What do you consider the main intellectual failings of Zola's theory of
the `experimental novel'?
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Discussion 3
While the proposal of an `experimental method' applied to the novel was undoubtedly innovative for its time, the parallel between novelist and scientist is not altogether satisfactory and there are a number of significant inadequacies.
The most significant is the problem of objectivity. As most scientists deal with physical phenomena external to themselves they can remain relatively objective, impartial. This same objectivity was the aim of Zola. He claimed in an article in Le Figaro of 18 September 1884, just before publication of Germinal that:
Le Naturalisme ne se prononce pas; il examine, il décrit; il dit: Ceci est. Au public de tirer sa conclusion.Yet the novel and its characters are not set of physical data, they are the inventions of the novelist and as such are not external to him/her. It is the novelist who controls the characters reactions to the circumstances in which s/he has chosen to place them. Unlike a scientist who has little control over the reaction of, say, two chemicals placed together in a test tube, the novelist has complete control over the actions and behaviour of his/her fictional creations. However scrupulous the novelist has been in observing the real world and transposing it into his/her novel, in the final analysis s/he invents the characters, and so, in the final analysis it is virtually impossible for the novelist to attain the degree of objectivity that Zola appears to be claiming.Naturalism does not make pronouncements; it examines, it describes and it says: This is how it is. Let the public draw its own conclusions.