Naturalism In Jack London

Charles Darwin, the inventor of the evolutionary theory, believed that our genetics are shaped over time by the patterns of natural selection and the surrounding environment. According to the theory, even humans are susceptible of such process and are guaranteed no free will as the surrounding is what shapes and determines the lives of each individual. Naturalism – the literary theory that one’s surroundings and background dictates their fate and often the exposure of the indifference of nature to human struggle – has been the theme of many pieces of literature that depicts the miseries of human life and its tendency to converge towards the society’s pre-set standards. Jack London and Upton Sinclair are amongst the most notorious writers throughout

In Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle”, the pressures of success and the flaws of capitalism causes the general society to devalue the human qualities as the repetitive labor transforms the employees into mere disposable parts of a machinery. The workers are evidently reduced by their circumstances, which they have no other choice as a result of overwhelming forces of capitalism. For example, “the time limit that a man could work in the chilling rooms was said to be five years.” (Sinclair) This depicts how just like the animals who are slaughtered daily at the plantations, the employees were being slaughtered ruthlessly and were grinded down by the system of capitalism, as if they were expendable resource. The symbolism of the animals in the novel largely relate to the attributes of naturalistic writers to reflect the darker, and the pessimistic sides of the world and apply the naturalism theory that all men are subject to an invisible hand – which in this case would be the drive for wages and urban life caused by the rise of capitalism. Furthermore, in Jack London’s “To Build A Fire”, the symbolism of his hands serve as an indicator how close the explorer is to facing his predestined death. As soon as the man takes off his mittens, the numbness due to the extreme cold overwhelms his activity. Ultimately, as one final desperation to save his hands from freezing, he simply put his hands into the burning flames: “His flesh was burning. He could smell it … And still he endured.” (London) By illustrating the man acting in extreme desperation of even putting his hands into the flames, London allows the readers to interpret that nature has eventually engulfed the character, who initially headed to Yukon full of arrogance and confidence of his knowledge on survival. As a recurring topic, the condition of the hand in the story