Martin Eden
Abstract
Martin Eden is Jack London’s semi-autobiographical novel, which gives a very vivid and detailed portrait of the hero, from an impoverished and uneducated sailor to a successful writer, who was inspired by the elegance and knowledge of the upper class girl Ruth and thereafter kept toiling himself in learning and writing and eventually got acclamation but meanwhile lost his hope in life and drowned himself in the sea. Jack London has read many philosophers’ works, among which Friedrich Nietzsche exerted a great influence upon him. Hence his Nietzschean character Martin Eden. A superman himself, Martin has a strong will to power, to transcend his laboring class, to win Ruth’s love for beauty’s sake, to show his contempt for the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, to be the master herding the masses of slave morality, but after he achived what he pursued all the time ,he lost himself.It is Martin
's tragedy.
Key Words：class strugle contrast individualism socialism deaath
1 The introduction of the author Jack London
Jack London (1876-1916), prolific American novelist and short story writer, whose works deal romantically with the overwhelming power of nature and the struggle for survival. His left-wing philosophy is seen in the class struggle novel The Iron Heel (1908).
Jack London was born on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco. He was deserted by his father, William Henry Chaney, and raised in Oakland by his mother Flora Wellman, a music teacher and spiritualist, and stepfather John London, whose surname he took. London 's youth was marked by poverty. At the age of ten he became an avid reader, and borrowed books from the Oakland Public Library.
After leaving school at the age of 14, London worked as a seaman, rode in freight trains as a hobo and adopted socialistic views as a member of protest armies of the unemployed. In 1894 he was arrested in Niagara Falls and jailed for vagrancy. Without having much formal
Martin Eden is Jack London’s semi-autobiographical novel, which gives a very vivid and detailed portrait of the hero, from an impoverished and uneducated sailor to a successful writer, who was inspired by the elegance and knowledge of the upper class girl Ruth and thereafter kept toiling himself in learning and writing and eventually got acclamation but meanwhile lost his hope in life and drowned himself in the sea. Jack London has read many philosophers’ works, among which Friedrich Nietzsche exerted a great influence upon him. Hence his Nietzschean character Martin Eden. A superman himself, Martin has a strong will to power, to transcend his laboring class, to win Ruth’s love for beauty’s sake, to show his contempt for the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, to be the master herding the masses of slave morality, but after he achived what he pursued all the time ,he lost himself.It is Martin
's tragedy.
Key Words：class strugle contrast individualism socialism deaath
1 The introduction of the author Jack London
Jack London (1876-1916), prolific American novelist and short story writer, whose works deal romantically with the overwhelming power of nature and the struggle for survival. His left-wing philosophy is seen in the class struggle novel The Iron Heel (1908).
Jack London was born on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco. He was deserted by his father, William Henry Chaney, and raised in Oakland by his mother Flora Wellman, a music teacher and spiritualist, and stepfather John London, whose surname he took. London 's youth was marked by poverty. At the age of ten he became an avid reader, and borrowed books from the Oakland Public Library.
After leaving school at the age of 14, London worked as a seaman, rode in freight trains as a hobo and adopted socialistic views as a member of protest armies of the unemployed. In 1894 he was arrested in Niagara Falls and jailed for vagrancy. Without having much formal
References: website:http://giantwoo.blogbus.com/logs/3338282.htm Sciambra, Joseph. The Philosophy of Jack London.