“A man said to the universe: 'Lord, I exist!' 'Yet,' replied the universe, 'the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.'” ~ Stephen Crane. Crane was the champion of the American naturalist movement. After the Civil War, American authors had to adapt and react to the incredible amount of death that occurred. Authors began writing more realistic stories and started the realism movement. Realist authors who took the basics one step further created the naturalists. Naturalists believed that humans were hopeless and that the world was against human nature. These authors could touch on more controversial issues in life, such as racism and violence because they could create a realistic environment and make a commentary on society through the characters' inability to change the environment. The naturalist, like Crane, believed that the environment dictated nature and human life. For example, a person in poverty could not escape poverty because the society around them would limit or completely eliminate any possibility of improving their life. These ideas arose not only from the civil war brought about by crowded cities and slums where the poor suffered and remained poor. Human beings cannot, in the eyes of a naturalist, make actual changes to their position in life. The naturalistic influence in The Monster and The Red Badge of Courage created common philosophies in the novels. The monster is believed to be based on several events that occurred during Crane's (Nagel) life. Stephen got the idea of ​​a faceless man from Levi Hume. Levi suffered from cancer that ate away his face and left him a faceless man, just like Henry Johnson in Monster. Another possible influence on the novel was the life of John Merrick (Nagel).......half of the newspaper......and the war." Private Fleming at Chancellorsville: TheRed Badge of Courage and the Civil War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006. Rpt in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau vol. 13 April 2014. McMurray, Price. “Disabling Fiction: Race, History, and Ideology.” Crane's Monster." Studies in American Fiction 26.1 (Spring 1998): 51-72 in Nineteenth-CenturyLiterature Criticism. Ed. Russel Whitaker Vol. 148. Detroit: Gale, 2005. LiteratureResource Center Web, 8 April 2014. Nagel. , James ): 48-57. Short story criticism Ed. Janet Witalec, 8 April. 2014.