War of the Classes: How I Became a Socialist, Essay Example

Introduction

One of the oldest adages about writing is to “write what you know.” This has certainly applied to many of the most well-known writers in American literature, from Jack London to Ernest Hemingway to more contemporary authors like Hunter S. Thompson. One of the common threads running through the works of such authors is the way that the details of their biographies and personal histories, along with their views on society, politics, and other important matters, find their way into their books and essays. Hemingway wrote about his adventures as a war correspondent and of his time spent traveling the world, while Thompson wrote of his time embedded in the notorious Hell’s Angels biker gang and his drug-fueled excursions into the counterculture of 1960s and 1970s America. The same can be said for Jack London, whose works often feature the landscapes and living creature found in the frozen expanses of the Alaskan wilderness. In his novel White Fang (a companion piece to his more well-known Call of the Wild), London tells the story of a young wolf who lives both in the wild and in the world of the “man-animals.” Told largely through the eyes of the title character, this book explores a range of themes and reflect on the society in which London lived. By telling the story from the point of view of an outside observer, London offers a unique perspective on the world of human beings.

Background

Jack London (who took his last name from his stepfather) died at the relatively young age of 40, but in his brief life he amassed a wide range of experiences, many of which made their way into his written works. In both the way he lived and the way he wrote, these formative experiences are directly reflected, and it is often a simple matter to see how the events of his life shaped his writing and his outlook. Although the most overt parallels or connections can be seen in the way he wrote about the Alaskan wilderness in several books and essays, these are hardly the only examples. Moreover, the experiences he had as a child and a young adult left indelible marks on him, both physically and psychologically, and served to mold his outlook on politics and society. As an adult, London became an outspoken socialist and proponent of worker’s rights, a political position what would earn him both praise and scorn. For contemporary readers, Jack London’s life story, which shows him to have overcome difficulties as child and to have largely made his own way in the world, might seem incompatible with the modern conception of “socialism.” For London, however, his formative experiences seemed to have offered insight into how the common man is easily exploited by those in power, thereby fostering in him a strong sense of social justice. This theme is one of many that are explored in the plot of White Fang as well as many of his other works.

As an adolescent, London worked difficult jobs and endured harsh conditions, and later spent time traveling the country as a tramp. During this period, he spent 30 days in jail and was horrified by the conditions he faced; he would later detail some of this experience in his book The Road (Kershaw, 1997).  Unlike many of his peers in this world of poverty and harshness, London had a great love of education and literature and eventually returned to school to receive his diploma (Kershaw, 1997). London went on to attend college, though he did not complete his studies and never graduated. Driven by a combination of wanderlust and economic necessity, London left college and made his way into the Klondike territory during the gold rush of the late 1800s. Although London only spent a year or so in the wilderness of Canada and Alaska, the experiences he had in this time would have a profound influence on him and his writing.

While London had already endured immense hardships in his short life, his trip into the Klondike region would prove to be among the most formidable challenges he would face. Like many people who chased dreams of striking it rich in the gold rush, London was struck by illness due to the brutal weather and lack of food and medical care (Labor, 2013). London developed scurvy, a condition associated with poor nutrition and a lack of vitamins. Among the symptoms of scurvy are the degradation of muscle tissue and rupturing of the gums; London developed pain and weakness that would plague him for the rest of his life (Kershaw, 1997). He also lost several of his front teeth as a result of his condition; by the time he returned to San Francisco he had lost much of the vigor and strength of his youth. London returned with little to show for his trip, only to find that the United States was in the throes of a serious economic recession and that there were few jobs to be had.

Faced with few job prospects and the reality of his poor health, London tuned to writing as a means of earning a living. His first paying job as a writer was an article for a local newspaper wherein he recounted some of the details of his excursion into the Klondike (Kershaw, 1997). London would continue to write for newspapers and magazines for the remainder of his life, as well as authoring notable books. While his books were primarily works of fiction, they often included details that reflect the experiences of his life, and typically incorporated a direct, journalistic style of storytelling. By this time in his life, London’s political and social views were also fully formed, and he became a committed proponent of the socialist movement, often writing about it directly or exploring themes related to social structures in his works of fiction.

Other Influences

It was not just his personal experiences that shaped London’s worldview; he was also an avid reader and was heavily influenced by the works of his favorite authors. Among those who had a notable influence on London’s worldview were philosophers such as Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche and biologists and naturalists such as Thomas Huxley, David Jordan, and Ernst Haeckel (Giehmann, 2011). The turn of the 20^th century was a time of significant scientific inquiry, and new scientific theories were being applied to everything from biology to the functioning of society. It was in this time that Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection was chasing the way that the scientific community (and many members of the public) looked at the natural world, while social and political theorists like Marx were attempting to understand and explain macroeconomic and political systems on a global scale. London filtered the works of these and other philosophers, theorists, and writers through his own experiences to develop his own way of looking at –and writing about- the world around him.

Viewed from a contemporary perspective, London would be classified as a racist, as he espoused the belief that some races were biological superior to others. This was not an uncommon view in the late 19^th century, and social theorist Herbert Spencer, whom London greatly admired, was among the most well-known proponents of what was known as “Social Darwinism” (Reesman, 2009) While it was Darwin who developed and published a book on his theory of natural selection, it was Spencer who first coined the phrase “survival of the fittest.” According to Spencer, survival of individuals and species, as described by Darwin, was also applicable on a social level, and he argued that some races were more equipped to survive and succeed than others (Reesman, 2009). Taking his cue from the social and political conditions of his time, London believed that the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic races of Europe were the most fit to survive, and that “the dead status of the black” in American society was a reflection of racial inferiority (Reesman, 2009).

This so-called “racialism,” which purported to be a scientific theory, was mirrored and supported by the social, economic, and political conditions of America in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries (Giehmann, 2011). Although slavery had been abolished by the middle of the 19^th century, the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction had left the United States a divided, racially-segregated nation. While it may seem difficult for contemporary readers to see London’s views on race in any positive light, it must be noted that he was hardly alone in his views at the time (Giehmann, 2011). Looking back, it appears that racialism and the supposed scientific support for racial superiority was little more than a means of justifying and perpetuating the imbalance in economic and political conditions between whites and blacks, but it is still only possible to understand London’s perspective by looking at it in the context of the times in which he lived and wrote.

Like many proponents of social Darwinism and racialism, London’s views on race and racial superiority were heavily influenced by both biological and social theorists. Consequently, these areas were seen as overlapping in a number of ways. While Darwin is the most well-known name associated with the theory of evolution, he was not the first of many to explore and write about the processes by which life evolves. In the early 1900s there were many notable figures who wrote and lectured on the subject, and London was known to have attended lectures given by David Starr Jordan in Oakland in the 1920s (Giehmann, 2011). Jordan, like many other social theorist of his day, mixed his views and ideas about evolution with his views on race and society, and was a proponent of eugenics. The eugenics movement was popular in some circles in the early 20^th century (Germany’s Adolf Hitler is, perhaps, the most notorious proponent of the eugenics movement), and adherents believed that purposefully-controlled heredity through reproduction could and would eventually produce a race of superior human beings (Reesman,2009). Not surprisingly, Jordan (like London) happened to believe that the white race was the one in possession of the greatest hereditary traits.

London’s views on race and racial superiority were inextricably linked with his views on philosophy and social justice, though not always in ways that would seem to align with each other. London was, for example, a fan of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose theories about the “superman” fit neatly with current theories about eugenics and Social Darwinism (Giehmann, 2011). Despite these congruities, and despite London’s admiration for the power of Nietzsche’s writing and philosophy, London often found himself in disagreement with what he perceived as Nietzsche’s selfishness and over-emphasis on individualism (Reesman, 2007). While London was drawn to the idea of the potential to create a superior expression of humanity, he tempered this with his strong views on socialism. Nietzsche’s “superman” would never be able to function in the constraints of socialism, but London seemed to believe that it was possible to have both the superior strength of the Nietzschean superman and the capacity to live in an equitable socialist society.

London himself addressed his views on these matters in his essay How I Became a Socialist. Of his conversion to Socialism, London began by writing the following:

“I loved life in the open, and I toiled in the open, at the hardest kinds of work…. I looked on the world and called it good, every bit of it. Let me repeat, this optimism was because I was healthy and strong, bothered with neither aches nor weaknesses, never turned down by the boss because I did not look fit …And because of all this, exulting in my young life, able to hold my own at work or fight, I was a rampant individualist. .. I could see myself only raging through life without end like one of Nietzsche’s blond beasts, lustfully roving and conquering by sheer superiority and strength. As for the unfortunates, the sick, and ailing, and old, and maimed, I must confess I hardly thought of them at all … my joyous individualism was dominated by the orthodox bourgeois ethics” (jacklondons.net).

London went on to explain how his formative experiences as a laborer, sailor, and vagabond, working, socializing, and learning from with a wide variety of people, changed his views:

“And as I listened my brain began to work. The woman of the streets and the man of the gutter drew very close to me. I saw the picture of the Social Pit as vividly as though it were a concrete thing, and at the bottom of the Pit I saw them, myself above them, not far, and hanging on to the slippery wall by main strength and sweat. And I confess a terror seized me. What when my strength failed? … And there and then I swore a great oath. It ran something like this: All my days I have worked hard with my body and according to the number of days I have worked, by just that much am I nearer the bottom of the Pit. I shall climb out of the Pit, but not by the muscles of my body shall I climb out I shall do no more hard work, and may God strike me dead if I do another day’s hard work with my body more than I absolutely have to do. And I have been busy ever since running away from hard work”. (jacklondons.net)

While London may have been exaggerating the degree to which he spent the rest of his life “running away from hard work,” there is no question that this change of heart and mind was produced not through the practices of thought and intellectual inquiry, but by visceral, physical activity and sometimes-grueling life experiences. As London concludes in his essay, “I think it is apparent that my rampant individualism was pretty effectively hammered out of me. And something else as effectively hammered in” (jacklondons.net)  It was with this new internal perspective that London returned from the wilderness to city life to begin his work as a writer, and it was this odd mix of socialist leanings and a sense that some races, social systems, and ideas about equality that formed his unique, and sometimes contradictory worldview. It is London’s sense of social justice and his deep convictions about personal fortitude and rugged individualism that serve as the basis for many of the themes conveyed in White Fang.

White Fang: Exploring the Nature of Man through the Eyes of the Beast

The novel White Fang begins with recounting the trek of Henry and Bill as they brave the winter cold of Alaska to bring a body-filled coffin to its final resting place. Along the way they are beset by wolves –including a wily and savvy female wolf- who slowly picks off the sled dogs who were pulling the coffin. She also steals the rations Henry and Bill have brought with them. In this opening section, the wolves are seen through the eyes of the two men, and their behaviors are only described and scrutinized to the extent that it affects the besieged men. This scene parallels London’s life and the racial biases he admittedly had. Initially, London has racial biases that he had learned from society and his upbringing. However, as life changed courses and he was able to see the world from a different perspective, his worldview changed drastically.  One by one the female wolf lures the sled dogs away at night, only to have them ambushed by the remaining pack. Henry is eventually attacked and killed during his effort to exact revenge on the wolves, leaving only Bill to make it to the destination.  It is at this point in the story that London shifts to following the activities of the wolves as they abandon their efforts to kill the remaining man, and soon readers are seeing the world through the eyes of the wolves.

What makes London’s approach so interesting and compelling is the manner in which he makes this shift gradually. When first we see the wolves in their day-to-day lives, it is from the same outside perspective in which we viewed the actions of the two men in the first chapter. We witness a struggle for dominance among several of the males who are competing for the attention and affection of the main female wolf; it is the elder, powerful “One-Eye” who eventually vanquishes his foes and mates with the female. As her delivery approaches, she finds a small cave in which to give birth and produces a litter of cubs. It is a bitter winter, and despite the efforts of One-Eye to hunt for meat for his mate, she and the cubs are often hungry. London uses this scene to metaphorically represent the struggles that he witnessed blacks and other races battling against. Although “One-Eye” was doing everything he could and should have done, he was unable to provide for his family.  In the end, all but one of them succumbs to starvation. It is during this time in the cave, with the cubs, that London shifts perspectives again, so that readers are left seeing the world through the eyes of the sole remaining male cub as he begins to explore his surroundings. Again, London is paralleling what he has witnessed in society. This one remaining cub represents hope and the undying spirit of man to rise above obstacles and flourish.

It is not difficult for the reader to view this section of the book from the cub’s ventures to the excursions London made when he was a tramp, and later worked on ships and began to travel the world. The cub is the living embodiment of a young explorer, ranging and roaming the land and discovering the wonders of his world for the first time. The cub is not yet the fiercely independent creature he will later become; yet, he is increasingly willing to roam farther away from his mother and the security she offers as he learns to hunt on his own.  London himself ventured farther and farther from the civilized world that he had known, yet remained connected, however distantly, through his work and other associations. It was during this time that London was setting the stage for the rugged individualist he would become as a young adult, just as the cub was becoming the strong, fearsome creature readers would see in the coming pages.

As the cub and his mother continue to hunt and travel together, they come across an Indian encampment, and it is here that the cub gets his first exposure to the “man-animals” that he will come to see as gods. Throughout this section of the book, readers continue to see the events from the perceptive of the cub, which the Indians name White Fang. It is also in this section that London –through White Fang- begins to examine a number of themes and issues, largely centered on the nature of power, dominance, and submission. White Fang is genetically predisposed to being wild and independent, yet when confronted with the strength and cunning of the man-animals he follows his mother’s example and submits to their natural authority. In light of London’s views on racialism and the inherent superiority of certain races over others, it is possible to see some of his views reflected in this relationship between man and beast.

White Fang gives significant consideration (to the extent that a wolf can consider such things) to the same themes of strength and weakness. The young wolf initially balks at the thought of being subjected to the whims of the man-animals, and for a time he even escapes from them when the Indians are breaking camp. At first he enjoys the feeling of freedom, but he quickly begins to feel lonely and scared and comes to the realization that he has been domesticated to the degree that he wishes to return to life with humans. As White Fang thinks to himself, “of his own choice, he came to sit by man’s fire and to be ruled by him” (London,1905  ). Considering this passage in the context of London’s racial identity, it could be argued that he might very well have viewed blacks or other “inferior” races in the same manner, as if the purportedly civilizing effects of white culture were more a blessing than a cure to the African Americans who had to endure Jim Crow laws and racial segregation.

At the same time, however, it is quite possible to view this section of the book through the lens of London’s ideas about socialism, equality, and justice. White Fang may have been domesticated and “civilized” to the degree that he could function within the context and expectations of the human world, but this domestication was forced upon him with violence and the threat of more violence. Moreover, White Fang learns to use the same tactics of strength and violence over the weaker dogs in the camp, and stakes out a place for himself through expressing his power and dominance when he can, and submitting when he must. As London describes it, “White Fang knew the law well: to oppress the weak and obey the strong.” On one hand, this view is perfectly in keeping with the Nietzschean perceptive on the dominant, superior “superman” or in this case, superwolf” (London, 1905).  On the other hand, the manner in which fear and violence are used as tools of oppression at all levels of the social hierarchy in the camp are eye opening. From the Indian masters, to the strongest of the pack dogs, to the weakest of the old and young dogs, London does not paint a positive picture.

White Fang’s human master, Grey Beaver, gains White Fang’s obedience through beatings and fear, while White Fang uses those same tactics on the smaller and weaker dogs. This ends up looking like a vicious cycle of violence in which only those at the top reap the greatest rewards- a description which could be just as easily applied to the economic conditions London witnessed when he returned to San Francisco during the recession. The system which granted power to a wealthy few had left the majority of people impoverished and destitute. These same people may have felt beholden and even subservient to those with greater economic power, but this was driven by the practical realties of an unjust social and economic system (Reesman,2009). There was no means by which these economically repressed people could fight back against those in power, and they remained dependent on those same powerful people for what little security they had. Whether through physical violence, the power of economic oppression, or both, many people in  early 20^th century America were trapped between being dependent upon and revolting against those in power. In a very real sense, White Fang was in a similar situation. By the time London wrote White Fang he was a firmly committed socialist, and it is a simple matter to draw parallels between the manner in which White Fang was subjugated and the way people were subjugated.

London also explores the theme of individuality, and how circumstances can shape what people make of themselves and what life makes of them. As he writes of the young wolf, “had White Fang never come into the fires of man, the Wild would have molded him into a true wolf.” White Fang is only part-wolf, as his mother was the offspring of a dog and a wolf. By allowing readers to think of White Fang as (almost) a person, London appears to be addressing the tension between our own wild nature and our propensity to become civilized and accept the conditions in which we find ourselves. White Fang could have spent his entire life in the wild, and he would have remained wild himself; instead, circumstances brought him into the world of human beings, and he was permanently shaped by that encounter. His inner wild nature was never fully driven out of him, but he did for the most part manage to suppress it in order to function in this new world. Is it possible that this reflects, at least to a degree, London’s views on the “inferior” races, and how they retain an inner “wildness” that has and will continue to keep them subjected by and subservient to the “superior” races?  London certainly does not make such a case overtly, but it is difficult to read these passages without considering the social views of the author.

There seems, at least at first glance, to be an irreconcilable discrepancy between London’s views on race and social Darwinism and his views on politics and socialism. As Cassuto and Reesman (1996) note, however, London “knew from Darwin, for example, that the key to species survival was cooperation, hence his leanings towards workers organizing and socialism.” A closer reading of White Fang’s introduction to and assimilation by the Indians shows that the wolf may have submitted to treatment he did not always enjoy, but he also learned the lesson that the cooperative efforts of the Indians and the sled dogs meant the best chance of survival for all. It is not until the end of the book, when White Fang asserts his wild nature in defense of his new human family, that he finds the balance between his wild nature and his domesticated nature; it is at that point that White Fang is most fully realized as both and individual and as part of a group.Walsh points out, “The focus on the individual or self, as opposed to the species or race, becomes more and more insistent as White Fang’s journey into domestication proceeds. His first significant step into dog-ness is his ‘own choice’ of the Indian encampment over the ‘Wild’ and this is simultaneously a surrendering of the very ‘self’ that makes that choice” (Walsh, 2013) It is, perhaps, this balance between the two that best highlights how London reconciled the seemingly disparate views of philosophers like Nietzsche and political theorists like Karl Marx.

It would be a mistake to view White Fang solely as an allegory for social and class struggles, though it seems apparent that such themes are highlighted in the book. In the interest of providing a broader analysis, it must be noted that London uses the book to address other issues and themes of interest to him. Perhaps the most notable of these is the issue of animal cruelty, as highlighted in the section of the book when Grey Beaver trades White Fang away to repay his debts. White Fang is pressed into service as a fighter, and is pitted against dogs, wolves, and even a lynx. Just when White Fang is about to succumb to an attack by a bulldog in the ring, a wealthy young man intervenes and rescues him. This action aligns well with London’s own views on animal cruelty, as London often wrote about the gruesome conditions in which captive animals lived. At the same time, however, it is not unfair to note that the wild and vicious White Fang is rescued and tamed not by another Indian, but by a white man. For example, one critic says: “London is actually expounding Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ theory and not racial superiority. London recaps the historical progressive dominance of one cultural ‘type’ over the earlier ‘type’ and goes on to note that the Anglo-Saxon type in England and the United States was then dominate [sic], but not because of skin color or other inherent characteristics, but rather because of their acquisition and productive use of resources. He concludes by saying that ultimately the Anglo-Saxon type may give way to a new dominant type” (Walsh, 2013   ).  This again raises the question of to what degree this reflects London’s views on Social Darwinism and racial superiority, as it shows how White Fang is only able to finally have a good life once he is saved from the cruel Indians by the civilized white man.

Taken as a whole, London’s body of work cannot be construed as simply a set of treatises on his social and political worldview. He wrote everything from essays and short stories to newspaper articles to novels, and did so primarily as a means of earning a living. With this in mind, however, it is easy to look to a book like White Fang for insight into how London viewed the world, and to see how it reflected both his personal beliefs and the prevailing views of many others in early 20^th century America. Although London had an often confounding, complicated, and even contradictory set of beliefs about the nature of human beings and of society, he managed to express himself about his worldview in a way that was compelling and entertaining. Just as White Fang became civilized, growing from a wild cub to a confident and content adult, Jack London appeared to do the same. To that degree, then, White Fang tells us at least as much about the author as it does about the life of a lone wolf in the wilds of the Great Northwest.

References

Cassuto, L., & Reesman, J. (1996). Rereading Jack London. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Giehmann, B. (2011). Writing the northland. Wu?rzburg: Ko?nigshausen & Neumann.

Jacklondons.net, (2014). War of the Classes: How I Became a Socialist. Retrieved 20 December 2014, from http://www.jacklondons.net/became_a_socialist.html

Kershaw, A. (1998). Jack London. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Labor, E. (2013). Jack London: An American Life. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.

Olmstead, K., Andreasen, D., & London, J. (2006). White Fang. New York: Sterling Pub.

Reesman, J. (2009). Jack London’s racial lives. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Walsh, S (2013). The child in wolf’s clothing: The meaning of the wolf and questions of identity in Jack London’s White Fang. European Journal of American Culture, 32(1), 55-77.