Jack London and Current Event

           When thinking of Jack London and his views on things as a socialist, I first thought of President Obama and how many people view him. Many people believe that Obama is a socialist and wants to take total government control over everything. Examples of these are through Healthcare, businesses, and money spending. Obama is mainly about financial regulation and many believe he wants to regulate every part of their lives, rather than them having control themselves. Things seem to them that Obama believes that the government knows what is best for people and for them to be successful the government needs to be in control. London believed in Socialism which he was introduced to as a high school student and which he represented for some time before turning his focus to writing. If London was here during this current event I believe he would be a follower of Obama and his beliefs as president.

To Build a Fire Literary Analysis

           In To Build a Fire by Jack London, he portrays a strong example of his literary movement naturalism; you will be able to see many relations to the description of naturalism I last posted and Jack London’s interesting piece.  To Build a Fire is one of Jack London’s more popular works which is a great story regarding human’s fight for survival, the brute within, and human compared to animal. London’s main character in this piece finds himself in a situation of life or death after struggling with his brute within and seeking out on a adventure he should not have, we will see how his humanly instincts come through in his fight for survival.

                In the beginning we learn of this man who is on a trip through Alaska with his dog. It is a very cold night but there are descriptions about how the cold does not faze the man. Different thoughts cross into his mind of him making sense such as realizing his cheeks will freeze but he ignores his thoughts and presses on. He remembers back before he left an old man telling him that no man should attempt this travel alone, that many things could happen and if one is alone there was no hope for survival.  The man remembers this often but then his thoughts are somewhat of Ill show him. The man is more interested in proving that this trip is possible by himself rather than paying attention to his thoughts of truth. This shows the struggle his is having with the brute within. In the story London writes many thoughts from the man’s dog. Many times through the story it seems that the dog’s thoughts are more rational than the man’s. The man finds himself in a few sticky situations, of which the first couple he made his way out of safely. This boosted the man confidence that this trip was possible alone. But it was the last situation where he found himself fighting for survival. He becomes very cold and stops to build another fire, he gets the fire going but just then he realized he was over a tree as the warmth of the fire caused the snow and ice of the tree to melt and fall down to his fire putting it out. He becomes scared and quickly starts getting other branches and twigs to build another fire, but he is never successful.  His next survival instinct is to kill his dog and use him for warmth, but when he finally gets hold of the dog he is too cold and in pain to hold onto him or kill him. He begins to panic and again remembers what the old man said about traveling alone. He falls asleep to die and the dog takes off to find food and fire which is his animal instinct for survival.

                To Build a Fire is one of London’s many works where you can learn more of him as a writer and about naturalism. In this piece you see that there are many characteristics of naturalism such as the brute within, fight for survival and human compared to animal. It is important to be able to read a piece of work and see the different aspects of the writer and his movement and To Build a Fire is a perfect story showing both.

Literary Movement of Jack London

Jack London as an author belongs to the literary movement of Naturalism. First I will describe Naturalism and then discuss how London’s writings fit into this movement. Naturalism is described as a literature type that uses the study of human beings in relation to scientific knowledge of detachment and objectivity. Basically, in naturalism writings you will see characters that are examined according to their surroundings and how they relate to them. There are several different themes you can see within a naturalist works, one that you seen in London’s work is the brute within. This highlights an individual and their instinct fight for survival in an indifferent situation.  Social Darwinism is a theory, among others, that is also often used in naturalism writing to help readers understand characters. Jack London’s pieces often include Darwinism, he highlights in many of his pieces the fight for survival based on human instincts and sometimes animals as well. Two of his works that include these characteristics are To Build a Fire, which uses the theme of the brute within and The Sea-Wolf. London’s more popular works The Call of the Wild and White Fang, focus on differences of animal and human behaviors.  

Work Cited

Campbell, Donna. Naturalism in American Literature . 27 July 2010. 12 April 2012 <http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/natural.htm>.

Matterson, Stephen. The American Novel . 1 March 2007. 12 April 2012 <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/naturalism.html>.

Unknown. Jack London. 1 January 2008. 5 April 2012 <http://www.online-literature.com/london/>.

Jack London's Biography and Contribution to Literature

Jack London was born in San Francisco in 1876. His mother was not married and he was mostly raised by Virginia Prentiss, a previous slave, because his mother had a bad illness. John Griffith Chaney is thought to be Jack’s birth given name, and his birth father thought to be William Chaney. His mother soon married John London and as a family they moved to Oakland. In Oakland Jack held many different physical laboring jobs only having finished grade school. At the age of nineteen, London went back to high school where he was introduced to socialism and later became a writer. Once London became noticed as a writer with this publication of Overland Monthlyi, he went on to write and to be considered one strong publicized figure in his time. Jack’s pieces went on to be made into movie films and he worked in that industry as well. In his fame he took on the socialism role and spoke publically regarding the socialism issues including woman’s rights, though his personal relationships with his two wives and daughters shined a different light.  His first wife, Bess Maddern was chosen based on a selection for “good breeding”, but not love which he got this idea from a book he had previously take part in. He had two daughters with Bess, but later divorced and remarried Charmian Kittredge. London became ill with kidney disease and died of renal failure in 1916. His works are still read and known today in the United States and many other countries.  In his time as a writer, London wrote 50 books and is best known for his books The Call of the Wild and White Fang.

 

Stasz, Dr. Clarice. Jack [John Griffith] London. 19 08 2001. 05 04 2012 <http://london.sonoma.edu/jackbio.html>.