Northern stories

1.1. London treats its heroes differently
London treats its heroes differently. Usually he very clearly distinguishes between his likes and dislikes. He approves of some, loves others, and condemns others. Perhaps, in a special category, one can single out those persons who are distinguished by greed and greed. He has a special dislike for them.
In many of his stories, the Balzac theme of the corrupting influence of money on the human psyche sounds. In the pursuit of wealth, people turn into fanatics and fanatics. Such is Jacob Kent from The Scarred Man. Arbitrarily moving into a hut that had no owner, he collects payment from travelers who stay in it. His greed becomes a disease that kills everything human in him. Kent turns into a maniac, into an obsessed one.
Looks like Rassmunsen from Thousand Dozens. Like Kent, Rassmunsen is obsessed with the idea of getting rich, and it enslaves him. For her sake, he spares neither guides nor dogs, exhausting their last strength. He does not spare himself either: the passion for money replaces his concern for his own health.
A negative attitude towards the world of profit is heard in many London stories.
A murderous characterization is given in The Great Mystery by Karen Sazer 's husband , who did not shine with intelligence, but who knew the value of money and was excellent at understanding "all sorts of meanness."
In the name of gold, selfish calculation, these people lose their humanity and thereby harm not only themselves, but also others, they become socially dangerous.
The self-interest of capitalist society, proprietary relations London opposes the "northern" morality, based on comradely trust and honesty. Naas ("Northern Odyssey") makes a difficult journey to Mailmute's hut Kida . Wounded, dying of hunger, he strains to the limit and still reaches the goal in order to keep his word and return the borrowed gold.
The clash of opposite characters is shown in the story " Where the roads diverge." When Hitchcock offers his companions to save the Indian girl, they cowardly refuse. Generosity and readiness for self-sacrifice are alien to them. “Our business is to wash up more golden sand and get out of this damned country as soon as possible. Only wild animals can live here ,” says one of them [I, 237].
The story is interesting because it draws two different types of people: selfless, brave and cowardly, selfish. And while the brave get lucky, the cowards get retribution. Criticizing property relations, the writer everywhere emphasizes that northern morality is directly opposed to the morality of bourgeois society ; , what is considered ordinary and natural in the bourgeois environment, turns out to be completely unacceptable in the North.
From the point of view of the laws of bourgeois society, Jack Westondale , the hero of the story "For Those on the Road ," is a criminal, for he took forty thousand dollars from McFarland . Therefore, he is pursued by the royal police. But from the point of view of northern morality , Westondale is an honest man, since he took what was his.
Together with possessive morality, London criticizes religion. He contrasts the official religion with its lies and hypocrisy with the religion of humanity and tolerance. Among the priests found on the pages of stories, the image of Father Roubaud is remembered . Father Roubaud is a good man in his own way, but even he is bound by religion. In the name of "Christian duty", he forces Grayo Bentham to return to her husband, although he knows that she does not love him. He is guided not by the dictates of his heart, but by the demands of church morality.
Most often, the servants of God in London are either fanatics or self-satisfied limited formalists. They have no inner conviction that their cause is right. They do their duty, but they do it formally, official. Such is Mr. Brown in the story " Kish , son of Kish". He converts the Indians to Christianity, but their life, their customs remain alien to him. He does not understand and does not want to understand the souls of his converts.
The condemnation of the official religion is most pronounced in the story "The God of His Fathers". The behavior of her representative, missionary Storj Owen, causes a feeling of anger and indignation. Although Owen is a fanatic, at a crucial moment he lacks the faith to die for his beliefs. Storge Owen lives because he renounces his religion, his god. "Now I don't believe it, " he says to Baptist Krasny. But due to stubbornness and narrow-mindedness, he turns out to be the direct culprit in the death of his defenders, people who are better and more worthy of him. Storj Owen is contrasted with Stockkart . Although Stockkart loves life, he does not want a life bought at the cost of eternal shame. His courage is unshakable even in the face of death. Stockkart dies, but not for religion, but for his morality, for everything that constitutes for him the true faith of his fathers.
Along with Christian priests, priests and shamans are depicted in the stories. Most often, they act as cunning deceivers, deftly using the superstition of their fellow tribesmen. An example is the shaman Skundu , the “great sorcerer”, who appropriates the blankets of Gunia . The shaman Klok-No-Ton acts next to him, resorting to all sorts of tricks and also for the purpose of deception. The author feels neither friendliness nor respect for these people, for their behavior entails evil and misfortune.
In a number of stories, the theme of the corrupting influence of bourgeois civilization on the life and customs of the northern country is raised. Alaska has recently become an American possession. Until the second half of the 19th century, it belonged to Russia and only in 1867 was sold to the United States for 7.2 million dollars. In those days, it was a desert, sparsely populated territory inhabited by Indian and Eskimo tribes and a small number of whites. The discovery of gold in the late 1990s and the beginning of the gold rush dramatically changed the picture. Thousands of people moved to Alaska and the adjacent part of Northern Canada. Cities and towns arose with saloons, bars, gambling houses and other places of entertainment, which became the centers of mining civilization. The role of the capital of the new gold-bearing region was performed by the city of Dawson , located on the Klondike River near its confluence with the Yukon. And in the most remote and remote corners of the North Country, on the shores of the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, on the rivers Klondike, Yukon, Mackenzie, Tanana , Porcupine , in the mountains and plateaus, numerous gold diggers appeared who got there by ships, boats, dogs or on foot.
Mining civilization brought with it gambling, all kinds of diseases, debauchery, drunkenness. And where honesty was considered the main virtue, cases of murder, deceit, and theft became more frequent. Some critics tend to view Jack London as a writer who poeticized mining civilization. In our opinion, this is an erroneous point of view.
Having appeared with others in the North, London was far from being able to see everything only in a pink light. On the contrary, he believed that the emergence of new people contributed to the destruction of northern morality and had a corrupting effect on local residents. Here is what he writes in the story "The King's Wife": "False ideals reigned in the country. Dawson 's current public morality did not coincide with the former, and the exuberant growth of the North Country gave rise to many evil things" [I, 132].
London singles out all those who appeared after the start of the gold rush into a special group - "newcomers", or chechako . It was to her that the already mentioned Kent, Rassmunsen , Cuthfert , Weatherby belonged . But, besides them, a very common type among the aliens were people like the Kid from Montana (“At the End of the Rainbow”), who “had a wonderful memory and a fervent imagination. As for truthfulness, he could not boast of this character trait in any way” [XIV, 237]. Having fled from the States, where he was persecuted for theft, he continues to engage in theft in the North. There is no admiration of his adventures in the story. The kid is a strong , but evil, bad person.
player La Pierle from the story "The Thing You'll Never Forget" looks like him. The image of the player in the northern stories is not as common as in the California stories of Bret Garth. However, this is not the difference. Near London, we will not meet such ideally noble people as Bret Hart Oakhurst . His players are more real, rougher, closer to what a real player really is. Fortune La Pirle does not hesitate to "correct" fortune when she turns her back on him. Moreover, he is ready to defend his right to cheat by force of arms. John Randolph , who noticed his knavery, he kills on the spot.
In this story, the writer perfectly conveys the psychology of the player: rude, predatory, selfish, it is revealed through the thinning of La Pierle and his speech, replete with specific comparisons and terms borrowed from special jargon.
The same type of person as the Montana Kid and LaPearle is Arizona Jack ("The Disappearance of Marcus O'Brien"). Valuing his life, Jack does not value the lives of others and kills a person only because his music got on his nerves.
In the story "The Unexpected" the theme of a crime generated by selfish calculation also arises. The thirst for gold pushes Dennin to raise his hand against the comrades with whom he worked, ate, drank and slept together. Dannin commits murder to get their cut.
Finis " makes a very strong impression . Great is the suffering of his hero Morganson , who endures hunger and cold. As a human being, I feel sorry for him for the trials that fall to his lot. But he himself does not spare others. He is a complete individualist and egoist, living according to the laws of the wolf. Morganson deliberately takes the path of crime. No other way of doing things comes to his mind. His conscience is silent when he kills three innocent people. But in London, evil does not go unpunished. The terrible death of Morganson is retribution for his misdeed.
All these people: Baby and Jack and Dennin are newcomers to the North Country. They live according to the laws of the predatory selfish morality of the capitalist world. Arriving in the North, they do not want to reckon with its laws, they violate its ethics. For them there is no friendship and fellowship. Strength, rudeness, cruelty - these are the principles of their behavior. These people are the offspring of bourgeois civilization, they are its children. The author emphasizes in them a possessive, selfish beginning.
London shows how the local old-timers, people who have lived in the North for many years, succumb to the corrupting influence of bourgeois civilization. The story "The King's Wife" tells of cowardly men who break their word, and the difficult situation of Indian wives in which they found themselves after the advent of civilization. Cal Galbreis , who is married to an Indian woman and has a son, not some Chechaco who has just arrived in the country. He is an old-timer who enjoys general respect. However, Galbreis does not have moral fortitude. The cheerful life of saloons fascinates him, and he leaves his family. True, everything ends happily thanks to the intervention of Kid . But the happy ending doesn't take the edge off the problem.
A similar situation is drawn in the story "Women's Contempt". Here the author again shows the moral decay of a person under the influence of new conditions that have developed after the advent of bourgeois progress.
The conclusion from all these stories is clear enough. With the North, with unspoiled nature, with hard work, the writer connects everything honest, humane, sincere.
And, on the other hand, everything bad, vile, mercenary is generated by the relations that exist in the capitalist "civilized" world.