Martin Eden Jack London

For the first analysis, I decided to talk to you about a novel by Jack London Martin Eden.

A novel that allowed me to escape, to think, to reflect and to find a taste for reading..

For a long time I had lost my taste for reading. The years in high school thinking about essays on what the author means by each sentence in the story. To be quite honest it wasn't my greatest passion. What fascinated me was why Proust used three sheets of paper to describe just one chair.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about that... During the confinement I had to find something to do. Culture allowed me to escape. My first choice of book was Martin Eden's, the pop culture references to this book made me curious. In addition, the stories of wandering men fascinate me.

For information Martin Eden by Jack London was published in 1909, 7 years before he died of poisoning. Considered as the author's autofiction. I am familiar with the croc-white books and the call of the forest.

The story of Martin

« Life was flying high. The happiness of creation, which was supposed to belong only to the gods, was in him. »

Martin Eden is the story of... Martin, a young and robust sailor living in Oakland (California), boarding with his sister's husband, a stingy and boorish merchant, who lives between two shipments to distant seas, enjoying brawling, getting drunk and the occasional trifle...

The story begins in a bourgeois house where Martin accompanies Arthur to meet his family. Martin discovers the house. He doesn't feel at ease, he is like an elephant in a china shop.

However, Martin is curious, which saves him. He sees books being leafed through when suddenly a young woman enters.

« Then he turned and saw the girl. She was an ethereal creature, pale with golden hair, with great blue intangible eyes. He did not see how she was dressed: he saw only that her dress was as wonderful as she was. And he compared her to a pale golden flower on a fragile stem. No! She was a spirit, a divinity, an idol! Such sublime beauty did not belong to the earth. Or the books were right and there were many like her in the higher spheres of life. He had never seen a woman like her! ».

Martin finds himself in front of this beautiful, educated woman. He, a sailor with less knowledge, feels inferior to this woman who appreciates him for a long time.

Martin embarks on a relentless quest for knowledge in order to be worthy of Mousse (the woman who finds her sublime). As for her, her first impression of Martin is that of a raw man.

Martin will therefore set out to conquer Mousse and the idealization that makes the bourgeois class imagine him to be cultured and to be sold.

Martin will discover his own intelligence as well as his vocation as a writer which will lead him to passion but to terrible disillusionment...

Does knowledge make us happy?

During the book several themes and different topics of society are present. To begin with the idealization of the world of knowledge and the intellectual elite. This theme is present in the book in a recurrent way. Martin is amazed by the treasures of knowledge.

At the same time, one of Martin's primary goals is the main character's dream of ascension, which is due to his adoration for bourgeois society and intellectuals. All for the sake of love...

With these themes that are still relevant today. The author makes a critique of society. I hope you will discover it if you do not know the novel.

Does knowledge make us happy?

In the end, we can ask ourselves that after finishing the book. In this intellectual adventure, Martin has lost his carefree, simple joys that used to satisfy him:

« He no longer had a heart simple enough to live such a primitive existence to the full. And going back is impossible... "There was too much distance between them. Too many books separated them. He had gone into exile. He had travelled through the vast realm of the intellect to the point of no return »

All the knowledge Martin has accumulated will not lead him to happiness, but rather to disillusionment and a fatal outcome.

Jack London tells us that the only thing worse than not seeing your dreams come true is when they come true too late...