The Lost Self In A Classed World:a Marxist Critique Of Jack London’s Novel Martin Eden

Jack London (1876-1916) is a significant and controversial writer in the history of American literature, and a representative literary figure in his times. As a working class writer, London inevitably places the issue of class as a significant leitmotif discussed in his works. Heartily sympathizing with the working class, sharply criticizing the bourgeoisie, or suspicious of and fleeing from the classed world, Jack London evinces his changing attitude towards class due to his dynamic class experience.Different from London’s other works, Martin Eden combines individual strivings and classed world together, so as to explore how the fates of individuals are crushed and overwhelmed by the class power. The early20th century America witnessed the rapid industrialization together with the permuted social structure, which promised upper mobility for members from lower strata such as the same name protagonist Martin Eden in this novel. Jack London argues that self-realization of individuals is impossible in the capitalistic society due to a lost self. In this novel, Martin Eden sees this pursuit of artistic truth as a means of self-actualization and crossing the class boundary, yet his self-idealization becomes a flop under dual suppression of two oppositional classes. Based on Marxist Criticism, the thesis aims to analyze the reasons why Martin Eden gets retarded in the process of class mobility and self-realization from three respects involving his personal development, artistic pursuit and changing class faith. The first chapter is to illustrate the dilemma of Martin Eden’s personal development through his individual cultivation in the capitalist society, indicating that the bourgeois ideology indoctrinating and molding Martin Eden to consolidate their own class basis beget Eden’s loss of individuality and self. The second chapter explains Jack London’s paradoxical view of Martin Eden’s pursuit of artistic success and self-actualization. Eden’s artistic works turn out to be an alien and hostile force as commodities in literary marketplace, bringing about his self-alienation as well as alienation from others. The last chapter elucidates that Eden’s staying in the stage of "class in itsel’ renders him into a state of losing his self if not transforming into "class for itself.