Life of Adventure, Tales of Triumph Inspiring many, Jack London, was one of the first famous journalists. A rough and tumble man, who was never meant to grow old, his spirited stories of adventure and excitement entranced America, and later, the rest of the world. From California to Korea, these stories were inspired by nothing less than his own adventures. Starting at the age of 14, Jack roamed the earth in the undertaking of a lifetime: an earthly education. But, who truly was Jack London and how did these adventures inspire tales such as, Call of The Wild and White Fang? To understand Jack London’s writing, the reader must know his life. Born as John Griffith Chaney on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco, California, baby Jack was deserted by his astrologist father. His mother struggled to provide for him and his stepfather from whom he got the last name, London. Jack’s mother was a spiritual woman by the name of Flora Wellman, or Flora London. Flora was raised in a house with eight other …show more content…
siblings, all of whom battled for their father’s attention. Out of the nine children, Flora stood out to be the most intelligent and curious. She was allowed to have many tutors and receive more education than any of her other siblings. It was through her teachings that her beliefs became those of liberal Protestantism; education, women’s rights, temperance and abolitionism. Flora would pass much of her, for that time, radical views onto Jack. In 1870, Flora met William Chaney, who’s intelligence and progressive believes made them an instant match. In 1874, Flora became pregnant with their child and was distraught when William ordered her to, “destroy her unborn babe”. Driven crazy, Flora shot herself in the forehead, only a grazing wound, and left newborn Jack with a friend and former slave. She soon remarried a man named John London and could take care of her son once more. (Steffof) John London was a carpenter who had been wounded in the civil war. Because of this, he was not able to work as often as he could. (Brandt) Despite this, Flora paid for Jack to go to school and taught him piano. All this proved unappealing to Jack, so, at the age of 14, he quit the school, he was attending and begun a job as an oyster harvester in the San Francisco Bay. Using his own boat, dubbed the Razzle-Dazzle, he sailed the harbor with his new friends, a rough crowd of delinquents who struggled to find work elsewhere. These men bestowed the title of, “The Prince of the Oyster Pirates,” upon Jack after he declared, “to reign among booze fighters, a prince than to toil twelve hours a day at a machine for ten cents an hour.” (Brandt) Jack’s lust for adventure proved to desire more than the pilfering and debauchery that sailing brought him.
So he sailed out on a seal hunting expedition on board a schooner called Sophia Sutherland. He was brought to Japan and the Bonin Islands. This was possibly the shortest of all his work, as he found the job cruel and miserable, so he soon quit and wandered back to San Francisco to begin work as coal heaver, then a mill worker, and finally he crossed America as a hobo until he was caught and served time for Vagrancy. His time in jail encouraged him to shape up. (Brandt) In his personal journal he wrote, “I had been born in the working-class,” he recalled, “and I was now, at the age of eighteen, beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in the cellar of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery . . . I was in the pit, the abyss, the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel house of our civilization. . . . I was scared into thinking.”
(Jack) Taking his new found motivation for education, Jack, now 19, enrolled in high school, cramming a four year high school course into one. (Brandt) He then entered the University of Berkeley, which he only attended for a year before he dropped out. Still in search of his ‘calling’ Jack followed the Klondike gold rush, he spent 11 months watching the men on the rush and begun writing about them. “It was in the Klondike,” London said, “that I found myself. There nobody talks. Everybody thinks. There you get your perspective. I got mine.” He returned to America, still poor and jobless. He set to write on a schedule, much like the journalists he had heard about. He produced sonnets, ballads, jokes, anecdotes and most importantly, adventure stories. The vigor and talent in his writings proved to entice citizens who craved to feel the ecstasy and life behind his works. Soon, all his Klondike works were published, finally guaranteeing him a life out of poverty. When his book Call of the Wild, a tale from the point of view of a dog named Buck who is suddenly plunged into the gold rush, made an appearance the, now 27 years old, became ‘wildly’ popular amongst all of America and soon the world. (Yang) He soon became well known in Russia for his relatable tales of the people and his trend of Socialism. If London learned one thing from Flora, it was his strong socialist views. He wrote about many fluctuating topics for this. Many of his books contain anti-racist and anti-colonial messages, while others contain messages on social Darwinism and equality, two possibly contradicting topics. Upon writing The Iron Heel, a book about how the upper class rules over the lower class with an ‘iron heel’, he expressed his beliefs of the American Totalitarian oligarchy. The book was slammed by fellow socialist writers because of the time it would take for London’s society to emerge. Following Iron Heel, Jack wrote Martin Eden, a semi autobiographical book where he describes his own rise to fame, then reflects on how a slick public image is more important than the quality of the work published. Many say that Jack anticipated Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. One thing in common between all of London’s books are their relevance to his own life. Perhaps this is the thing that made his work so detailed and immersive for the reader. With his booming career as a writer, London began to travel more, this time bringing a camera to document his ventures. He reported on islands in the South Pacific and slums of London. In 1904, he was threatened with a court martial after punching a Japanese Officer’s thieving stable groom, while commissioned as a war correspondent in Korea. Thankfully, President Theodore Roosevelt secured his release, this being an example of how important Jack London was in America. A strong and progressive writer, Jack made for a inadequate husband. Married to his math tutor, Bess Maddern, in 1900. Jack and Bess had two daughters, Bess and Joan. Though Jack was charismatic and happy, he was a hard drinker, chain smoker and had a poor diet. With his health slipping and his absence at home, the marriage became too much for Bess. After just four years of marriage, the two split. London was quick to marry Charmian Kittrege, a progressive and “New Age Woman”, she was athletic and outgoing. These two will remain together until London’s passing. After traveled across the country and seas together, Jack and Charmian bought a small piece of land in Glen Ellen California. When Jack purchased the property it was just a few acres of abandoned farmland. In the next five years, Jack would expand it to over 1,400 acres, calling it “Beauty Ranch”. Seeing the potential behind the land and using his extensive knowledge of farming, Jack planned to use terraces to farm. Jack felt strongly about preserving the land, and in 1915 he said, I am rebuilding worn-out hillside lands that were worked out and destroyed by our wasteful California pioneer farmers. I believe the soil is our one indestructible asset, and by green manures, nitrogen-gathering cover crops, animal manure, rotation of crops, proper tillage and draining, I am getting results which the Chinese have demonstrated for forty centuries. He understood the land better than most farmers at the time, despite his limited schooling. Jack wrote of his Ranch often, as it was his safe place. Having spent his whole life traveling, he said, “All I wanted was a quiet place in the country to write and loaf in, and get out of nature that something which we all need, only the most of us don’t know it.” (Stefoff) Showing the more transcendentalist side of London.“I ride out of my beautiful ranch,” He wrote. “Between my legs is a beautiful horse. The air is wine. The grapes on a score of rolling hills are red with autumn flame. Across Sonoma Mountain wisps of sea fog are stealing. The afternoon sun smolders in the drowsy sky. I have everything to make me glad I am alive. Despite Jack's love for his ranch, his wife and him traveled often during its construction. In 1911, they took a four horse wagon 1,500 miles through the heart of Oregon, and after that in 1912, they sailed on the ship Dirigo from Baltimore to Cape Horn. Following the release of two of London’s most famous works,White Fang and The Sea-Wolf , he begun construction on his 45 foot sailboat, which he dubbed Snark. It was on this boat that Charmian and Jack would sail to places such as Hawaii and the majority of the South Sea. Due to Jack getting sick, they were forced to head back. It came as no surprise that London became so Ill. Despite his numerous travels and exposure to many foreign bodies, his immune system was weak from years of heavy drinking and smoking. The next year, Jack underwent an appendectomy, a medical operation to remove the appendix. It was then that doctors discovered his diseased kidneys. On top of his diagnosis, Beauty Ranch burned down not a week later. London was devastated by these two events, but vowed to, someday, rebuild when he was in better health. That chance would never come. In the years leading up to London’s death, he continued to write, releasing works such as, The Valley of the Moon, yet another story that is strikingly similar to his own life. (Yang) He also wrote, The Star Rover, a story of a death row inmate whose views on death may give the reader insight on how London felt at the time. During this time, London suffered dysentery, gastric problems and rheumatism. Upon two more trips to Hawaii, London, exhausted, passed away from probable stroke and uremic poisoning on November 22, 1916. The following day, The New York Times published an article in which they quoted a previous interview with London, in which he stated how he wrote his first piece, Very tired and sleepy and knowing I had to be up at 5:30, I began the article at midnight and worked straight on until I had written 2,000 words, the limit of the article, but with my idea only half worked out. I continued adding another 2,000 words before I had finished, and the third night I spent in cutting out the excess, so as to bring the article within the conditions of the contest. The first prize came to me, and my success seriously turned my thoughts to writing, but my blood was still too hot for a settled routine. From his very first story to his last, London never failed in his mission to deliver exciting and progressive stories to the public. In his 40 years alive, he published hundreds of works, 50 being in the last few years of his life. From his adventures to his writing, one thing is clear about London: he is a man of many talents. He has inspired many to change their life for the better, work harder, and embrace the world around them.
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...
Christopher McCandless had always admired the works of Jack London. He even went as far as naming Jack London “king”. McCandless relished the naturalisitc elements of London’s writings, elements that he chose to ignore in his own life. Jack London often depicted men as being controlled by their environment and being unable to withstand any heavy circumstances. He depicted themes about the frailty of man and man’s inability to overcome nature. But McCandless clearly did not take away any of the valuable lessons from these stories. He hailed London as “king” but never truly learned from London’s stories, dying in a tragically ironic way when he came to meet the same fate as the protagonist in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”. Christopher McCandless
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."
Jack London wrote the novel The Call of the Wild; it was also his first success (Feast). The Call of the Wild is an exciting beast fable which dramatizes the unforgiving harshness of existence but shows that suffering can lead to heroic self-awareness (Buckner). London was big on the philosophical idea of Naturalism. As well as having links with literary naturalism, "The Call of the Wild is also a mythical book informed throughout with such traditional myths as the Myth of the Hero." Although Buck is always a dog throughout the story, his predicament is highly relevant to the human condition in a novel beginning with concise patterns of description and moving toward an increasingly lyrical style (Williams). The protagonist of The Call of the Wild is a dog named Buck. He's part German Sheppard and half Saint Bernard, he's labeled the "hero" of the story. The story takes place primarily in the Klondike region of Alaska except for in the first chapter it takes place in the Santa Clara Valley of California. The story is centrally focused around Buck; if it wasn't for him not having any speaking parts the reader would think he was a human because of the personality traits he possesses. In this paper we will discuss traits such as Buck's ability to adapt, Buck's bravery, his mental and physical strength, his loyalty and love and his instinct of the wild.
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...
Arthur Conan Doyle’s early life in England contributed a lot to his writing. While he was still in school there were people around him who influenced the characters that he would write about later in life, including one of his professors. “If he needed a model for his detective, he need look no further than a lean figure in Edinburgh, with long white dexterous hands and a humorous eye, whose deductions startled patients as they would readers” (Carr, 2003). He also started looking at things differently which affected his writing style. “He had encountered a curious facility of being able to drop a mental curtain between himself and the world; and by inducing an artificial state of mind, becoming himself the character he wrote about” (Carr, 2003).
Growing up in a rich atmosphere of culture, religion, and the sciences, Ernest Hemingway was always surrounded by different perspectives and thoughts of the world around him. There was a restlessness in him that wanted to discover and explore new things. Beginning as early as high school, his inner-writer began to emerge and his stories were often read aloud to the class as examples of what the other students should strive for. These stories are rarely spoken of nowadays, but display his early talent. While the majority of people are mostly familiar with Hemingway’s well-known works in his later years, some of his earliest pieces that he contributed to the world are often forgotten. (Reef 53).
The very nature of Ernest Hemingway can be cleanly divided into the often conflicting influences of his mother and father. Grace Hall Hemingway lived a charmed life and almost achieved success as an opera star, being a fairly gifted vocalist, but quit both because she was proposed to and because the lights of stage bothered her eyes (she had sensitive eyes due to a several month period of blindness set on by scarlet fever). Clarence Edmond Hemingway was a collector of coins, stamps, preserved snakes, and Native-American arrowheads, as well as an avid outdoorsman. He also went to college at Oberlin and became a practicing physician. However, his real passion and a good deal of talent lay in hunting, fishing, and outdoor cooking, and liv...
Ernest Hemingway was one of the most significant novelists of the 20th century .He was born in twenty first of July, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, as a young man he worked in the school newspaper and then in graduation instead of going to college, he went to the Kansas City Star to work for newspapers, that background in journalism had a lot to do with his later literary style . Ernest Hemingway writing style was significant because he was so brief and straightforward with his short concise sentences. During world war one he served as an ambulance driver and then he moved to Paris when he wrote his first novel” The Sun Also Rises“ in 1926. His works had a big success, but his life was stormy, he had this pathological thing that as soon she married one woman he fell in love with another one usually much younger one and his happened over and over again . He was married four times, with his first wife Hadley they had a son John with his second wife Pauline he had two sons Patric and Gregory, he was then married to the journalist Martha Gellhorn and then finally to Mary Welsh. In 1951 Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize of “The Old Man and The Sea” and two years later he was honored with the noble prize in literature. In his later life he felt depression , anxiety probably mental illness , he suffered with alcoholism with an ongoing battle with entertainments in his life .He committed suicide when finally he found that all the virtues that he could have valued such as self controlled ad health productivity had to come and end. Hemingways greatest work may have been his life , the life that he lived, he continued being a writer, not just sitting in an isolated room but gambling and make a show about it . Ernest Hemingway wrot...
“They only want to kill when they’re alone. Of course, if you went in there you’d probably detach one of them from the herd, and he’d be dangerous (Hemingway).” This quote from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises helped light the way for many new authors. Hemingway devolved a unique writing style that left mysteries readers had to solve on their own. Hemingway is best known for his signature writing, the Iceberg Theory. Hemingway deserves to be in the literary canon because he is a master of diction, his stories are unique and original, and he developed a writing style that many authors still use today.Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. His mother was very repressive and protective whereas his father, a physician, was very masculine, often taking him fishing and hunting and sometimes bringing him along to professional calls. These early experiences introduced Ernest to an adventurous life style. The influence of his father’s masculinity eventually led to an obsession to prove his own. When Hemingway’s father committed suicide it left the boy emotional scared. He shows this in many of his books, “it usually involves a desperate risk, and behind it is the shadow of ruin, physically or mentally (Warren 3).”
The slot is a metaphor of the “class cleavage of society”. There was a contrast between the North and South of the Slot in terms of building types: in the North were the higher-class centers of diversion, lodging, and business; and in the South were the lower-class centers of lodging, unskilled work/business. The buildings are figures of two contrasting classes that were segregated (?). In order to study the southern people (the working class) a sociology professor of the University of CA, Freddie Drummond (FD), decides to work temporarily as an unskilled laborer. Initially he experiences social problems of adaptation and acceptance by his fellow workers. For example, he doesn’t understand their insistent admonitions to reduce his work pace. As a result of his fierce competition against them, by the 6th day FD doubles his earnings. He misunderstands their lack of loyalty to the business, and looks down on them. Being unable to convince Drummond, and as a last resort, his co-workers jumped on him and attacked him so badly that he becomes ill. Once recovered, Drummond changes job. He finds himself working as a fruit-distributor among the women and decides not to change their work conditions. In six months, Drummond works at many jobs, and succeeds in imitating a genuine worker. As FD makes tentative generalizations about the working class, he is applauded by the business people, who divulge and spread his studies to the working cl...
Jack London brings man versus nature discussion into his story. The environment, however doesn't play against him for say, but does warn him from the very beginning. The audience can conclude that just like “the man” everyone is alone in the world - fighting for ourselves and the things we wish to acquire. The character created by London is isolated from the universe and fooli...
In The Hound of the Baskervilles, various factors of Arthur Conan Doyle’s early life, popularity, perspective, and status were all expressed in multiple ways. Spiritualism played an crucial role in his life, greatly impacting his work, specifically “The Hound.” Additionally, his birthplace and upbringing, along with the time period, inveigled his writing. Furthermore, Doyle characterized the people in the story in along with real life scenarios.
The birth of American writer Ernest Miller Hemingway on July 21st, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois occurred during the progressive era and mere months before the Philippine-American war. Raised in the conservative suburbs and vacationing in northern Michigan the young Hemingway enjoyed the outdoors at his family’s cabin and his experiences there led him to become a sportsman partaking in fishing, hunting, and thrill-seeking. His initial writing skills were divulged when he began writing for his high school newspaper “Trapeze and Tabula” where he took interest in the sports section which would later play a large role in his professional writings as his focus on masculinity and social theories.