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Naturalism gives a real worldview of “ordinary characters” that experience “raw and unpleasant” situations. Characters do not control their environment; the environment conditions and controls the characters. (Naturalism Handout) Stephen Crane and Jack London are both true naturalist authors. In Crane’s “The Open Boat” and London’s “To Build a Fire” (repr. In Nina Baym, The Norton Anthology of American Literature 1865-1914, Volume C, 6th ed. [New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003] 903, 977) the characters struggle with their environments. Issues of respect for nature and motivation to live are apparent in both stories. Respecting nature is very important in both of these stories. In “The Open Boat” the correspondent and the rest of the men show great respect for the sea and the “walls of water” that the sea creates. (904) They know that the waves are capable of “swamping b