Jack London Research Paper

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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…

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.”

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