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A 4 paragraph essay on the call of the wild
A 4 paragraph essay on the call of the wild
the book review of the call of the wild
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Jack London was an American man of many talents, which included being an author, journalist and a social activist, despite being minimally educated. Nonetheless, he was undoubtedly most recognized for his short stories and novels that fixated on the harsh, cold climates that Mother Nature crafted. London focused on a deeper level of the wild and the literary devices in his work are littered throughout every one of his novels and short stories, including The Call of the Wild, White Fang, as well as “To Build a Fire.”
London’s actual name was John Griffith Chaney and he was born on January 12, 1876 in San Francisco, California. His mother, Flora Wellman, was unwed while his father, William Chaney, was a man of many trades, and he worked as an attorney, journalist, and also worked in the field of American astrology. London’s father was never permanent in his life and as a result, his mother married a man named John London, and the three moved to the Bay Area before they established themselves in Oakland. Jack was raised in a blue-collar, working-class family, but struggled throughout his teenage years because of the lasting impact of his father’s absence. As a result of his troubled childhood, London had a variety of jobs, comparable to his father, and he could never keep one for very long. From pirating oysters, working on a sealing ship in the Pacific to finding employment in a cannery, London’s undertakings did inspire him. Whenever London found any spare time, he would practice writing. His career in the writing world sparked in 1893, when his mother encouraged him to submit a story that was based off his adventures of surviving a typhoon on a sealing voyage, despite having only an eighth grade level education. A twe...
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...Biography Channel website. Mar 28 2014. http://www.
Biography.com/people/jack-london-9385499
"The Makers Of Fire." White Fang, by Jack London; Part III Page 1. PageByPageBooks
.com. n.d. Web. 30. Mar. 2014.
/White_Fang/Part_III_The_Makers_Of_Fire_p1.html>.
London, Jack . "To Build a Fire." Literature An introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing. Twelfth ed. Boston: Pearson, 2005. 127-136. Print.
Rich, Nathaniel. "American Dreams: 'The Call of the Wild' by Jack London." The Daily
Beast, 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 08 Feb. 2014. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/
2013/01/25/American-dreams-the-call-of-the-wild-by-jack-london.html
Times, The New York. "CHARGES JACK LONDON WITH PLAGIARISM."
CHARGES JACK LONDON WITH PLAGIARISM- View Article - NYTimes.com. The New York Times, 24 Nov. 1906. Web. 08 Apr. 2014.
Jack London whose birth name is John Griffin was known for his fiction adventurous novels. Although he was a sailor, gold prospector, rancher and served his country in the Army he still have yet served the time in the wilderness of Alaska. Jack London wrote ‘’The Call of the Wild’’ as if he lived it before. His words jump at you so viciously you had no choice to swallow, savor, and meditate on your life just like Chris McCandless. In the book ways of reading page 429 the dark knight of the soul by Richard E. Miller said that Jon Krakauer wrote about how Jack London actually persuade Chris McCandless that he could possibly escape the bonds of the corporatized world and reach a space of greater calm.
Jack Burden is known as the “student of history” ( Warren 372). The very fact that he is a historian is ironic, as he has come from an aristocratic and reputable family and grew up in Burden’s Landing. However, Jack lacks the ambition needed to excel in life and works for Willie, despite the disapproval of this family. He “not only lacks ambition, but all ‘essential confidence’ in himself” (Bloom 132). If he had ambition, he could have married Anne Stanton earlier, as Anne would always tell him to “go on back to State and finish up” and then she will marry him “even before [he] gets [his] law degree” (448). Yet, Jack forced himself to get kicked out of school. Even as a historian, Jack cannot deal with new things he learns about people he is closely associated with. After he learned that Lois was actually a person and not “merely a luscious machine” he went into one of series of the Great Sleep ( Warren 459). After he learned about Anne Stanton and Willie’s affair, Jack temporarily escaped to the West because “when [people] don’t like whey [the] are [they] always go West” (Warren 464). Jack was not able to cope with this news that he had to leave to relieve his mind. In addition, as a historian, he does not delve into his own past. Concerning his father, he only knew that the Scholarl...
During the March 1986 edition of the Journal of Modern Literature, Lee Clark Mitchell of Princeton University opens his article “‘Keeping His Head’: Repetition and Responsibility in London’s ‘To Build a Fire’” by critiquing naturalism’s style of storytelling. Mitchell claims naturalism as a slow, dull, and plain way of capturing an audience; and Jack London is the epitome of this description. Mitchell states, “[London’s] very methods of composition prompt a certain skepticism; the speed with which he wrote, his suspiciously childish plots…have all convinced readers to ignore the technical aspects of h...
The setting is London in 1854, which is very different to anything we know today. Johnson’s description of this time and place makes it seem like a whole other world from the here and now....
He spent his childhood in Rye, New York, as he was one out of ten children. John’s father was a successful trader of furs, wheat, timber, and other commodities. His mother decided to homeschool him until he was the age of eight, and then his
Jack London was one of America’s greatest authors. His works were of tales from the unexplored savage lands of the Klondike to the cannibal infested Philippine Island chain of the vast Pacific, and even the far reaches of space and time. Jack London himself was a pioneer of the unexplored savage frontier. London wrote about this unknown frontier with a cunning sense of adventure and enthrallment. “He keeps the reader on tenterenters books by withholding facts in a way that makes him participate in the action'; (Charles Child Walcutt 16). He taunts the reader with unfulfilled information that subliminally encourages the reader to continue reading their selection. “The tortuously baroque style, it’s telling often proves an annoyance';(Gorman Beauchamp 297-303). London’s writing attributes are so deep in description and narration, the reader sometimes perceives the story-taking place with them included in the action. His ability to exclude just the very miniscule amount of information transforms his books into a semi-formal mystery. Mr. London’s tales deal with nature, the men and women who either neglected the fact that they are mere mortals, or they humbled themselves as being only a solitary one being on the earth. His stories satisfied the civilized American readers yearn for knowledge of what awaited them over the horizon, with either promise of prosperity or demise with a manifestation of dismay.
There are many authors in this world, but there are also many legends. Legends who changed the face of literature. One of these legends was none other than Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21st, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. He was born to a physician and former opera performer named Clarence and Grace. Hemingway showed a talent in writing when he was in high school. He wrote for the school’s newspaper and yearbook. After he graduated at the age of 17 in 1916, he began his writing career as a reporter for a newspaper called, the Kansas City Star. After he worked as a reporter for six months, he dropped out because he wanted to join the U.S army during World War I. But because he failed the medical test, he joined the American Field Service Ambulance Corps in Italy. Unfortunately, while he was delivering supplies, Hemingway was wounded, which ended his career as an ambulance driver. Because of this, he spent lots of time in hospitals and met a nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky, with whom he fell in love with. Sadly, she didn’t return his feelings so Hemingway was heartbroken. This incident inspired him to write one of his well known books, “A Farewell to Arms”. Like this book, many other of his famous works came to be because of incidents in his past. His pieces of literature started to be known and read worldwide which provided him a route to become one of the most celebrated authors of his time.
London, Jack. "To Build a Fire." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 7th edition. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York, NY: Longman, 1999. 100-11
John Griffith London, better known to us as Jack London, was born to Flora Wellman January 12, 1876, in San Francisco. (Ranch Album) His father was presumably W.H. Chaney, who left Flora after finding out she was pregnant. (Stasz, 9) Flora met and eventually married John London on September 7, 1876 bringing John's two other children, Ida and Eliza, into the family. (Ranch Album) Flora enlisted the help of a wet nurse and, with the help her and Eliza, Jack London was raised. For the next ten years, John and his family relocated several times within California, moving from farm to farm trying to become financially successful. (Marshall) Finally, the London family moved to Oakland where Jack began to attend school. At the age of eleven, Jack was put to work to help support the family due to his father's business failures. (Stasz, 19-28) This began what would be many years of odds and ends jobs for Jack.
Jack London has written a classic short story in the 1908 version of "To Build a Fire." This is the classic story of man fighting nature. In most genres (e.g. movies, novels, short stories) the main character comes out on top, however unlikely that is. Jack London takes literary naturalism and shows the reader how unmerciful nature is. Much like Stephen Crane in "The Open Boat," in which the one of the characters dies, London doesn't buy into that "has to have a good ending" contrivance. Through analysis of two London's letters (to R.W. Gilder and Cloudesly Johns) these two versions of "To Build a Fire" come alive with new meaning. Although there are many differences on the surface, both stories use his philosophy as expressed to Johns and both teach a moral lesson, one which will not soon be forgotten: "Never travel alone."
Next, Jack, at the age of sixteen (1892), worked as a watchman, joined a rough gang (in which he assumed the moniker “Sailor Kid”) and worked with the California Fish Patrol to help capture oyster pirates. When he was seventeen (1893), Jack worked in a jute mill, in which he earned ten cents an hour, and signed on to be a sailor on the “Sophia Sutherland”, a three-masted schooner, for a seven-month voyage along the Behring Sea and the Coast of Japan. In addition, that same year, under the persuasion of his mother, Jack entered a writing contest, competing against students from Stanford and University of California, and won first place, for which the prize was being published in the San Francisco Call and being rewarded with twenty-five dollars, with his essay “Story of a Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan”. Later, at the age of eighteen (1894), Jack worked to shovel coal, joined Kelley’s army (a group of unemployed men who marched on the capital, Washington D.C., from Massillon, Ohio as the Western contingent of Coxey’s Industrial Army of the Unemployed), decided to strike on his own, visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, roamed around the United States
Jack London is the name you can hear everywhere, his writing appealed to millions of people all around the world. London was an American novelist and short-story writer, who wrote passionately about questions of life and death, surviving. The writer had a lot of adventures, experienced the life at sea, or in Alaska, or in the fields and factories of California, all of these influenced his writing style. Jack London descended from the family of his mother Flora and astrologer and journalist William Chaney. The writer has got his education by himself and with help of a librarian Ina Coolbrith - he has a passion to read books at public libraries. Later in life, Jack finally graduated from high school in Oakland. Jack London's work carrier was so variable, he has been a laborer, factory worker, and oyster pirate on the San Francisco Bay, member of the California Fish Patrol, sailor, railroad hob, and gold prospector. Yes, gold prospecting was the big part of his life, when the young writer with his brother-in-law sailed to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he would set his first successful stories. Jack London was a hard-worker, he tried never miss his early morning 1,000-word writing stint, what helped him to write over fifty books between 1900 and 1916. In addition to it, he corresponded with his readers, and made huge researches for improving his writing style, what is, obviously, genius. The consequences of such a hard work became the fact that Jack London had become the best selling, highest paid and most popular American author of his time. Many authors and social advocates have been inspired by Jack London’s heartfelt prose, and readers travel and experience so much through his books.
John suffered poor health during much of his childhood. After attending four years in high school John Jr. dropped out leaving home for Las Vegas. He worked odd jobs to include a maintenance position at a funeral parlor. There were few decent jobs available in Las Vegas for John Jr., so he saved up enough money to move back to Chicago.
During the turn of the 19th century, a grandiose shift occurred in literature from realism to naturalism form of writing. One of the many authors involved in this movement included Jack London. London developed his short stories collection, Son of the Wolf, around this theme. In a Far Country is a short story in Son of the Wolf collection in which London talks about two lethargy men, Cater Weatherbee and Percy Cuthfert, who come from different realms of life. They are on a journey to the North near the Yukon River in Alaska searching for gold. On their way, they decide to abandon their team and live in a cabin during the Arctic winter. In the beginning, the two men cooperate by staying hygienic and conserving food. But over time they start experiencing a sense of insecurity with each other. They discontinue staying clean, saving food, and keeping order. Overtime they face physical and more importantly emotional breakdown. The disintegration between the two men eventually leads each of them into killing the other over sugar (par. 1-76). By elaborating on the physical and psychological struggle alongside nature’s indifference in the wilderness, London illustrates the superficial cooperation and contention between human beings in a civilization.
Jack London was born in the last quarter of the nineteenth century to Flora Wellman a great spiritualist and music teacher. It is believed by biographers that Jack’s father was an astrologer by the name William Chaney. The author in his great time novel ‘Martin Eden’ is reflected as a rough innumerate sailor who had a great urge to be educated in a bid to have himself fit well into the society of the literary elite. Through intensive self studying, he struggles to rise higher than his devoid conditions of being born among the working class, he does this in an attempt to book himself a coveted place among the affluent. According to the context, the protagonist does this mainly because of his relationship with one girl named Ruth Morse. The author shows it out clearly that ‘Martin Eden’ is in an intimate relationship with the girl, however the two, though in love, come from very wide social backgrounds. While the former comes from a bourgeois background, the latter hails from a working class background. It is therefore paramount that for the two to ...