Jack London love of life is the meaning of the work. Jack London "Love of Life": description, hero, analysis of the work

Composition-analysis on the topic: "Love of life" by Jack London

One of the main ideas of the story is that man is helpless and weak alone. Strength is given to him by camaraderie and friendship with his own kind. A person succeeds in surviving and remaining human, in preserving his mind and human appearance, when there is mutual assistance, mutual assistance of people.

The author also touches upon the theme of mercy, betrayal, the theme of human selfishness and loneliness. The hero of the story suffers from hunger and dangers among wild animals, is subject to visions, hallucinations - all alone he has no one to even talk to, because Comrade Bill left him, the patient. He lifts his spirit by preferring not to see betrayal and thinking: his comrade, of course, will wait for him at the hiding place.

In the end, the nameless prospector loses the power of speech for a while, sees nothing, hears nothing and does not understand how tortured he is and out of the habit of communicating with his own kind. “Their faces expressed patient humility,” the writer says about his characters - Bill and the nameless protagonist.

Even if Jack London did not indicate the place of events - where the main character wandered - it is easy to determine from the descriptions of nature. Deer and wolves run around the hero, white partridges flutter, and a brown bear roars. He eats marsh berries himself. There are no worms or frogs here - the ground is frozen, and this increases the suffering of the protagonist from hunger. All this takes place in the far north of the American continent, in the north of Canada adjacent to Alaska. In the finale, a nameless gold digger gets out to the Arctic Ocean, people save him. Descriptions of nature occupy a prominent place in London's story, but he gives them briefly and concisely, only in relation to some practical tasks of the hero, the events that happen to him.

Action predominates in the story, various verb forms are often found, while adjectives are much less common in comparison with verbs.

The hero is saved because the love of life does not allow him to lose heart and surrender to death just like that. It is amazing how much effort a sick person made to get stronger and live. He tried not to fall into the river from fatigue, kept track of where the reality was and where the hallucination was, and thus realized that the horse that seemed to him was actually a dangerous bear. The gold digger, when he just wanted to lie down, urged himself on, diligently remembered the map in order to navigate, did not disdain any food, even live chicks. Having lost his gun, knife, and hat, he did not forget to wind his watch! The idea that love of life, resilience and discipline helps to overcome the most difficult situations is also one of the important ideas of the story.

Year of writing: 1905

Genre of work: story

Main characters: Wanderer- main character.

Plot

Two travelers went to their hiding place, to Lake Titchinnicili. Crossing the river, one of them twisted his leg, but his friend Bill did not heed the cries for help, and simply disappeared. And the wanderer was weighed down by a great burden. The main jewel was a bag of golden sand. There was no sign of Bill, so he had to make his own way through the marshy plain. The shoes fell apart, and the leg was swollen. He cut the blanket and wrapped them around their legs. For several days he ate raw fish. But soon it began to snow and in the absence of the sun, a person stopped orienting himself. Having met a bear, he wanted to kill with a knife, but was afraid. I had to eat the bones left by the wolves. He left his pouch, so he wanted to survive. Then I saw Bill's remains. Having killed the sick wolf with his bare hands, the man fell asleep. The whaling ship rescued the exhausted wanderer.

Conclusion (my opinion)

The story shows how the inflexibility of the spirit helped a person to fight cold, hunger and weakness. He walked all the time with the hope of reaching the right place, did not let go of his hands. He also did not go over food, and ate everything he saw, except for the remains of his friend. And Bill didn't understand an important truth. On the road it is difficult to survive alone, sticking together can avoid difficulties.

The story "Love of Life" by Jack London, a summary of which we are considering today, is an incredible story. It shows the reader that a person is able to endure everything in order to live on. And this life given to us must be appreciated.

Betrayal

Two people are walking towards a big river. Their shoulders are pulled by heavy bales. Their faces express tired humility. One of the travelers ford the river. The second one stops at the water's edge. He feels like he twisted his leg. He needs help. In desperation, he calls his friend. But Bill, that's the name of our hero's comrade, doesn't turn around. As if not hearing the desperate cry of a friend, he wanders on. Here he is hiding behind a low hill, and the person is left alone.

They were heading to Lake Titchinnicili (translated from the language of the natives, this name meant "Land of small sticks"). Before that, the partners washed up several impressive bags of golden sand. The stream that flowed from the lake flowed into the River Dees, where the travelers had a cache of supplies. There were not only cartridges, but also small supplies of provisions. The little that should have helped to survive. Now our hero is carrying a gun without cartridges, a knife and some blankets.

She and Bill have a plan. They'd find a hiding place and head south to some trading post in Hudson's Bay.

With great difficulty he passed the hill behind which Bill had disappeared. But behind this hill he was not. The man suppressed his rising panic and clumsily moved on. No, he didn't get lost. He knows the way.

lonely traveler

The man tries not to think about Bill leaving him. He tries to convince himself that Bill is waiting for him in their shared hiding place. If this hope is extinguished, all that will be left for him is to lie down and die.

The hero of Jack London's story "Love of Life" continues to move on. He mentally goes over the path he and Bill will take to Hudson Bay. Along the way, the man eats watery berries that he meets on the way. He hasn't eaten in 2 days. And satiety - and even more.

At night, hitting his finger on a stone, he falls to the ground without strength. And here I decided to make a halt. He counted the remaining matches several times (there were exactly 67 of them) and hid them in the pockets of his clothes, which turned into tatters.

He slept like the dead. Woke up at dawn. The man gathered his supplies and stood in thought over the bag of golden sand. He weighed 15 pounds. At first he decided to leave it. But again eagerly grabbed. He can't throw gold.

Crazy Hunger

He's coming. But he was unbearably tormented by pain in his stomach and in his swollen leg. From this pain, he ceases to understand which way to go to the lake.

Suddenly he freezes - a flock of white partridges takes off in front of him. But he does not have a gun, and a knife can hardly kill a bird. He throws a stone at the birds, but misses. One of them takes off right in front of his nose. Several feathers remain in his hand. He looks with hatred after the birds.

By evening, the feeling of hunger causes more and more suffering. The hero of Jack London's story "Love of Life", a summary of which we are considering, is ready for anything. He is looking for frogs in the swamp, digs the ground in search of worms. But this living creature is not found so far in the north. And he knows about it. But no longer in control.

In a large puddle he sees a fish. Gets wet in dirty water up to the waist, but cannot reach it. Finally, having scooped up the entire puddle with a small bucket, he realizes that the fish has escaped through a small crevice in the stones.

Desperate, he sits on the ground and cries. His crying grows stronger every minute, turns into a sob.

Sleep brought no relief. The leg burns, as if on fire, the hunger does not let go. He feels cold and sick. Clothes have long turned into rags, moccasins are completely ruined. However, only one thought beats in the inflamed brain - there is! He doesn't think about the lake, he forgot about Bill. The man is going crazy with hunger.

Telling a summary of "Love of Life" by Jack London, it is difficult to convey the obsession that takes possession of the hero.

He eats berries and roots, looking for some small grass covered with snow.

Last wish is to live

Soon he finds a nest with newly hatched partridge chicks. He eats them alive without feeling full. Starts hunting a partridge and damages its wing. In the heat of chasing the poor bird, he finds human footprints. Probably Bill's footprints. But the partridge quickly eludes him, and he does not have the strength to return and see whose traces he still saw. The man remains on the ground.

In the morning, he spends half of the blanket on windings for his injured legs, and simply throws the other one away, because he does not have the strength to drag it along with him. He also pours golden sand onto the ground. It is no longer of value to him.

The man no longer feels hungry. He eats roots and small fish just because he understands that he must eat. His inflamed brain paints bizarre images before him.

Life or death?

Suddenly he sees a horse in front of him. But he understands that this is a mirage, he rubs his eyes from the thick fog that envelops them. The horse turns out to be a bear. The animal looks at him unfriendly. The man remembers that he has a knife, he is ready to throw himself at the beast... But suddenly fear seizes him. He is so weak, what if a bear attacks him? Now he is beginning to fear being eaten.

In the evening he finds deer bones gnawed by wolves. He tells himself that dying is not scary, just sleep is enough. But the thirst for life makes him greedily pounce on the bones. He breaks his teeth about them, begins to crush them with a stone. Gets on his fingers, but does not feel pain.

Path to the ship

Days of wandering turn into his days into delirium, shrouded in rain and snow. One morning he comes to his senses by some unfamiliar river. It meanders slowly into the glistening white sea on the horizon. At first, the hero of the book "Love of Life" by Jack London seems to be delirious again. But the vision does not disappear - there is a ship in the distance.

Suddenly, he hears a wheeze behind him. This is a sick wolf. He constantly sneezes and coughs, but follows a potential victim on the heels.

His consciousness clears up, he realizes that he has come to the Coppermine River, which flows into the Arctic Ocean. The hero of the story "Love of Life" by Jack London, the summary of which we are considering, no longer feels pain, only weakness. A huge weakness that does not allow him to rise. But he must get to the ship. The sick wolf follows him just as slowly.

The next day, the man and the wolf find human bones. It's probably Bill's bones. The man sees traces of wolf paws around. And a bag of gold. But he doesn't take it for himself. For several days he wanders to the ship, then falls to all fours and crawls. A trail of blood trails behind him. But he does not want to die, does not want to be eaten by a wolf. His mind is again clouded by hallucinations. But during one of the clarifications, he gathers his strength and strangles the wolf with the weight of his body. He eventually drinks his blood and falls asleep.

Crew members of the whaling ship Bedford soon find something crawling on dry land. They save him. But for a long time he, like a beggar, begged for crackers from the sailors, as if he was not fed during common meals. However, before arriving at the port of San Francisco, this stops. He fully recovered.

Conclusion

He fights for life with death - and wins this duel. His actions are amazing, but he is driven by instinct. The instinct of a hungry animal that does not want to die. Jack London's "Love of Life" pierces the reader's heart. Pity. Contempt. Admiration.

London Jack

Love of life

Jack London

LOVE OF LIFE

Limping, they went down to the river, and once the one in front staggered, stumbling in the middle of the stone placer. Both were tired and exhausted, and their faces expressed patient resignation - a trace of long hardships. Their shoulders were weighed down by heavy packs tied with straps. Each of them carried a gun. Both walked hunched over, bowing their heads low and not raising their eyes.

It would be nice to have at least two cartridges from those that are in our cache, - said one.

The second also entered the river after the first. They did not take off their shoes, although the water was cold as ice - so cold that their legs and even their toes were numb from the cold. In places, the water washed over his knees, and both of them staggered, losing their footing.

The second traveler slipped on a smooth boulder and almost fell, but kept on his feet, crying out loudly in pain. He must have felt dizzy.” He staggered and waved his free hand as if he were grasping for air. When he had regained his composure, he took a step forward, but staggered again and almost fell. Then he stopped and looked at his companion: he was still walking ahead, not even looking back.

For a full minute he stood motionless, as if thinking, then he shouted:

Listen, Bill, I sprained my leg!

Bill had already climbed to the other side and trudged on. The one who stood in the middle of the river did not take his eyes off him. His lips trembled so violently that the stiff red mustache above them moved. He licked dry lips with the tip of his tongue.

Bill! he shouted.

It was a desperate plea from a man in distress, but Bill didn't turn his head. His comrade watched for a long time as he clumsily, limping and stumbling, climbed the gentle slope to the undulating horizon line formed by the crest of a low hill. He followed until Bill was out of sight, over the ridge. Then he turned away and slowly looked around at the circle of the universe in which he was left alone after the departure of Bill.

Above the very horizon, the sun shone dimly, barely visible through the darkness and thick fog, which lay in a dense veil, without visible boundaries and outlines. Leaning on one leg with all his weight, the traveler took out his watch. It was already four. For the last two weeks he has lost count; since it was the end of July and the beginning of August, he knew that the sun must be in the northwest. He looked to the south, realizing that somewhere beyond those gloomy hills lay the Great Bear Lake, and that in the same direction the terrible path of the Arctic Circle ran across the Canadian plain. The stream in the midst of which he stood was a tributary of the Coppermine, and the Coppermine also flows north and empties into Coronation Bay, into the Arctic Ocean. He himself had never been there, but he had seen these places on a map of the Hudson's Bay Company.

He looked again at that circle of the universe, in which he was now alone. The picture was unhappy. Low hills closed the horizon in a monotonous wavy line. No trees, no bushes, no grass, nothing but a boundless and terrible desert, - and an expression of fear appeared in his eyes.

Bill! - he whispered and repeated again: - Bill!

He squatted down in the middle of a muddy stream, as if the boundless desert overwhelmed him with its invincible strength, oppressed him with its terrible calmness. He trembled as if in a fever, and his gun splashed into the water. This made him come to his senses. He overcame his fear, gathered his courage and, dipping his hand into the water, groped for a gun, then moved the bale closer to his left shoulder so that the weight would put less pressure on his injured leg, and slowly and carefully walked towards the shore, wincing in pain.

He walked without stopping. Ignoring the pain, with desperate determination, he hurriedly climbed to the top of the hill, behind the crest of which Bill disappeared - and he himself seemed even more ridiculous and awkward than the lame, barely hobbled Bill. But from the ridge he saw that there was no one in the shallow valley! Fear attacked him again, and, again overcoming it, he moved the bale even further to his left shoulder and, limping, began to go down.

The bottom of the valley was swampy, the water soaked the thick moss like a sponge. At every step, she splashed from under her feet, and the sole with a squelch came off the wet moss. Trying to follow in the footsteps of Bill, the traveler moved from lake to lake, over stones sticking out in the moss like islands.

Left alone, he did not go astray. He knew that a little more - and he would come to the place where dry firs and firs, low and stunted, surround the small lake Titchinnicili, which in the local language means: "Land of Little Sticks." A stream flows into the lake, and the water in it is not muddy. Reeds grow along the banks of the stream - he remembered this well - but there are no trees there, and he will go up the stream to the very watershed. From the watershed another stream begins, flowing to the west; he will go down it to the river Dees and there he will find his hiding place under an overturned canoe, littered with stones. The cache contains cartridges, hooks and fishing lines for fishing rods and a small net - everything you need in order to get your own food. And there is also flour - though a little, and a piece of brisket, and beans.

Bill will wait for him there, and the two of them will go down the Deese to the Great Bear Lake, and then they will cross the lake and go south, all south, and the winter will catch up with them, and the rapids in the river will freeze over, and the days will become colder, - south, to some Hudson's Bay trading post, where tall, powerful trees grow and where you can eat as much as you want.

That's what the traveler was thinking with difficulty making his way forward. But hard as it was for him to walk, it was even more difficult to convince himself that Bill had not abandoned him, that Bill, of course, was waiting for him at the hiding place. He had to think so, otherwise it would make no sense to fight on - all that remained was to lie down on the ground and die. And as the dim disk of the sun slowly hid in the northwest, he had time to calculate - and more than once - every step of the path that he and Bill would have to take, moving south from the coming winter. He went over and over in his mind the stock of food in his hiding place and the stock in the warehouse of the Hudson's Bay Company. He had not eaten anything for two days, but he did not eat his fill for even longer. Every now and then he bent down, picked the pale marsh berries, put them in his mouth, chewed them and swallowed them. The berries were watery and quickly melted in the mouth, leaving only the bitter hard seed. He knew that one would not get enough of them, but nevertheless he chewed patiently, because hope does not want to reckon with experience.

History of the creation of the story

The story "Love of Life" was written by the American writer Jack London in 1905, published in a collection of stories about the adventures of gold diggers in 1907. It seems possible that the story has a share of autobiography, at least it has a real basis, since the writer gained considerable life and writing experience, sailing as a sailor on schooners and taking part in the conquest of the North during the days of the "gold rush". Life provided him with a lot of impressions, which he expressed in his works.

Adds true reality and the geographical detail with which the author depicts the path of his hero - from the Great Bear Lake to the mouth of the Coppermine River, which flows into the Arctic Ocean.

Plot, characters, story idea

The end of the 19th century was marked by a whole chain of "gold rushes" - people in search of gold massively explored California, Klondike, Alaska. A typical picture is also presented in the story "Love for Life". Two friends traveling in search of gold (and having obtained a decent amount) did not calculate their strength for the return trip. There are no provisions, no cartridges, no elementary mental and physical resources - all actions are performed automatically, as if in a fog. The hero, crossing the stream, stumbles and injures his leg. A comrade named Bill, without the slightest thought, leaves him and leaves without even turning around.

The main character is left to fight. He cannot get animal food, the fish escapes from a small lake, despite the fact that he manually scoops out all the water from the reservoir. Gold had to be abandoned due to its weight. Bill's fate turned out to be sad - the nameless hero came across a bunch of pink bones, tattered clothes and a bag of gold.

The culmination of the story is an encounter with a wolf, too sick and weak to attack a man, but clearly hoping to feast on the corpse of a man when he dies of exhaustion and exhaustion. The hero and the wolf guard each other, because he is on an equal footing and in each of them speaks the instinct of survival - the blind and strongest love of life in the world.

The protagonist pretends to be dead, waiting for the wolf to attack, and when he attacks, the man does not even strangle him - he crushes him with his weight and gnaws the wolf's neck.

Near the sea, the crew of a whaler notices a ridiculous swarming creature on the shore, crawling to the water's edge. The hero is accepted on the ship and soon they notice his strangeness - he does not eat the bread served for dinner, but hides it under the mattress. Such insanity developed because of the long, insatiable hunger that he had to experience. However, it soon passed.

The story is built on the opposition first of Bill and the nameless hero, then - the nameless hero and the wolf. Moreover, Bill loses in this comparison, since he is compared taking into account moral criteria and is defeated, and the wolf remains on an equal footing with the hero, since nature does not know pity, like a man brought to the last line.

The main idea of ​​the story is the idea that the struggle of man with nature for the right to exist is merciless, despite the fact that man is also armed with reason. In critical situations, we are guided by instinct or love of life, and practice shows that the strongest survive. Nature does not know pity and indulgence for the weak, equalizing the rights of predators and herbivores. From the point of view of natural survival, Bill considered himself right in getting rid of the ballast in the form of an injured friend. But it is more important to remain human to the end.

Having stumbled upon the remains of his dead comrade in the tundra, he does not gloat and takes his gold for himself. He does not rush to the remains out of hunger (although the day before we see how he ate live chicks), and this becomes the last, extreme manifestation of human dignity.