Characterization in Martin Eden

Characterization in Martin Eden

Abstract:

Published in 1909, Martin Eden is an obvious Autobiography, which has a far-reaching influence on American literature, and is considered as a masterpiece of Jack London. It was one of Jack London’s masterpieces. In this work, he criticized and revealed indifferently the reality of American society. Martin Eden described a poor sailor in capitalist society who gained both fame and wealth through his constant strives to become stronger. While after he squeezed into the upper class, he found all around him was false. He sank into the mire of broken dream and couldn’t help himself, and ended his life in the end. Besides its profound literature feeling, its success should own to its excellent characterization.

Key words:  autobiography, analysis of main characters, characterization, portrait depiction

1. The introduction to 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).

He was raised in Oakland by his mother Flora Wellman, a music teacher and spiritualist, and stepfather John London, whose surname he took, because he was deserted by his father, William Henry Chaney. London was a very poor guy when he was young. At the age of ten, he loved reading much and became an avid reader. 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 education, London educated himself in public libraries, and at the age of 19 gained admittance 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 their two daughters three years afterwards, eventually to marry Charmian Kittredge.

Jack London was born in an extremely poor family. Difficulties in life made him easier to accept progressive ideas and become a socialist. Almost during his whole life, he believed in Darwin’s idea of “survival of the fittest”. In his autobiography Martin Eden, he pointed out that this idea can not only be applied to nature, but also human being.

All these life experiences provide him with plenty and practical material for his writing. Just like Martin in Martin Eden who struggles to enter the so-called upper-class which confused him  led him to death at last.

The success and failure of Martin Eden revealed the fate of an ordinary writer in capitalist society. In such kind of society, people could only see vulgar scholar, not real writer. In this point, the importance of this novel far surpassed that of an autobiography. It told people through vivid and profound artistic image that in capitalist society, the process of becoming famous was the process of destruction. Moreover, the characterization in Martin Eden was a success. Each person was given unique character and unusual psychology, especially the image of Martin Eden. The author emphasized the usage of the language that conformed to each character’s identity to express his personality and reveal his change of characteristics with the development of plot. In a sense, the success of this novel largely dues to the impressive characterization. Lack London successfully created such typical character as Martin Eden not only because of his familiar experience, but also his outstanding skill of characterization.

2. The plot of 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 elites. The main 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 refinement.

     Just before the literary establishment discovers Eden’s 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 down…and 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, only 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 “biographical myth” that Jack London's own death was a suicide.

 

3. The analysis of the main characters

Martin Eden

A former sailor from a working class falls in love with a young bourgeois lady. In order to be comparable to his beloved lady, he spared no efforts to become a prestigious writer to gain social status and fortune. After his painstaking work, he has achieved his goal. At this time, the lady who once deserted him came back to him again. Martin began to realize the essence of the up-class is vanity and ugliness. The crashing of him belief leads him to death.

Ruth Morse

The young bourgeois woman attending university captivates Eden while tutoring 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 restricted: they cannot marry until her parents approve of his financial and social status. As the development of the plot her disadvantages which are rooted in the bourgeois, exposed to the readers and Martin. And when Martin, her husband –to-be, was in the valley of his career and his life, she should desert him. She offered to review the love affairs when Martin achieved the social and economic status which her parents pursued.

Ruth and her parents are the representives 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 Eden. 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 struggle for his 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-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 dirt'. Brissenden’s final work - 'Ephemera' - causes a literary sensation when Eden breaks his word and publishes it upon the writer's death.

4. Careful portrait depiction through vivid description

Portrait depiction of characters is a method of describing person’s characteristics through the description of their outside features. It will change with the development of the plot. In Chapter one, when Martin Eden, a poor seaman, came into Ruth’s luxurious living room for the first time, he was at a loss, not knowing what to do. The author described his posture of walking like this: “He walked at the other’s heels with a swing to his shoulders, and his legs spread unwittingly…The wide rooms seemed too narrow for his rolling gait…He recoiled from side to side between the various objects…” In this way, a strong, rough, rash, rude, and frank Martin was vividly presented to the reader. It gave him individuality and authenticity through concise portrait depiction. If the portrait depiction could not be associated with people’s activity, psychology and environment, then it is meaningless. Successful literature is closely related with his portrait depiction. In this respect, Jack London is undoubtedly successful.

5. Characterization in contradiction

When Martin became a famous writer through persevering struggle and “receives enormous fees for his publications”, he was welcomed by the upper class, and many strangers wanted to make friends with him. But what gave him a hit was the totally different attitude of Ruth. His spirit fell into a dilemma. Neither did he come back to the life before nor did he endure the reality which was of no worth. Extra money won him one thing——status. Was Martin like the one before? No. He gained knowledge, the ability to understand life and the condition of making complaints. He read a lot of books, knowing evolutionism and superman philosophy, personal struggle and the vulgar of society, and he became interested in Spenser. His thought became noble, and unconsciously surpassed Ruth’s family. When spirit reached a higher position, it was very common for people to love the new and loathe the old. He would think of what had been surpassed low-grade, while Ruth was receiving the nurturing of the value of capitalist. In the climax of the novel, this contradiction was the sharpest. Jack London listed the words Martin said to Ruth: “Realism is imperative to my nature, and the bourgeois spirit hates realism. The bourgeois is cowardly. It is afraid of life.”and “Vulgarity-a hearty vulgarity, I’ll admit-is the basis of bourgeois refinement and culture.” Martin Eden's words deeply revealed the corruption of capitalism system.

The capitalism idea came into Martin's family. In the contradiction of changing and anti-changing, the author gradually indicated that Martin would never become a member of the capitalist class. Instead, he gained an insight into their deceptive nature. Obviously the writer could reflect the protagonist’s thought and character through introduction and description. However, if he could put the characters into the contradiction and reflect their nature through their activity and language, he would write out a more impressive novel.

6. Characterization through the analogy of people and animal

Animals have their own characteristics, lifestyle and different kinds of activities. Because people and animals contact very often and they have many similarities,  dora game people often make an analogy between themselves and animals. Each animal has many different characters, which means to choose which point to make analogy is very important for reader’s understanding. In this respect, the major skills used in Martin Eden are:

(1)   metaphor of character’s nature

Different animals have different natures. Fox is cunning, sheep is docile and tiger is frightening. These features can also be used in human beings. Let’s take an example from Martin Eden: “Phew!” He murmured back. “The Transcontinental crowds were nanny-goats, but you fellows are a lot of prize-fighters.” In this example, Martin got his deserved payment in the same way and left. At last he was beaten and eventually said those words. Here “nanny-goats” was used to describe cowardly people. Jack London revealed people’s nature precisely with these simple and lively words.

(2)   simile about people’s habit

Many animals have their unique habits: ducks like water, snakes need winter sleep and wild goose fly towards south. People often make a contrast between Jeux de Dora human and animals. For example, “I can study by myself. I take to it kindly, like a duck to water!” this is Martin’s words. He compared his love for study with duck’s love for water. This indicated the fact that Martin put all his energy on study in order to become equal with Rose. Proper simile made the language new and full of creativity.

(3)   simile about people’s expression

Many animals have their expressions by nature: cows’ tear deer’s shyness and monkey’s naughtiness and so on. Their expressions are very similar with that of human’s. Here is the example taken from Martin Eden. “An’ I bets,” Martin dashed on, “That he’s solemn an’ serious as an old owl, an’ doesn’t care a rap for a good time, for all his thirty thousand a year…” in this example, Martin used the expression of awl in the branch to describe those extremely serious people. This seems to be humorous and satire.

7. Characterization through description of psychology

In this novel, the depiction of psychology is an important means of characterization. The fact proves that the more carefully the works of literature reveals people’s psychology, the stronger the inflection of literature and readers are easier to resonate with the writer. Jack London is not a recognized master  Juegos de Dora of psychology analyst, while in this novel, he used many kinds of skills when he tried to reveal Martin’s inside emotion, including not only the indirect description of character’s thought, but also the characterization though monologue, dialogue, action, expression and even delusion. For example, in chapter 3, there is a vivid description of psychology: “Her face shimmered before his eyes as he walked along, pale and serious, sweet and sensitive, smiling with pit and tenderness as only a spirit could smile, and pure as has never dreamed purity could be….he was quivering a pulpit ant with emotions he had never known, drifting delicious on a sea of sensibility where feeling itself was exalted a spiritualized and carried beyond the summits of life.” and “He staggered along like a drunken man, murmur in fervently aloud:‘By God! By God!’" Here are not only people's words and actions, but also their expressions and delusions. Through such a complex depiction of psychology, the author displayed an absent-mined while happy Martin. Martin came from a low class, and when he met Ruth, a middle-class girl, he thought of her as a beautiful, pure, and gracious girl. Especially when Ruth called him with enthusiasm, he was deeply intoxicated in the ocean of love. Even after he came out from Ruth’s family, he was still lost in the sweet memory, and couldn’t help saying again and again: “My God!” This fits his psychology at that time. Obviously, combining depiction of psychology with person’s words, action and expression, the characters created must be more lively and vivid.

8. Conclusion

Most of us are not able to shoulder all the pressure, the troubles and the failures by ourselves without a kind of belief. The belief is like invincible and invisible loricae which protects us from  the even cruelest assault. It brings us infinite courage, wisdom and will make us unconquerable. 

It can’t be ruined by the outside power, but it is fragile in its inner. When you begin to doubt it, the loricae immediately loses its power. 

What Martin Eden believed is the sensibility of human and the equality of society. Eden, an impoverished sailor and laborers, struggled to become a writer through determination and self-education in order to ascend into the status of a high-class and win the love of Ruth. To enrich his knowledge of these subjects, he became an arduous reader of everything that he could get his hands on. In the quest to be an intellectual equal, he surpassed them and he painfully realized that they were so hypocritical and snobbish. They accepted him merely for his money and fame, not for his works. Jack London’s masterpiece fully shows his exquisite skill of creating lively people through all kinds of art means. In Martin Eden, besides the four means of characterization, he also used narration, comparison, and side description to create the figures. These skills prove to be excellent means of characterization, and worth our learning in writing.