Criticism in” Martin Eden” by Jack London

Abstract

A huge literary asset for literature was the novel "Martin Eden" - the creative pinnacle of Jack London. In Soviet times, domestic critics have repeatedly tried to interpret the novel as a denunciation of the venality of bourgeois society, the victim of which is the advanced, which eventually capitulated. Such criticism is justified, but still too unambiguous and harsh. The reasons that led Martin to a life catastrophe lie deeper, and it is not just a matter of “surrender”. After all, Martin did not churn out book after book when publishers were snapping up everything he wrote. He passed away, realizing that his talent had left him forever. The image of the laws of "success" receded 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 truth to the world." 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, introducing him to her vulgar "ideals". In his relationship with Ruth, a conflict of aesthetic beauty and rough life reality is played out, which will affect the future fate of the hero and become an insoluble contradiction of his whole life.