`Jack London` What life means to me

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Jack London 's What Life Means To Me

Jack London was born in the late 1876 , and he had written the essay , What Life Means To Me ' in the year 1905 , when he was still about 29 years old - a testimony that the man had indeed endured much in his life , but also gained not just knowledge but also wisdom , as could be seen in his work . At this point

, he had become the socialist who was more aware of the hierarchy and ills of society , opened to the reality of life in general which childhood naivety and innate ignorance of a man born of the working-class shrouded in optimistic illusions

To him there are two major social classes , these being the working-class , into which he was born , and the upper-class . The members of the working-class are of course the laborers , factory workers and such , or are , in short , poor . They were the men and women who made use primarily of their bodies in to make a living , whether it was honest work , or somewhat shady (i .e . for prostitution . He said that in this social strata , everything was crude and raw .[where] life offered nothing but sordidness and wretchedness , both of the flesh and the spirit (London 392 . On the one hand , the upper-class are the businessmen , the politicians , members of the academe , etc .people who made use more of their minds or brains in making profit , and did not deal with course work , entrusting the rough jobs to the working-class They are the sort who have soft , white hands encased in gloves , and men [who] wore black clothes and boiled shirts , and women [who] dressed in beautiful gowns (London 392 . However , as he became more acquainted with society , he found that there was more to the working-class : among them were also some people who could have been members of the upper society , like professors who got kicked out of their profession , or chose to become part of the working-class because the upper society ' did not appeal to their radical ideas or thinking The people then used to be highly conservative in their beliefs , and of course , the members of the upper society ' were content with their stable , rich lives , so much so that they chose not to entertain revolutionary thinking , or did not accept the change that it hinted upon . Revolution was a threat to their financial or status stability They did participate in intellectual discussions about politics and the like as Jack London mentioned , having dined with them at some point . But as he was soon to realize , they were not embodiments of his own pure ideals , and were against his own theories regarding the state of the poor . The women , for example , became excited and angry , and told him that they believed that the poor were to blame for their own misery , as they...