On The Naturalistic Elements In Jack London's Works

As a literary trend, naturalism has played an important part in American literature. According to naturalistic theory, human beings are controlled by environment, heredity and chance. Naturalism has carried on and developed the writing features of realism, and at the same time it has helped lay the foundation of literary modernism. As a great American writer, Jack London (1876-1916) is well-known through the world and many of his works are very popular both at home and abroad. Many Chinese readers are familiar with London's works especially his two animal novels The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906). But up to now, the studies on London's works are mainly introductory of the contents, themes and writing skills. London should not be taken as a writer who is only good at depicting dogs and wolves. To know more about London, we must study his life and his works from more perspectives and then we can give him a comparatively equitable and objective comment and recognize his proper status in the literary history of America and the world.The Call of the Wild and White Fang are loved by many readers and critics. As the stories take place in the wilderness, they obviously contain naturalistic elements in the narration. London's masterpiece, Martin Eden (1909), has also been read and studied by many critics and common readers. It is a book which has encouraged many people to work hard to succeed in their study and their career. But as for the materials and comments I have collected about it, few have approached it from the naturalistic point of view. However, from these main works of London's we can clearly see the naturalistic elements although not all his works show the naturalistic tendency.The present thesis is a tentative study of the naturalistic elements in London's main works as mentioned above. It aims to analyze the naturalistic elements in these novels to illuminate how environment, heredity, and chance determine a person's fate as London sees it. Actually, London's only sea novel The Sea Wolf (1904) also demonstrates a naturalistic tendency. But due to the length of this thesis, I'd like to discuss it in another paper. From the result of my study, I hope we can have a better understanding of Jack London as one of the representatives of American naturalism.