THE INFLUENCE OF JACK LONDON’S LIFE ON MARTIN EDEN

Abstract

The novel "Martin Eden" became a huge literary asset for literature - the creative peak of Jack London's work. In Soviet times, domestic critics repeatedly tried to interpret the novel as a denunciation of the venality of bourgeois society, the victim of which was the progressive society, which eventually capitulated. Such criticism is justified, but still too unambiguous and harsh. The reasons that led Martin to the catastrophe of his life lie deeper, and it is not only about "surrender". After all, Martin didn't churn out book after book when publishers snapped up everything he wrote. He passed away, realizing that the talent had left him forever. The image of the laws of "success" faded into the background when London fully felt the scale and significance of the image of the artist that he created. The writer formulated the theme of the novel himself: "the tragedy of a loner trying to inspire the world with the truth." The hero's drama does not begin at the moment of his meeting with Ruth Morse. The disproportion of their spiritual horizons is too obvious for Ruth to seriously influence Martin by introducing him to her vulgar "ideals". In his relationship with Ruth, a conflict of aesthetic beauty and harsh life reality plays out, which will affect the further fate of the hero and become an insoluble contradiction of his entire life.