The-Tragdy-of-Martin-Eden

1、Abstract Martin Eden is Jack Londons 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 him

2、self 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 hi

3、mself, Martin has a strong will to power, to transcend his laboring class, to win Ruths love for beautys 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 Ma

4、rtin'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

5、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 F

6、lora 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

7、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 education, London educated himself in public libraries, and at the age of 19 gained a

8、dmittance to the University of California at Berkeley. He had already started to write. For the remainder of 1898 London again tried to earn his living by writing. His early stories appeared in the Overland Monthly and the Atlantic Monthly. In 1900 he married Elisabeth Maddern, but left her and thei

9、r two daughters three years afterwards, eventually to marry Charmian Kittredge.   All thsee experiences provid him with rich and practical materials for his creation. Just like Martin in Martin Eden who struggles to enter the so-called upper-class which confused him at last and led him to death

10、.   2The plot summary of the novel Martin Eden Living in Oakland at the dawn of the 20th century, Martin Eden struggles to rise far above his destitute circumstances through an intense and passionate pursuit of self-education in order to achieve a coveted place among the literary elite. The mai

11、n driving force behind Martin Eden's efforts is his love for Ruth Morse. Because Eden is a sailor from a working class background, and the Morses are a bourgeois family, a union between them would be impossible until he reaches their level of wealth and perceived cultural, intellectual refinemen

12、t.   Just before the literary establishment discovers Edens talents as a writer and lavishes him with the fame and fortune that he had incessantly promised Ruth (for the last two years) would come, she loses her patience and rejects him in a wistful letter: "if only you had settled downand

13、 attempted to make something of yourself." When the publishers and the bourgeois - the very ones who shunned him - are finally at his feet, Martin has already begrudged them and become jaded by unrequited toil and love. Instead of enjoying his success, Eden retreats into a quiet indifference, o

14、nly interrupted to mentally rail against the genteelness of bourgeois society or to donate his new wealth to working class friends and family.   The novel ends with Martin Eden committing suicide by drowning, a detail which undoubtedly contributed to what researcher Clarice Stasz calls the '

15、;biographical myth' that Jack London's own death was a suicide.   3The analysis of the main characters Martin Eden A former sailor from a working class  who falls in love with a young bourgeois lady  and decides to educate himself at becoming a writer, so he can win her hand i

16、n marriage.But when he achieved what he pursed all the time after a serious of hard working he found the essece of the so-called upper-class and even the ugliness of it .And it is what he pursued led to his death . Ruth Morse The young bourgeois woman attending university who captivates Eden while t

17、utoring him in English. Though she is initially both attracted and repelled by his working class background, she eventually decides that she loves him. The two become engaged but also be restrictd: they cannot marry until her parents approve of his financial and social status.As the development of t

18、he plot her disadvantages which are rooted in the bourgeis exposed to the readers and Martin.And when Martin,her husband to-be, was in the valley of his careeer and his life,she should deserted him.While she offered to review the love affairs when Martin achieved the social and economic status which

19、 her parents pursued. Ruth and her parents are the reprensents of the bourgeois . Lizzie Connolly As a cannery worker Lizzie is rejected by Eden, who is already in love with Ruth. In Eden's mind, Lizzie's rough hands mark her out as inferior to Ruth. Despite this, Lizzie remains devoted to E

20、den. He feels an attachment to her because she loves him for who he is, and not for the fame or money . Lizzie loved him from the beginning before he was rich and famous and trying to better himself.Devoted to her love and her heart,Lizzie keeps pure all the time during Martin's stuuggle for his

21、 writing career and his marriage in which the bridge is not Lizzie.Though she spends even sacrifices a lot for the love, she still cannot have a happy ending with Martin Eden.It's really a pity! Lizzie is the representive of girls from the working class and the counterpart of the bourgeois lady-

22、Ruth Morse in the book.      Russ Brissenden Eden's sickly writer counterpart, who encourages Eden to give up writing and return to the sea before city life swallows him up. As a committed socialist, he introduces Eden to a group of amateur philosophers he calls the 'real

23、 dirt'. Brissendens final work - 'Ephemera' - causes a literary sensation when Eden breaks his word and publishes it upon the writer's death.   4 Ruth  vs  Lizzie The two ladies are a obvious constast in the book,which may be deeply considered as the represent of the c

24、lass conflict. Ruth is a elegent lady from the upper-class,who receives good education,with polite manners and a pair of soft hands.She need not to work for bread or anything else ,for she has a rich parents and she is one from the bourgeois.And we can read her affectation in lines. While Lizzie, a

25、cannary  woker comes from the poor working class,receives little education, has rough manners and a pair of rough hands. Because she has to work with her own hands to win her life or to support her family.But she says and does anything fankly and openly which wins her popular among the readers

26、and at last wins the heart of Martin,though they cannot become a couple. And the words Martin thought in the book express that clearly:| “He was used to the harsh callousnee of factory girls and working women.Well he knew why their hands are rough;but this hand of hers It was soft because she had ne

27、ver used it to work with”.   5 Individualism vs socialism Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche（1844-1900）was a great German philosopher. He argued that the ideal human, the übermensch, would be able to channel passions creatively instead of suppressing them. His most famous works include Thus Spoke

28、 Zarathustra (1883-1892), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), etc. During his lifetime, he was notoriously ignored and his brilliant ideas were buried deep. Only in the 20th century did people rediscover his value and some of his philosophy yet changed the way of thinking in some fields.   Although Ja

29、ck London was a socialist, he invested the semi-autobiographical character of Martin Eden with a strong dose of individualism. Eden comes from a working class background, but he seeks self-improvement, rather than an improvement for his class as a whole. Quoting Friedrich Nietzsche and Herbert Spenc

30、er, he rejects the 'slave morality' of socialism, even at socialist meetings. However, London was keen to stress that it was this individualism that eventually led to Eden's suicide. He described the novel as a parable of a man who had to die "not because of his lack of faith in God

31、, but because of his lack of faith in men."   He was not a pure Nietzschean, although he was thrilled with Nietzsches language and slogans, as was evident in his proclamation, “I have been more stimulated by Nietzsche than by any other writer in the world.” He once described his approach t

32、o Nietzsche: “Where Nietzsche travels my road, hes a good companion. Where I would have to turn around, because of him, I simply do not. I go on and leave him behind.” He was quite Nietzschean regarding this quotation in the sense of individualistic thinking and misbelieving in any of the establishe

33、d models. With a socialist conviction, he condemned individualism in Martin Eden. He alleged himself Martin Eden, with the exception that he was “aware of the needs of others”. His hero Martin Eden was who he tried arduously to portray as a Nietzschean individualist, although he failed his goal by i

34、nspiring more and more people into admiring Martins individual struggle and success despite his ultimate suicide. When we carefully examine Martins life, we will manifestly discern on him the marks left by Nietzsche and his doctrines.   6 Martin-a man to be over-come Back from the superman stor

35、y of Martin Eden, we may discover a related notion brought about by Zarathustra, the superman archetype, saying that “Man is something that shall be overcome.” The ape overcame himself and therefore created man. In the same manner, man himself must now create the superman by overcoming himself. Over

36、coming oneself means to sublimate strong passions, not to obliterate them. Martin overcomes himself, overcomes his working class status, and overcomes other peoples indifference and incomprehension. He is no longer the happy sailor, the man hanging out with his pals and drifting along with different

37、 girls. He has transcended himself to become a true superman.   He has been confronting with numerous adversities several times andonly an iota of frustration and dejection will throw him off the ladder to his dreams. But he never really feels disheartened and always holds the conviction that h

38、e will succeed, he will win Ruths heart, and he will surpass every individual who is worshipped by the society as divinities. He has overcome his natural shrink from mastering that much knowledge on his first endeavor to learn; he has overcome his human drowsiness only to devote all 19 consecutive a

39、waken hours to study; he has overcome his physiological limit to accomplish at least three days&apos labor of ordinary men each day in the laundry; he has overcome his need of food and sleep and company to verbalize his creative inspiration into the masterpiece Overdue, living a recluse and a wr

40、iting-machine.   To overcome himself, man must learn to despise himself, to be dissatisfied and discontented with himself; because it is only when he begins to look down on himself that he can begin to rise above himself and be something higher and greater andnobler than he was.Nietzsche has ov

41、ercome himself to be mentally disordered in his last years. Martin Eden has overcome himself to lose interest in the distasteful human world. They have gone both too far, or rather, over-overcome themselves.   when success thrones Marti, all his hard work pays off and he becomes world-famous, w

42、hereas he can neither mingle himself into the class of the bourgeoisie nor the working class he comes from.At last ,he is confused very much by his fame and cannot find his belonging and so chooses death as the only way of solving all the cnfusion and problems.   Conclusion: After a serious of

43、dissicuss of the book Martin Eden,we can see that Martin's death is rooted in comprenhensive conditions.It also exposes that the gulf between the bourgeoise and the lower class cannot be bridged easily. And  in the book ,London explores a key question: Is it worth the trouble to gain prestige and wealth but to lose your livelihood? Through Martin Eden London explores the struggle between classes. Specifically London explains the yearning of the poor to be rich and the steadfastness of the r