Anna Christie | Naturalistic Themes in Anna Christie

Perkins, an Associate Professor of English at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland, has published articles on several twentieth-century authors. In this essay, she examines O’Neill’s exploration of the naturalistic themes in Anna Christie.

[The wind-tower] was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree . . . the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual— nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did not seem cruel to him then, not benefi- cent, not treacherous, not wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent.

This famous passage from Stephen Crane’s short story ‘‘The Open Boat,’’ which focuses on four men in a small dinghy struggling against the current and trying to make it to shore, is...

[The entire page is 1904 words long]

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