Jack London; An Aryan Hero

by Svea Lander

From the herd of unremarkable masses there occasionally appears a personality so dynamic, so powerful, that world is forced to take notice. Such a personality is destined to make an imprint on history, regardless how humble his beginnings...

Jack London was born in San Francisco in the year 1876 to a poor family and seemingly bleak future. Forced to quit school and go to work in a factory after the sixth grade, young Jack was finding the world can be a very harsh place indeed. Toiling away his early teenage years in factories and sweat shops, working twelve to twenty hour days in horrifying conditions, it is a miracle he survived, much less went on to become the first American to make a million dollars from writing. Even while living in a state of constant exhaustion and poverty, young Jack still managed to spend many hours in the public library of Oakland, studying everything from mathematics to sociology - How many of us value education enough to work so hard for it?

At the age of fifteen Jack fell in with a group of sailors who raided the Oyster Beds around San Francisco Bay and sold what they took on the black market. Within months, Jack's brain and brawn made him the 'Prince of the Oyster Pirates'. A mere teenager the leader of a fleet of very rough customers... Truly, this young man embodied the sort of 'Inevitable White Man' he was later to write of! This time of danger and adventure was not the end of his thirst for knowledge, but it did mark the end of his days as a wage slave.

After a few years of sailing which took him all around the world, a brief stay in prison, and a trip to the Yukon during the Alaskan Gold Rush of 1898, London returned to California and began working on a career as an author.

Never guessing how difficult it would be to get his first short stories published, London made up for his lack of experience with what he would of called "Pluck and Pertinacity". Allowing himself only four to five hours of sleep a night, he spent his days relentlessly studying and writing, taking breaks only for food or exercise, he drove himself forward. It was during this time that Jack London obtained his high school diploma and then 'audited' (he could never have afforded an 'official' education) the equivalent of a four-year college degree in about six months.

Sending story after story to the magazines and publishing houses, he met with very little success at first and was barely able to make ends meet. In his fictionalized autobiography 'Martin Eden', London tells of constant rejection. His stories of the eternal struggle for domination among man and beast show a harsh side of life that the people of his time apparently did not want to be reminded of. As a result, most of his stories went unsold and his genius went unnoticed. Often resorting to pawning his overcoat and typewriter (The aspiring author's only possessions of any value) to pay for food and his tiny apartment, Jack's career as an author was not off to an auspicious beginning...

Through adversity and toil, Jack London never gave up on his dream, and it finally paid off. After years of working himself nearly to death and living in abject poverty, his work was finally recognized and he quickly became very popular and much sought after.

London did not write what he thought would sell. He wrote about the stark realities of life as he himself had lived it. Most of his short stories were about the Aryan's innate drive to mastery and how he had traveled to the farthest reaches of the Earth to answer the Call of his heredity. Best known for his tales of the Alaskan Gold Rush and the unimaginable travels endured by White men in search of fame and fortune, he also wrote many stories of the South Pacific as well as poems, mysteries, and even science fiction. The common thread of all his work was the process of natural selection and the White man's place at the head of evolution. This was a man who knew that the Aryan was destined, no, OBLIGATED to rule the Earth.

Jack London was a man who, in Nietzsche's words, lived 'in a high and lofty place.' He was mentally and physically powerful, the incarnation of the forces he saw in nature and related in his writing. Such a man was not destined to die unknown and in poverty. Such a man was destined to be heard. To be recognized as a man worthy of respect and admiration.

London's best known works, 'The Call of the Wild' and "White Fang' appear to be stories about dogs, well written stories but stories about dogs nonetheless. When viewed more closely, they are metaphoric; a keen insight into the eternal will to power inherent in all of nature. A theme which infused all of his work with a sense of struggle. The struggle among animals for survival, the struggle among early man for survival and of later man to dominate man and beast alike.

In 'Martin Eden' and 'John Barleycorn' London wrote of his own struggle; to realize his full potential, to be more than just another face in the crowd.

In the 'Sea Wolf' and 'Mutiny on the Elsinore', we read of the White man's mastery of sailing as well as his mastery of the lesser races. Jack London was not one to be ashamed of his natural superiority to the dark-skinned tribes of the world, a superiority which showed itself everywhere he went in his many travels, from the Aleutian Islands to Zanzibar.

One of London's lesser known novels, 'The Valley of the Moon', described a young White couple's feelings of alienation amongst the homes of non-White immigrants in the Bay area and how they found there own place, in the world in the woods of Southern Oregon.

All in all, London's work illustrates his conviction that the Aryan is the creator and custodian of civilization. At the same time, he knew, even at the turn of the century, that the generosity of the White man would become a liability. Undoubtedly, if Jack London were alive today he would be at the forefront of the struggle we find ourselves engaged in.

It seems the lives of all great men are doomed to end all to quickly, and so it was with Jack London. He cared for his wife and mother more than anything else, and spent money as fast as he earned it trying to make their lives as comfortable and enjoyable as he could. This new-found happiness was not to last; both women died within months of each other, leaving Jack in a state of black despair.

Overwhelmed by die loss of the two people dearest to his heart, Jack London committed suicide in 1916, at the age of 40.

He never left a note to explain why, but I am certain he killed himself because he felt it would be preferable to die rather than fade into an old, bitter shadow of his former self.

Even though it ended in tragedy, Jack London's life should be an inspiration to us all, for it shows that we can achieve our hopes and goals if we are willing to work for them rather than waiting for success to fall into our laps.