简评杰克伦敦的浪漫主义情结

4Evaluation of Jack London’s Romantic Complex
The romantic complex of individualism, love of nature, the pursuit of freedom and the longing for love is always accompanied the legendry life of jack London and has a great influence in his life and his works.
For his personal, the most obvious influence is his extreme individualism and romantic personality, which made his life and led to his tragedy life on the other side. Jack London was born poor as an illegitimate child, which constrained him to work when he was very young. In order to shake off the sense of shame as an illegitimate child, he worked hard and hoped to become a capitalist. Jack London had a lot of dreams and he struggled for each of his dreams, even if it was a dream he also wanted to make it perfect; even if some were unable to achieve; even if the dreams called for the cost of life. He had been a newsboy, an oyster thief, coal workers and also had an experience of hobo. In order to realize the dream of “sleep on the sea”, he began marine adventure at teenage, with young fearlessness to become famous “prince of oyster thief”;then had been the maritime patrol inspector, a dangerous business more than pirate; just after 17 years old birthday, he enlisted in sailor and hunted the seal near the Sea of Japan and the Bering Strait, uninhabited area closed to Arctic; for the dream of his socialist, he can be a hobo, even was in prison; for his golden dream, he crossed the turbulent stream, climbed hillside of ice and snow, surmounted the dazzling glaciers, engage in a deadly struggle for survival with nature. All these adventures and suffering did not stop him from success, on the contrary, provided a rich material for his writing.
As the continuous success in literary, Jack London also gradually stepped into the luxury of upper class life, also had been in contact with the capitalists, and had quite different understanding to the “civilized society” which had gained from books. Bing Stan Ross said, “Amazingly, he accepted the prevailing fashion view: a man must be able to defeat all challenges from making money than the rich, make more at the same time also can get rich”. (London 71) In his rich days, his life was always full of adventure. He bought real estate, pasture, cattle ranches, planted trees, built luxury yachts, spent a huge sum of money to build luxury villa “the Wolf H ouse” . But he
was a poor entrepreneur. He always failed of the forest farm ranch. In spite of his high fee income, he was always living beyond his means. The years of life more and more annoyed him. He and his wife divorced, but found a new wife actually had the same problem as the original wife; His beloved daughter loves her mother, and his alienation; His luxury villa “the Wolf House” w as suddenly on fire, and brought him a large amount of debt; Four hundred thousand saplings he planted all died; His thoroughbred horses and pigs, cattle and sheep on the ranch also dead. These failure was inseparable with his kind and easy-going personality. He never doubt anyone. His mother always secretly sold his draft and copyright. There was always someone cut corners to make unjust gain from it when built ranches and the “Wolf House”. But he believed them, always very tolerant to them. At last he burned out, and caused a lot of problem in which one of the most troubled was uremia. Extreme psychological loneliness and physiological pain made him drink, indulged in alcohol, and was difficult to extricate himself. In the end he chose suicide, ended his legendary life.
Besides Jack London’s adventure also attracted many Americans, especially his experience in Alaska. He only spent a short period of time in the North, but he had made the Alaska’s charming story. He yearned for the cold, pursued the wild. London clearly knew the Alaska winter but still chose to experience “the pleasure of suffering, and the novelty of danger”. He said:
“The original power of the world is mysterious, horror, and full of danger. Nature is no feelings, no mercy, no pity. We are just a puppet without eyes controlled by this strong and irrational power. I want to be a beautiful meteor, rather than a sleeping planet. Every atom of mine can blossom a magic spark. Man’s mission is to live, not exist. I don’t spend time to think about how to prolong life all day, I want to burn every day”. (Sinclair 122)
Inspired by him, many people after choose to Alaska to seek inner silence or purely get in touch with nature. Many movies are filmed in Alaska, such as “Into the wild”, “Snow Dogs” and “Ice Bound”.
Jack London was a very writer with complicated ideology. London almost accepted all the ideas which had influence on the society at that time, in addition London had not receive any formal education systematically, which created his ideological beliefs complex and contradictory. Under the influence of Nietzsche’s
thought, he became such a pursuit of individualism and self liberation of personality. He absorbed the Marxist’s socialism, being a socialist and made several speech. At that time of the United States, the socialism is taboo, but London always bluntly spoke his mind and declared: “Seven million people of working class said: they join all the working class up to seize power”.(Irving 89) In London’s work, we often feel his worship of life itself, and the pursuit of the meaning of life and the original form and the spirit of freedom, especially frontier novels and animal novels based on his own adventure experience and imagination, appealed all readers from all walks of life, and also injected a new blood for the American literary world. The polar fiction was also called the story of the northern, taking the remote Alaska Klondike natural environment as the background, enabled us to know about the strange mysterious rich life of the people and the animals on the land, yet let we realize that the hardship they suffered, and know the value of gaining wealth with hard work. We saw many gut-wrenching experiences in “Sea Wolf”, although it had got through the reflection of the art. These novels reflected the anxiety of civilization and national identity crisis consciousness hidden in the heart of the American. It also reflected the Americans’ desire for the natural simplicity of life which had gone past. Jack London’s early fiction with wild flavor, bold powerful style, also gave a breath of fresh air into flagging American literature.
The fiery character, and Jack London was such a character. He had fire in blood vessels, lively, manhood. He enjoyed bold hard life, preferred ride the whirlwind, and often fought to the end when attended struggle.His works, filled with dread bug out of life and masculinity, were most popular with men. Some people said that the American novel before are mostly written for girls, but London’s works belonged to all readers, not only ordinary readers, even girls were also like to put down the curtain and closed the door secretly to taste his works. There is no doubt that Jack London was one of the most influential novelists in the early 20th century, an outstanding realistic protoplasm after Twain. His excellent creation made American literary world unprecedentedly active, combining literary creation and life and society. As the critic Philip S. Foner pointed out: “There is no American writer like Jack London who is being clear and outstanding spokesman of The Times. Because he broke the ice of American literature, and produced meaningful connections between the literature and life”. (Wang Qinling 6)。