Characters’ experiences and subject evolution from the perspective of natural phenomena in the 19th century French realist novel

Nature is present everywhere in the French realist writers works, contributing, through the skillful exploitation of the symbolic potential encoded in colors, shades, tones and halftones, to subject line development, to messages formulation, to affective states induction, etc. At the same time, nature descriptions are often constituted, in the plastic arts best traditions, in small landscapes and pictorial compositions. The purposes in which authors refer to nature phenomena are diverse, but necessarily closely related to the narrative context. In some cases, nature is beside the character throughout his whole life, its colors symbolizing his evolution over time, his constantly changing moods.