Naturalism: The Jack London Contribution

Jack London was a leading member of the American writers to embrace naturalism. During the 1890’s writers such as Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin and Mark Twain were in the process of creating of what some thought was a derivative of realism. The French novelist Emile Zola is credited with creating the diagnostic element of naturalism in which the writer is responsible for interpreting surface reality beyond any imaginative exaggerations of such. Darwinism was a heavy influence in probing the biological features of deterministic thought and Marxism where the social ills of society were dissected.

                London’s writing pertained to the former of the two, as Darwinism was gaining influence in its fourth decade and certainly on Jack London’s psyche. He was fascinated with man’s will to survive but moreover how that will surpassed all logic as its source is found in the animalistic instincts of humans, instincts that are not called upon but drawn out in extreme circumstances.”The Son of the Wolf” (1900) was his first volume of short stories and a clear definition of his idea of naturalism. Most often referred to as Jack’s contribution to naturalism are his Klondike stories “The Call of the Wild,” (1903) where some of the behavior of the humans in the story, are just as animalistic as the animals themselves.

In this context it is the truth. Both men and canines are subject to the laws of survival. Paragraph 6 line 4-8. “Man is merely a high order animal, and his survival, his progress toward a higher state, is dependent upon his adaptability. In the northland, environmental and hereditary traits are more forcefully evident because of the heightened struggle. And under stress, man shows his latent animal traits – his atavism – and reverts to that state.”

                In writing from the perspective of a dog London found a way to stream his experiences growing up on the fence of racism and social injustice where he was witness to people struggling to overcome the extreme circumstances that life had dealt them. He viewed people in terms of their obstacles, difficulties and hunger for independence. “The other dogs each teach Buck lessons about his own survival. They also reflect the Darwinian adaptation buck increasingly exhibits.” (81) Tribulations of his own and his innate ability to rise above his humble beginnings gave London a clear and innate formulation of naturalism.           Naturalism in retrospect might possibly have not been as popular and accepting without the works of Jack London.

Sources:

Reesman, Jeanne C. Jack London’s Racial Lives; A Critical Biography. University of Georgia Press, 2009. Print.

Matterson, Stephen. The American Novel . Educational Broadcasting Corporation, 2007. Web. 26 Nov. 2011.

Wilcox, Earl J. The Kipling of the Klondike: Naturalism in London’s Early Fiction. www.jacklondons.net, 2011. 26 Nov. 2011.