*A research paper I wrote for my Evil English teacher. Even though I'm older....Well, I really liked reading about Jack London's life, so I guess I can forgive her.
Jack London Research
paper
When
I first thought of Jack London, the titles of the books White Fang and The Call
of the Wild came to mind. These were the books that I had read from him, after
all. However, I had no idea of who this man was or what his lifetime was like.
Yes, I chose to research him simply because I recognized his name, nothing
more. But once I started to read about this strange, rambunctious author, I
became engrossed in his tale. No doubt, his life is the most interesting story
he weaved; not from paper or ink, but from his living breath and traveling
feet. Jack London holds possibly the most interesting biography I have ever
known.
“Jack
London was born January 12, 1876 at 615 Third Street, San Francisco,
California. His parents were William Henry Chaney and Flora Wellman. However,
W. H. Chaney left Flora after she got pregnant, and Jack never knew he was
actually his biological father until he was twenty. Flora was also a strange
mother, unfortunately obtaining Typhoid fever when she was young, which, along
with weakening her physically, could’ve also changed her mentally. Flora
married John London in September 1876, a widow who had had (because of
financial difficulties) to scatter most of his previous children around.
Because Flora could not nurse, she made an agreement with Jennie Prentiss, an
ex-African American slave from Tennessee who had her child just die, to nurse
him for her” (Jack London A Biography 1-4). Already we can see the family he is
born into. It is a very poor family who mostly obtained money from ranching and
farming, and a few piano lessons and séances here and there by Flora.
When
Jack London “graduated Cole Grammar school at 8’Th grade, he was immediately
thrusted with different jobs to help; some canning and newspaper running mixed
in with some other things” (13, 17). Because of their farming business, they
would have to move plenty of times, though mostly in Oakland. Jack London,
whose real name had changed from John Griffith Chaney to John Griffith London,
spent his boy years reading like a devil, borrowing from Oakland Public
Library. He remembers his boy years as boring, and therefore, his true
adventure begins as a teen.
His
first adventure was sailing. Borrowing his father’s skiff, he went out to the
bay and learned by watching and doing. He would love sailing for the rest of
his life. “Using Jennie Prentiss’s money, he bought the Razzle Dazzle and
became an oyster pirate” (21). An oyster pirate, as you can imagine, does not
steal treasure and cursed gold, but oysters belonging to different companies.
They later sell them and earn money that way. Jack London and his crew were
successful at it, but in the end there was a fire on his ship that destroyed
the mainsail, making the boat completely useless. So he got a new job as part
of the Fish Patrol, ironically the nemesis of the oyster pirates. A while later
he joined the “Road-kids” – kids illegally jumping trains- and earned the
Monica “Sailor kid” or “Frisco Jack”. He traveled this way for a while before
going back home and “joining the Sophia Sutherland, a ship that went out far to
harvest the hides of seals” (28). When he got home, he wrote about his
seal-hunting experience, and won a contest in the newspaper Morning Call for
the most descriptive essay. He traveled with the Road-kids again, but
eventually got thrown in the “Erie Country Penitentiary in New York for a month”(
1). After his time, he went back home,
and soon took off again after General Coxey’s Army of the Unemployed, a
protesting group. But since he “Couldn’t stand starvation”, he quit the “army”
and hopped some more trains to view the Niagara Falls, but got thrown in jail
for another month at Buffalo, New York. “He started school again, going back to
High school at age 19 in grade 9. He dropped out after one year, and after
three months of vigorous studying, passed the exam into the University of
California. However, he was only in the University for one semester because of
financial problems” (51).
“In
1897 Jack London went out once again after the Gold Rush in Klondike, Alaska.
He didn’t earn a single penny, and went back to Oakland after obtaining Scurvy”(77).
He found that his father, John London, had died. Now he had the responsibility
of the entire family on his shoulders, as the son. He started writing. He
mailed short stories to newspapers and magazines, at first only earning
failure. But as he continued, he got a few successes here and there. “From 1899
and onwards, Jack spent mornings writing 1,000 to 1,500 words”(110) every day.
It was in the 1900’s, at the turn of the century, that he finally got his
stories and books selling.
About
Jack’s marital life, he married twice and had two daughters. His first wife was
“Bessie Maddern, the lady with whom his two daughters, Joan and Bess (but
mostly called Becky), were born” (125). Their marriage was not one based on
‘Love’, but on the concept that they would work together well. In this way,
Jack divorced Bessie in “1905 (though he still paid them an allowance) and
married Charmian Kittredge”(150), whom he was with for the rest of his life.
Jack
London was an outspoken Socialist, and “toured the country giving speeches
about it” (147). He traveled constantly, and even went to Korea, trying to get
scenery of the Russo-Japanese war. This one did not work out though, after
punching a Japanese citizen, and getting jailed so that Theodore Roosevelt had
to get involved to free him. He even planned a “7-year sailing trip in his own
crafted boat The Snark, although construction did not go as planned, and the
boat only managed to get them around Hawaii” (167). After that trip, Charmian
and Jack settled down in “Sonoma Valley, California, “The valley of the Moon”
(185). With the fortune of his success,
he built Wolf Mansion, but it burned down after catching fire. Living in other houses
he built, he owned ranches, and even built a “pig palace”; an easy kept
building for the pigs. In such a way, he enjoyed his money.
Jacks
Literary style was “Real”, a style meaning that he took from real life
experiences and put them into his stories. His themes would mostly be his
experiences with sailing, and the Gold Rush in Alaska. Most people thing of
jack London as someone who has animals as the main character, but the truth is
that out of his 50 or so books, only 4 have that as true. People may think this
because his most major works were The Call of the Wild, and White Fang, both
books having canines as the main character. Some of his books are offensive to
the generation today because of their racist touch (common back then), and are
now out of print. Another major work of his is The Seawolf, a story that
features a young man forced into seal-hunting on a ship. Although Jack London
did not receive very much money for the Call of the Wild, it, along with White
Fang, are still being read in schools today.
Jack had an alcohol
addiction throughout his life, and even wrote a book about it called John
Barleycorn. The first time he tasted alcohol was when he was five years old. In
the end, it killed him. Jack London died on” November 22, 1916 from Uremia and
other various weaknesses” (203). His kidneys gave out. He was only forty years
old. While he was still alive, he believed in cremation. “Cremation is the only
decent, right, sensible way of ridding the world of us when the world has
ridden itself of us.” –Jack London (206) It is a good thing then, that after
his death, he was cremated. I think he would have been satisfied.
Bibliography
Dyer, Daniel. Jack London- A Biography. New York: Scholastic Press, 1997. Print.
“Jack London. Biography.” Bio. True Story. A+E Television
Networks, LLC. Web. 28 Oct. 2012.
“Jack London.” Biography Center. Biography Center. Web. 28 Oct. 2012
