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''Martin Eden'' is a 1909 novel by American author Jack London about a young proletarian autodidact struggling to become a writer. It was first serialized in the ''Pacific Monthly'' magazine from September 1908 to September 1909 and published in book form by Macmillan in September 1909. Eden represents writers' frustration with publishers by speculating that when he mails off a manuscript, a "cunning arrangement of cogs" immediately puts it in a new envelope and returns it automatically with a rejection slip. The central theme of Eden's developing artistic sensibilities places the novel in the tradition of the ''Künstlerroman'', in which is narrated the formation and development of an artist.〔Sam S. Baskett (1976) ''Martin Eden: Jack London's Poem of the Mind'', in ''Modern Fiction Studies'', 22 (1976), pp. 23–36〕〔James Burrill Angell (2006) (''Martin Eden and the Education of Henry Adams: The Advent of Existentialism in American Literature'' ), p.69〕〔Earle Labor, Jeanne Campbell Reesman (1994) ''Jack London'' p.76 quotation: "''Martin Eden'' is part of a literary tradition that includes such classics as Goethe's ''Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'', Melville's ''Pierre'', Somerset Maugham's ''Of Human Bondage'', DH Lawrence's ''Sons and Lovers'', and Thomas Wolfe's ''Look Homeward, Angel''.〕 Eden differs from London in that Eden rejects socialism, attacking it as "slave morality", and relies on a Nietzschean individualism. In a note to Upton Sinclair, London wrote, "One of my motifs, in this book, was an attack on individualism (in the person of the hero). I must have bungled, for not a single reviewer has discovered it." == Plot summary == Living in Oakland at the beginning of the 20th century, Martin Eden struggles to rise above his destitute, proletarian circumstances through an intense and passionate pursuit of self-education, hoping to achieve a place among the literary elite. His principal motivation is his love for Ruth Morse. Because Eden is a rough, uneducated sailor from a working-class background〔ch. 5, 7, 8〕 and the Morses are a bourgeois family, a union between them would be impossible unless and until he reached their level of wealth and refinement. Over a period of two years, Eden promises Ruth that success will come, but just before it does, Ruth loses her patience and rejects him in a letter, saying, "if only you had settled down ... and attempted to make something of yourself". By the time Eden attains the favour of the publishers and the bourgeoisie who had shunned him, he has already developed a grudge against them and become jaded by toil and unrequited love. Instead of enjoying his success, he retreats into a quiet indifference, interrupted only to rail mentally against the genteelness of bourgeois society or to donate his new wealth to working-class friends and family. He felt that people did not value him for himself or for his work but only for his fame. The novel ends with Eden's committing suicide by drowning, which contributed to what researcher Clarice Stasz calls the "biographical myth" that Jack London's own death was a suicide. London's oldest daughter Joan commented that in spite of its tragic ending, the book is often regarded as "a 'success' story ... which inspired not only a whole generation of young writers but other different fields who, without aid or encouragement, attained their objectives through great struggle". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Martin Eden」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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