The Realization of a Dream

Davon Ferrara

In the novel Martin Eden, Jack London tells a story about a young man who labored to become self-educated and to enter into the ranks of the upper class society. The story parallels London’s life in many ways, making it a sort of fictional autobiography. The title character of Martin Eden is a man who longs for more in his life, works hard to make his dreams of success come true, but ultimately realizes that in doing so, he rises above the rest of society in such a way that he could never go back.

Martin Eden is a lower class laborer, finding work wherever he can, mostly on the sea. He gets a glimpse of upper class society, falling in love with Ruth Morse. Eden sees Ruth at first as an ideal, something that he can never reach, though he tries to make himself better for her. She is the realization of what he wants to be himself: a well educated, well read, cultural person. He longs to be a part of her world. He uses his love for her as motivation in order to better himself. Yet, as he reads more and more, corrects his speech more, and gains knowledge into the many philosophies that he studies in his relentless pursuit to be a part of her society, he feels as if he is leaving his old world behind, separating himself from It more and more. He realizes that he doesn’t belong with them anymore. Being stuck in the middle and all alone, he works harder. Eventually he realizes that he wants to become a writer and make his living through literature.

While pursuing this vocation and meeting many rejections, he begins to realize that not only has he surpassed his working class peers with his advanced knowledge and thought, but that he has even passed Ruth’s society. He begins to see them as very shallow thinkers, going along with what the “mob” of people and critics say. They are not open to new ways of thought that differ from the “Establishment.” This begins to frustrate Eden, and depress him even more. After Ruth breaks off their engagement, Eden loses his motivation, for he realizes that he could never be a part of Ruth’s society, nor can he return to his own. Eden saw the world in a totally different way than either of those classes, and he felt totally alone. This couldn’t have happened in a worse time, for at this point his writing became very successful, and he was all of a sudden rich and famous.

Martin Eden, through hard work and determination saw that his dream of “success” came true, but it was not what he thought it was supposed to be. He was one of the rare great thinkers that come along through society, and this caused him to be lonely. He could never have been happy in the lower classes as an uneducated laborer because his heart needed more. Likewise, he could never be happy in Ruth’s society because her society offered even less of what his heart desired. His heart had an ache in it that told Eden that there was more to life than what society tells us there is. Eden began to see that, and to also see how far behind society was. He saw these faults, attempted to communicate them through his writing, and then realized that his fame did not come about because people agreed with his ideas, but because his ideas were a sort of fashion that was “in-style.” They were paying him for “work already done,” that had all of a sudden gained a market, not because it was good. Russ Brissenden’s “Ephemera” was a better piece of art, yet the critics tore it apart. It wasn’t “in style.”

I can relate to Martin Eden’s story, as I am sure many people can, in a much smaller scale than trying to go up the economic ladder. We have our own social classes within our own schools and communities. Many times a person wants to be a part of the “in-crowd” or join a particularly tight circle of friends. Sometimes when he gets those wishes, he finds that the relationship between these “friends” or the “in-crowd” of people is not all that it is cut out to be. He finds that the group of friends that we had grown up with provides a more meaningful relationship. Sometimes, going back to the old group of friends proves to be impossible as the ties that bound the old were broken for the new so that he is left in a lonely state. Just as Martin Eden was followed by his old self, our old selves follow us as well. Since the old is apart of the new, we can never leave it behind and separating the two will lead to a death of the heart.