Martin Eden

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1909

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-18

Chapters 19-27

Chapters 28-37

Chapters 38-46

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Work Performed and the Shrine of the Established

Like all art, what people consider “good” literature is subjective. Literature that endures the test of time must first pass the first hurdle of publication, a process that, to Martin, is mechanized and subject to the whims of editors whom he believes are themselves failed writers. The tastes of these editors are as arbitrary as those of the public who buy the books they publish, even though they influence those tastes by selecting books and stories. When Martin accuses Ruth of worshipping “at the shrine of the established” (188), he’s accusing her of upholding the hegemony of taste, which he believes prevents free thought by gatekeeping challenges to the status quo. Martin completes his entire literary output within approximately two years. During this time, he faces multiple rejections from literary magazines, publishing houses, and even his closest supporters. His ideas are deemed too radical, unconventional, and even upsetting to publish. However, despite his many disappointments and setbacks, Martin perseveres, refusing to give up even when he faces financial destitution.

Upon achieving success, Martin is plagued with the notion of “work performed.” If the public now loves him, he wonders why no one supported or encouraged him when he struggled while writing the works that made him famous. This circular question torments Martin until he’s forced to concede that it isn’t for himself or even for his writing that he’s suddenly accepted; it’s because of factors he views as tangential to his success: fame and money. Martin’s fame is a sort of feedback loop of public approval: Because of the controversy that “The Shame of the Sun” causes, his work is suddenly marketable, even for publishers who sent him stock rejection notices for the same texts. Because the public responds to this marketing, they buy his books. Martin, who faced rejection because he went against mass consensus, is now popular by mass consensus. The maddening fickleness of the public destroys any faith Martin had left in humanity. Brissenden’s claim that bourgeois society will become a poison to Martin proves true. Martin sums up his dilemma when Ruth tries to get him back:

And why? Because I’m famous; because I’ve a lot of money. Not because I’m Martin Eden, a pretty good fellow and not particularly a fool. I could tell you the moon is made of green cheese and you would subscribe to the notion, at least you would not repudiate it, because I’ve got dollars, mountains of them. And it was all done long ago; it was work performed, I tell you, when you spat upon me as the dirt under your feet (352).

The fact that Ruth suddenly wants him back shows Martin that her love is ultimately mercenary and subject to the same established notions of propriety that once made Martin and his writing unacceptable. She didn’t love him enough to stay with him through his poverty, but she wants him back now that she’s rich. Her parents now approve of their union, not because of who Martin is but because of his newfound social status. This realization breaks him. No one loves Martin; they just love his fame and riches. The Martin that exists in the public eye isn’t real, and the Martin that existed before the fame and fortune no longer exists. Despite the fact that he’d already performed his work, society would have let Martin die in obscurity, were his works not hoisted by chance into the shrine of the established.

Socialism and the Failure of Individualism

Although many of Jack London’s works espouse a commitment to the American ideal of rugged individualism, he was an outspoken socialist, advocating the rights and better treatment of working-class Americans. His meteoric rise to literary fame left him in a financial situation similar to Martin Eden’s at the end of the novel; however, unlike Martin, London didn’t shy away from the limelight. London’s popularity made him an important public figure for the growing American socialist movement: He ran for mayor of Oakland, California, several times and was even asked by the Socialist Party to run for president of the US. Although Martin Eden is semi-autobiographical, Martin’s commitment to Nietzschean individualism directly opposes London’s own politics. Thus, through Martin’s rise and fall, London depicts the ultimate failure of Nietzschean individualism, showing how it leads to abandonment, isolation, and ultimately complete alienation from society.

Socialism causes an insurmountable rift between Martin and the Morse family, though the accusations that Martin is a socialist are libelous. Mr. Morse is convinced that Martin is a socialist. By this point in his intellectual life, Martin knows enough about politics to consider himself above US politics. He previously won essay contests sponsored by both the Democratic and Republican Parties for demonstrating the depth of his knowledge about their political platforms and policies. He considers them both lacking: “[H]e was an intellectual moralist, and more offending to him than platitudinous pomposity was the morality of those about him, […] a curious hotchpotch of the economic, the metaphysical, the sentimental, and the imitative” (240). Intellectual moralism, a branch of ethics promoted by Socrates and Kant, is the belief that knowledge of ethics and moral reasoning should guide one’s actions. In other words, to Martin, a man like Mr. Morse can’t be considered “properly” moral because he doesn’t actually know his own morals. Martin, in contrast, has a firm view of what he believes, grounded in philosophy and scientific principles.

Martin begins to see both the bourgeoisie and working class as “herd-creatures, flocking together and patterning their lives by one another’s opinions, failing of being individuals and of really living life because of the childlike formulas by which they were enslaved” (244). This rhetoric directly links to Nietzsche’s idea of “slave morality.” According to this principle, society’s underclasses act based on a herd mentality rather than on an individual basis. This form of mass consensus contrasts with Martin’s intellectual moralism and individualistic ideals. While Democratic and Republican politics contain elements of herd mentality, socialism, based on the principles of uplifting the most vulnerable in society, diametrically opposes Martin’s beliefs. In a tirade against Judge Blount, Martin declares,

The world belongs […] to the strong […] who don’t wallow in the swine-trough of trade and exchange […] And they will eat you up, you socialists—who are afraid of socialism and who think yourselves individualists. Your slave-morality of the meek and lowly will never save you (301).

However, Martin’s belief in staunch individualism completely isolates him from his fellow man. Brissenden is the one person he views as an equal, and even he warns Martin that his views are outdated. Martin can no longer relate to his working-class friends and family or tolerate the bourgeoisie. His despondency in the wake of total alienation ultimately undermines his own principles of individualism: He can’t endure life in a world where he can relate to no one.

Realism and Class Disparity

As a literary genre, realism seeks a faithful representation of life, rejects idealized or romantic concepts, and often focuses on the lives of the underprivileged. For London and other authors, such as Upton Sinclair, realism was often the vehicle for depicting the social and economic struggles of the working class. In Martin Eden, Martin’s and Ruth’s differing perspectives on literature and realism reflect their social and cultural backgrounds. While Martin rejects socialist ideals, he’s committed to literary realism, which demands an unflinching view of everyday life. However, Ruth’s bourgeois upbringing and university education places aesthetics and “good taste” over stark realism. She finds the depiction of working-class life vulgar and repugnant rather than evoking sympathy, ignoring the dynamics of societal factors such as generational wealth and unequal opportunity. Initially, Ruth’s response to his works disappoints Martin, but he soon realizes that her class shapes her perception. She can’t overcome this hurdle; unlike Martin, she’s unable to rise above her upbringing. Ruth’s life experience has instilled in her a standard and dogmatic approach to literature mirroring the limitations that initially prevent Martin’s own works from being published.

Martin aspires to a level of literary realism that doesn’t shy away from life’s grittiness. For example. Ruth finds Martin’s story “The Pots” unacceptable because it offends her bourgeois aesthetic sensibilities. While she acknowledges the degradation in the lives of the lower classes, she has the privilege of not having to confront it directly. Instead, she views poverty as an abstraction: “She knew Martin was poor, and his condition she associated in her mind with the boyhood of Abraham Lincoln, of Mr. Butler, and of other men who had become successes” (195). Part of this view derives from the myth of the American Dream, as embodied by Mr. Butler, who rose to affluence through a miserly approach to life. Martin knows that Butler’s penny-pinching self-denial dulled his spirit. Following the model of Mr. Butler’s life would kill what’s great in Martin: his artistic spirit. In addition, “while aware that poverty [is] anything but delectable, [Ruth] ha[s] a comfortable middle-class feeling that poverty [is] salutary, that it [is] a sharp spur that urge[s] on to success all men who [are] not degraded and hopeless drudges” (195). Again, because Ruth isn’t faced with the actual physical and moral degradation of poverty, she can maintain an unrealistic view that temporary asceticism can bring one to greater heights. Ironically, viewing those who can’t rise above their poverty as “degraded and hopeless drudges” aligns this view of poverty with Martin’s own belief in social Darwinism and survival of the fittest.

Ultimately, Ruth’s failure to believe in Martin’s writing and her lack of faith in his success as a writer are direct consequences of their social divide. Ruth takes on the task of educating Martin as a hobby, almost as if he were a toy; it doesn’t cross her mind that playing with someone’s life can have drastic consequences. The result (as Ruth’s rejection of Martin’s writing indicates) is that once educated, Martin has the vocabulary and philosophy to examine his life from a critical perspective, alienating him from his own class while giving him more perspective on the bourgeoisie that leads him to despise what it represents. Ruth’s only solution is to try to change Martin and encourage him to get a “respectable” occupation and give up on his writing, which, in her view, won’t sell.