He is also adrift intellectually, examining books randomly he does not yet have the background to read and understand, intimidated by Ruth's superior education. London says about Eden at this time, "it seemed that the room was lifting, heeling, and plunging like a ship upon the sea" (Chapter 7, p. 1). Frustrated, he is like a sailor caught in a storm before he has learned how to sail. He knows he is smart enough to understand the books he has chosen but that his education has great gaps in it. Thus his quest for a middle class life is intellectual as well as social, financial and professional. He is at the mercy of the elements around him just as surely as if he had been caught in a storm at sea. By Chapter 11, Eden has embarked on his journey of self-improvement and has enrolled in classes. He also plans to use the stories he is writing to demonstrate to Ruth that he is serious about writing, so she will take him seriously. Even in his physics class, Eden is drawn to the sea, where he sees order in chaos: "He had accepted the world as the world, but now he was comprehending the organization of it, the play and interplay of force and matter... Levers and purchases fascinated him, and his mind roved backward to hand-spikes and blocks and tackles at sea. The theory of navigation, which enabled the ships to travel unerringly their courses over the pathless ocean, was made clear to him. The mysteries of storm, and rain, and tide were revealed" Chapter 11, pp. 2-3. Unfortunately for Eden, life does not follow the laws of physics, and the sea is only predictable when calm. This incident also foreshadows how the sea, and his tumultuous life, is going...
Eden has idealized his memories of the sea, imagining tropical islands with scant attention to cold and forbidding waters, and now he imagines that the sea can be mastered, just as he thinks he can happily re-invent himself as a middle class young man.
2. Discuss the green light in The Great Gatsby and the rain in A Farewell to Arms as symbols of fertility and death. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, the green light represents hope, renewal, and (since Gatsby associates the green light with Daisy) Gatsby's desire for her, as well as (in Gatsby's mind) Daisy's fecundity and fertility. In nature, green is the color of life: trees, grass, and
He understands more than the people he was trying so hard to impress, especially Ruth, and this realization shatters him. He discovers the woman he has put on a pedestal is really just a mere mortal, and not a very nice one at that. In the beginning of the novel, he sees Ruth and her crowd as perfect. London writes, "Here was intellectual life, he thought, and here was
He also provides very interesting passages from London on his own work and the ideological inoculations which have also undermined the value of London's writings. Ludington, Townsend. "Jack London: Overview." Reference Guide to American Literature. Ed. Jim Kamp. 3rd ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Townsend talks about London's background and childhood, as well as his Socialist views, and their influence on his adult life and writings: "London saw himself as
instant he knew, he ceased to know. Throughout the history of literature, authors have used their works to underscore beliefs that they hold dear. This can happen whether the work is fiction, non-fiction or a combination of both. The work of the author can illustrate a point by using obvious comparisons and angles or it can use a more subtle approach such as metaphors or other methods of illustration. Even when
Mark Twain's realism in fully discovered in the novel The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, book which is known to most of readers since high school, but which has a deeper moral and educational meaning than a simple teenage adventure story. The simplicity of plot and the events that are described in the book look to be routine for provincial life of Southerners in the middle of the 19th century. But
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