“Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.” . “The function of man is to live, not to exist.”. “He was a man without a past, whose future was the imminent grave and whose present was a bitter fever of living.”. Jack London’s life influenced his writing because of his love of nature, personal adventures, and obsession of death. He was born in the US to a middle class family. He moved to alaska during the gold rush. The gold rush influenced his first short story. He was an outdoors man. Uses descriptive writing to explain his natural surroundings . His alaskan adventures. Call of the wild. He uses nature as a character of force. Because we need nature but nature doesn't need us.