-only style, and portrayed people caught in forces of nature of society beyond their understanding or control.
Naturalism was a "just the facts" approach to writing. A good exaple of this is "The Red Badge of Courage." This is the story of one young man's view of a war, told by an omniscient narrator. The narrator, however, doesn't give the main character's name except at the beginning of the story. In this way the narrator avoids any emotional attachment to the character and is able to write an objective story. There are also very graphic descriptions in the story, such as "the mouth ... had changed to an appalling yellow ... One [ant] was trundling some sort of bundle along the upper lip." In this way Crane has written a very Naturalistic story.
Naturalism often portrayed people caught in forces beyond understanding or control. These could be either forces of nature or forces of society. In Hart's "The Outcasts of Poker Flats" there are both. The people are kicked out of town by society, only to face the harsh forces of nature later. Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage" also portrays a person caught in uncontrollable, incomprehensible forces. In the novel, the 'youth' is caught up in a war which he has no control over and can only see one view of, and so he cannot understand it.
In the story "To Build a Fire" by London, an ordinary man is humbled and eventually killed by the extreme cold of the Arctic in winter. London's story also gives graphic descriptions of the numbing, freezing effects the bitter cold has on the man.
All these authors, Hart, Crane and London wrote Naturalistic stories. Each was about one or more characters caught up in situations beyond their control or comprehension. All are overwhelmed by these forces, either forces of nature or society. All of their stories are graphically portrayed. So all of these authors and their stories can be considered Naturalistic.