Ideological Content And Artistic Characteristics Of Martin Eden

Jack London (1876-1916) was one of the most articulate and militant spokesmen of the ordinary class at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. In the American literary world, his rise to popularity in the early 20th century was in a way meteoric. He was a highly disciplined writer, who would produce over fifty volumes which include nineteen long stories, one hundred and ninety-seven short stories, three plays and some political essays. He was one of the leading American naturalists, his works being a penetrating criticism of America at the time when they were written.Martin Eden, published in 1909, is his masterpiece. Martin Eden tells how the protagonist changes from a poor sailor to a famous and wealthy author through making unremitting effort to improve himself. When he squeezes into the upper society, however, he finds everything hypocritical. He is bogged down in the morass of 'ideal disillusionment' so that he is unable to extricate himself, and he finally drowns himself.This thesis, divided into four chapters, aims to probe into the ideological content and artistic characteristics of Martin Eden. The first chapter consists of four parts: 1) a brief introduction of Jack London' life and his literary career; 2) a summary of the story of Martin Eden; 3) the social background of Martin Eden; 4) the semi-autobiographical characteristics of the novel. Both the second chapter and the third chapter are the body of the thesis. They respectively explore the ideological content and artistic characteristics of the novel. The author of the thesis asserts that Martin Eden is one of the American naturalistic masterpieces in the early twentieth century. Its ideological content contains three aspects. Firstly, the long novel embodies some social criticism views, which mercilessly exposes and castigates the hypocrisy and ugliness of bourgeoisie. Secondly, it expresses some views of naturalism, stressing the fittest of survival. Besides, it eulogizes the spiritof constantly striving to become stronger. Thirdly, it shows the sharp conflict between ideal life and reality. Studying the tragedy of Martin Eden, it can be found that the story includes rich and profound social connotations. His tragedy is not only the tragedy of the parochial individualism but also the cost of the social development of his time. The author of this thesis also points out that as the limitations of the novel. It is short of active ideal and occasionally drifts away from the theme.The third chapter of this thesis analyzes the artistic characteristics of the novel: 1) Jack London's method of characterization adopted in the novel mainly belongs to the naturalistic school. 2) Martin Eden portrays a group of vivid characters with penetrating characterization, including betraying their nature through their own action that shows the novelist's keen observation and careful examination of society. 3) Jack London is apt at exposing the characters' personalities and thoughts through the exquisite psychological descriptions. 4) The major characters become distinctive for their personalized languages. Therefore, the themes of the novel are well expressed.The fourth chapter summarizes the whole thesis. It sums up the distinguishing features of the novel and points out the limitations of the ideological content as well.