Jack London, though a successful writer, had by no means an easy life. Though the literary community now remembers London for a mere few outstanding works, he was an influential, looming naturalist writer of the nineteenth century. London’s works surmounted to an estimated fifty novels and hundreds of articles in his lifetime. Jack London would define success as overcoming one’s early life hardships and using those experiences to create works and ideas in the mind of the public to withstand the test of time.
Jack London, born John Griffith Chaney on January 12, 1876 in San Francisco, California, was a key American naturalist author of the nineteenth century (Bio). Though London is now a prominent literary figure, he was by no means an overnight success. London grew up in the
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London, behind the words and persona the public saw, was an abusive alcoholic with profound health problems. “By his death at age forty on November 22, 1916, Jack had been plagued for years by a vast number of health problems, including stomach disturbances, ravaging uremia, and failing kidneys. His death certificate states that he died of uremic poisoning” (Wilson, Margie, and Mike Wilson). Writing seemed to not only be a gift of London’s but an outlet for his evident mortality; this inevitable mortality was a recurring theme in his literature.
Jack London would define success as overcoming hardships and using those experiences to create works and ideas to inspire the public. This is precisely what London achieved in his forty years of life and is the reason his exemplary writing are around today. Though London had a stereotypical writer’s life – due to his struggle with alcoholism and dreams of being a martyr – he without a doubt continues to influence aspiring writers around the world. And though London did not initially crave immortality it is what is gained when one puts pen to paper and thus London successfully lives
As one of the most controversial American literary figures, Edgar Allan Poe has always attracted considerable attention from both critics and readers alike. Due to his allegedly eccentric personality and the dubious circumstances surrounding his death, the public perception of the writer has often been somewhat mythologized. When it comes to his works, Poe has been both critically acclaimed and disparaged, both acknowledged and disputed, but rarely ignored. As he left behind a significantly influential literary legacy, his place among the most important writers in American literature is today undeniable. Being both a journalist and a fiction writer, Poe produced numerous texts ranging from tales and poems to critical essays, reviews and newspaper
Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland in a small row house on September 20, 1878. In addition to this, from an early age he was exposed to differences that would have a long lasting effect on his juvenile mind and drastically influence his thinking as time progressed. Moreover, he was the only child to an alcoholic liquor salesman of a father, and a determined mother, he was raised on the premise of poverty, yet was also exposed to the advantages of the upper class through frequent gatherings with his mother’s wealthy family (biography.com). Equally important, is at the age of ten Sinclair’s father uprooted the family from Baltimore to New York City. During this time, Sinclair started to establish a sharp mind and was an insatiable
Upton Sinclair was an author and socialist figure during the early 1900s. His place in history was forged by his many accomplishments in successful writing that exposed the horrors of the meat packing industry. He was also a famed critique of the government and offered ideas on its reformation and even ran for governor as a socialist but primarily gained he place in history for his book The Jungle . Upton Sinclair is a significant figure in history due to his outspoken nature and his exposure of the meat industry that led to a multitude of new regulations making food in America safer.
He was more of a novelist and short-story writer than a poet. Hawthorne’s writing had put his name out there but it hadn’t provided for him very well on a financial level. The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables are among his most successful novels. Towards the end of his life, he attempted to keep his writing
As a child, Wright endured poverty and hardship because his parents worked in factories and laundromats. His writing and use of poetry is greatly influenced by his own opinions about society and politics, as well as Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost. Both Frost and Hardy have extreme issues and feelings that Wright truly respected. Wright’s early
Ernest Hemingway uses many personal anecdotes along with anecdotes of others in order to draw an emotional picture for his readers. As soon as chapter one begins Hemingway references to his first bullfight experience. He then follows up with ethos when he mentions the ethics of the use of horses and at the time these ethics were Christian, a “modern” point of view. The killing of the horses in bullfight were modernly deemed as unethical. Throughout the rest of the essay, Hemingway takes a closer look at the deaths of these animals to, in a way, defend their deaths.
Being a writer requires you to have an open mind, patience, and dedication. In the letter written by Marian Evans Lewes, an English novelist, she writes to Melusina Fay Pierce, a young woman who aspires to be a writer. In this letter, Lewes will encourage the young woman to chase after her dream of being a writer and the different challenges she’s going to have to face on being an up and coming writer. Through this letter Lewes will convey an array of rhetorical strategies to convey her feeling on becoming an upcoming writer.
With all this hard work he was able to meet his idle Henry Irving, a famous actor of the time, and become good friends with him. His excellence in college propelled him further than he could imagine and soon he was working harder. Not only did he fall in love with and marry his neighbor Florence Balcombe, but Stoker also accepted the job as manager of the Lyceum Theater in London: “Though his duties were taxing, he still found time to study for the bar, lead a family life, and write books. The first of these was a collection of’ ‘highly unsuitable stories for children,’ according to Farson and Dematteis, Under the Sunset” (Authors and Artists 7). Though Stoker worked long hours, he found spare time to continue his writing.
Author’s lives inspire their writing in many ways. An illustrious writer, Edgar Allan Poe, experienced continuous sufferings throughout his life. The heartaches he faced transferred into his writing. Poe’s works are dark and traumatic, such as “The Pit and the Pendulum.” He uses the unthinkable and shapes short stories out of them.
C.S. Lewis was born November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Ireland, to Albert James Lewis and Florence Augusta Lewis (Green 19). “As a child and teenager, Lewis was fascinated by fantasy writing” (Florman 1). Lewis received education through tutors until he was sent to Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire. “He excelled at Latin and Greek in school… Lewis ultimately graduated Oxford with a ‘triple-first’ in English, Classics, and Philosophy…” (Florman 1).
Jack London 's writing is harsh poetry. He describes scenes in such detail. Reading his work makes you picture how the scenes look in your head. He shows a deeper meaning in the events of his stories(Napierkowski). The point of view of the story is third person limited omniscient.
Jack London had been an American novelist and is known for works such as The Call of the Wild, which McCandless greatly admired. Chris McCandless had greatly admired Jack London, going as far as carving “Jack London is King” at what came to be the site of his death. The Jack London quote used in the epigraph describes a scene in the forest but uses bitter imagery- yet somehow still romanticises it. “Alex” was unable to ever see past the facade London had built- given that London had hardly ever spent time in the wild himself and most definitely nowhere near as intense as Alaska. This chapter had described how he had been found and this quote leads back to that because though Chris was intelligent, he did not understand that London had to make nature sound beautiful.
Jack London’s use of third person narration in telling the story allows the reader to be privy to information surrounding the unnamed man of which he is unaware. In using third person, London builds anxiety by foreshadowing the dangerous events that are about to happen to the man. In the story, after falling into an ice-cold stream, the man builds his new fire under a tree. As he begins to pull the branches from the tree above his fire, other snow-covered branches begin to shake (12). The reader, knowing about something that the man does not, builds suspense as they
Ernest Hemingway’s characters are frequently tested in their faith, beliefs, and ideas. To Hemingway’s characters, things that appear to be grounded in reality and unmovable facts frequently are not, revealing themselves to be hollow, personal mythologies. Hemingway shakes his characters out of their comfortable ignorance through traumatic events that usually cause a certain sense of disillusionment with characters mythologies, moving them to change their way of life. His characters usually, after becoming disillusioned, respond with depression, suicide, and nihilism. However, this is not always the case.
London’s stories have many views into naturalism, but they also have insights into realism. The unnamed man in “To Build a Fire” believes he has control of his situation until mistakes are made and he realizes the odds and fate are against him. Realizing this, the man becomes scared and tries literally running for his life so no avail, so he slowly freezes to death after slipping into a deep slumber. The man, Mason, in