By Lechi Eke
In line with Jack London’s belief in Darwin’s theories, he tells a story in The Sea-Wolf of the transformation of a civilized man who through the processes of change becomes a simple man. It’s the story of what befalls an intellectual man, Humphrey van Weyden, who is a domesticated writer living a soft life. Weyden thinks he’s rescued after a shipwreck, but finds himself in captivity!
The story opens with Weyden on a weekend pleasure cruise returning to San Francisco from a leisure visit to his friend. Weyden suffers misfortune as his boat, a San Francisco ferry named Martinez, sinks after colliding with another boat because of a thick fog. Weyden is set adrift at Francisco Bay, and is eventually rescued.
His rescuer, which the book title, Sea-Wolf, purely describes, is a man aptly named Wolf Larsen. Larsen is the captain of a schooner named the Ghost, whose business is seal-hunting. He’s a terror to his sailors treating them brutally and cruelly, terrorizing them with his physical strength. Weyden describes him as a hedonist, an individualist, and a materialist.
Larsen is a man who cares not for the lives of other men. Although an intelligent and intellectual man, he’s biased in his beliefs that man’s soul is not immortal and denies that a man’s soul has any value. He despises all human lives and finds no meaning in his own life except for pleasure and survival. He enjoys facing death, and being in extreme dangers as these give him opportunities to test self.
When Larsen takes in Weyden into his ship, he forces him to be a cabin boy, giving him menial work to do; he also teaches him protection; how to fight for himself against a brutal crew. However, he clearly shows interest in Weyden whom he calls ‘Hump’ and takes care of him, because of Weyden’s intelligence, and his ability to have intellectual disputes with him.
London uses an attempted mutiny in the story to showcase Larsen’s raw physical strength and power of determination which is almost inhuman. This is a key event as several crew members rise up against Larsen. The key mutineers are men named Leach and Johnson. Larsen has at one time given Johnson merciless beating, and Leach he has punched severely while forcing him to become a boat-puller. These are the motivations for the two to rally others up for mutiny against their captain.
They first send Larsen overboard the ship, but he quickly climbs back! Larsen mad about what happened to him, searches for his assailants, going down into the sleeping quarters of the ship which is beneath the main deck. And there, one can only come out through a ladder. The mutineers, about seven men, attack Larsen; he demonstrating his inhuman endurance and almost supernatural strength, manages to fight his way through the crew, climbs the ladder with men hanging off him, and escapes unharmed!
Thereafter, Weyden gets a promotion as ‘mate’ because the original mate has been murdered.
Later, Larsen gets his vengeance. He tortures his crewmen, claiming continuously that he is going to murder Leach and Johnson when the time is right. That time being when the hunting season is over because he cannot afford to lose any crewmember at this time. Eventually, he gets his chance when they attempt to flee on a hunting boat; he later allows them to be lost at the sea!
Being also involved in sea piracy, the Ghost picks up another set of castaways (shipwreck survivors adrift at a sea). These include a young woman, a poet, named Maud Brewster. Brewster is twenty-seven, single and beautiful. Incidentally, she and Weyden knew each other before meeting on board the Ghost. They are both writers. Larsen and Weyden are attracted to her. She’s intelligent, and possesses a certain “female delicacy” and possesses the ability to look at people and tell their emotions.
Weyden falls in love with her seeing her as his first true love. Thus, he begins to make every effort to protect her from the crew and the horrors of the sea as well as from Wolf Larsen.
It is at this time that Larsen meets his brother, Death Larsen. He is a bitter opponent of his. The Ghost kidnaps many of Death’s crewmen and forces them into servitude filling the rank of her own crewmen lost previously during a storm.
Wolf Larsen who usually suffers intense headaches that almost immobilizes him suffers it again. This time, Weyden seizes the opportunity to steal a boat and flees with Brewster. They land on an uninhabited island that has lots and lots of seals. Settling there, they hunt and build shelter and a fire. These help the two of them to survive for days, using the strength they acquired on Larsen’s ship doing hard labour.
The story begins to wind down as the Ghost eventually crashes on the island with Larsen being the only crew member. His brother, Death, has tracked him, bribed his crewmen and destroyed his sails. He’s the one who sets Larsen adrift at sea. So chance brings Weyden and Maud Brewster together again with Wolf.
Weyden retrieves all the weapons, including firearms, from the Ghost and brings them to land on the island. Larsen threatens not Weyden and Maud Brewster, and Weyden cannot bring himself to murder him in revenge for all the evil he metered out to them.
Weyden and Brewster try to repair the Ghost, but Larsen who wants to die on the island with them in tow, sabotages every effort they make at repairs. Suddenly, he suffers another headache and is rendered blind. He feigns paralysis and attempts to murder Weyden when Weyden draws near him, but just then he suffers a massive stroke that leaves him blind with the right side of his body paralyzed. His condition deteriorates fast as he loses the use of his remaining arm, his leg, and his voice. Maud Brewster and Weyden finding it difficult to leave him to die piecemeal, decide to care for him. But notwithstanding their kindness, Larsen continues to resist them, setting fire to the bunk’s mattress above him.
Weyden finally manages to finish repairing the Ghost, and he sets sail with Maud Brewster taking Larsen with them. During a violent storm, Wolf Larsen dies. They give Larsen a sea burial, which Weyden once witnessed when he was initially rescued. The story ends with the two being rescued by an American revenue cutter.
In the story, Humphrey van Weyden starts with being weak in his body but strong in his mind. Finding himself in the situation of manual labour which the sea wolf has forced him into, Weyden begins to grow physically strong as the story progresses. He acquires knowledge of the ship’s workings which he previously didn’t care for as revealed at the beginning of the book (Chapter One) where he reflects on different specializations of men. He learns how to manage rivalry as presents with his relationship with the ship’s cook, Thomas Mugridge. He learns also endurance through the various hardships, including his inconsistent relationship with Larsen. Upon meeting Maud Brewster, he realizes just how much he has changed, gaining muscle mass, having a more rugged appearance, and a different outlook on life.
London also showcases Weyden’s transformation throughout the story as Larsen praises him on his growth. The sea wolf eventually tells Weyden that he’s proud of him, calling him a real man, who’s able to stand on his own legs rather than a “dead man’s (his father’s)” legs (because Humphrey van Weyden before the shipwreck lived on an inheritance from his father).
London introduces circumstantial change in humans early in the story when he portrays how fear of death can change a cultured man into a primitive uncouth fellow in these lines:
“These women, capable of the most sublime emotions, of the tenderest sympathies, were openmouthed and screaming. They wanted to live, they were helpless, like rats in a trap, and they screamed.”
The above shows that circumstances can change man or any living being from developed, refined, etc., to primordial.
Jack London also depicts the sea wolf as being a victim of determinism as he shows his weaknesses and depression in the man when he admits he’s envious of Maud and Humph’s faith because he has none, although he waves this away later. Larsen believes he hasn’t amounted to anything despite all his determination and will, as opportunities have never presented themselves to him. He also envies his brother.
The character of Wolf is a representation of capitalists and capitalism. London, who’s a socialist, believes, and is vocal about capitalists caring only about themselves with no qualms about destroying others for personal gain. Larsen has no qualms about injuring and killing his sailors unless it will harm his business of seal-hunting and thereby his profits.
Capitalism harms poor people, and London says this loud and clear, with the character representation of Wolf Larson.
Excerpt from The Sea-Wolf:
Chapter One
I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to toil incessantly. Had it not been my custom to run up to see him every Saturday afternoon and to stop over till Monday morning, this particular January Monday morning would not have found me afloat on San Francisco Bay.
Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the Martinez was a new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid exaltation with which I took up my position on the forward upper deck, directly beneath the pilothouse, and allowed the mystery of the fog to lay hold of my imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in the moist obscurity–yet not alone, for I was dimly conscious of the presence of the pilot and of what I took to be the captain in the glass house above my head.
I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labor which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and navigation in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of the sea. It was good that men should be specialists, I mused. The peculiar knowledge of the pilot and captain sufficed for many thousands of people who knew no more of the sea and navigation than I knew. On the other hand, instead of having to devote my energy to the learning of a multitude of things, I concentrated it upon a few particular things, such as, for instance, the analysis of Poe’s place in American literature–an essay of mine, by the way, in the current Atlantic. Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin, I had noticed with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the Atlantic, which was open at my very essay. And there it was again, the division of labor, the special knowledge of the pilot and captain which permitted the stout gentleman to read my special knowledge on Poe while they carried him safely from Sausalito to San Francisco.
A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental note of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought of calling “The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist.” “It’s nasty weather like this here that turns heads gray before their time,” he said with a nod toward the pilothouse…
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From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I could see the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity. The bell, which had seemed straight ahead, was now sounding from the side. Our own whistle was blowing hoarsely, and from time to time the sound of other whistles came to us from out of the fog.
“That’s a ferryboat of some sort,” the newcomer said, indicating a whistle off to the right. “And there! D’ye hear that? Blown by mouth. Some scow schooner, most likely. Better watch out, Mr. Schooner-man. Ah, I thought so. Now hell’s a-poppin’ for somebody!”
The unseen ferryboat was blowing blast after blast, and the mouth-blown horn was tooting in terror-stricken fashion.
“That’s a steam siren a-goin’ it over there to the left. And you hear that fellow with a frog in his throat–a steam schooner as near as I can judge, crawlin’ in from the Heads against the tide.”
A shrill little whistle, piping as if gone mad, came from directly ahead and from very near at hand. Gongs sounded on the Martinez. Our paddle wheels stopped, their pulsing beat died away, and then they started again. The shrill little whistle, like the chirping of a cricket amid the cries of great beasts, shot through the fog from more to the side and swiftly grew faint and fainter. I looked to my companion for enlightenment.
“One of them daredevil launches,” he said. “I almost wish we’d sunk him, the little rip! They’re the cause of more trouble. And what good are they? Any jackass gets aboard one and runs it from hell to breakfast, blowin’ his whistle to beat the band and tellin’ the rest of the world to look out for him because he’s comin’ and can’t look out for himself! Because he’s comin’! And you’ve got to look out too! Right of way! Common decency! They don’t know the meanin’ of it!”
Then everything happened, and with inconceivable rapidity. The fog seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a steamboat emerged, trailing fog wreaths on either side like seaweed on the snout of Leviathan. I could see the pilothouse and a white-bearded man leaning partly out of it on his elbows. He was clad in a blue uniform, and I remember noting how trim and quiet he was. His quietness, under the circumstances, was terrible. He accepted destiny, marched hand in hand with it, and cooly measured the stroke. As he leaned there, he ran a calm and speculative eye over us, as though to determine the precise point of the collision, and took no notice whatever when our pilot, white with rage, shouted, “Now you’ve done it!”
On looking back, I realize that the remark was too obvious to make rejoinder necessary.
“Grab hold of something and hang on,” the red-faced man said to me. All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the contagion of preternatural calm. “And listen to the women scream,” he said grimly–almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been through the experience before.
The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. We must have been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the strange steamboat having passed beyond my line of vision. The Martinez heeled over sharply, and there was a crashing and rending of timber. I was thrown flat on the wet deck, and before I could scramble to my feet I heard the scream of the women.
This it was, I am certain–the most indescribable of blood-curdling sounds–that threw me into a panic. I remembered the life-preservers stored in the cabin, but was met at the door and swept backward by a wild rush of men and women. What happened in the next few minutes I do not recollect, though I have a clear remembrance of pulling down life preservers from the overhead racks, while the red-faced man fastened them about the bodies of an hysterical group of women. This it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my nerves. It must have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man, for I have another picture which will never fade from my mind. The stout gentleman is stuffing the magazine into his overcoat pocket and looking on curiously. A tangled mass of women with drawn, white faces and open mouths is shrieking like a chorus of lost souls; and the red-faced man, his face now purplish with wrath, and with arms extended overhead as in the act of hurling thunderbolts, is shouting, “Shut up! Oh, shut up!”
I remember the scene impelled me to sudden laughter, and in the next instant I realized I was becoming hysterical myself, for these were women of my own kind, like my mother and sisters, with the fear of death upon them and unwilling to die. And I remember that the sounds they made reminded me of the squealing pigs under the knife of the butcher, and I was struck with horror at the vividness of the analogy. These women, capable of the most sublime emotions, of the tenderest sympathies, were openmouthed and screaming. They wanted to live, they were helpless, like rats in a trap, and they screamed.
The Martinez was sinking fast, for the water was very near. Numbers of the passengers were leaping overboard. Others, in the water, were clamoring to be taken aboard again. No one heeded them. A cry arose that we were sinking. I was seized by the consequent panic, and went over the side in a surge of bodies. How I went over I do not know, though I did know, and instantly, why those in the water were so desirous of getting back on the steamer. The water was cold–so cold that it was painful.
But it was the cold that was most distressing. I felt that I could survive but a few minutes. People were struggling and floundering in the water about me. I could hear them crying out to one another.
The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing chorus of screams in the distance and knew that the Martinez had gone down. Later–how much later I have no knowledge–I came to myself with a start of fear. I was alone. I could hear no calls or cries, only the sound of the waves, made weirdly hollow and reverberant by the fog. Whither was I drifting? And I could not swim a stroke. And I was alone, floating apparently in the midst of a gray primordial vastness. I confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the women had shrieked and beat the water with my numb hands.
How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness intervened, of which I remember no more than one remembers of troubled and painful sleep. When I aroused, it was as after centuries of time; and I saw, almost above me and emerging from the fog, the bow of a vessel and three triangular sails, each shrewdly lapping the other and filled with wind. Where the bow cut the water there was a great foaming and gurgling, and I seemed directly in its path. I tried to cry out but was too exhausted.
The stern of the vessel shot by, dropping as it did so into a hollow between the waves; and I caught a glimpse of a man standing at the wheel and of another man who seemed to be doing little else than smoke a cigar. I saw the smoke issuing from his lips as he slowly turned his head and glanced out over the water in my direction. It was a careless, unpremeditated glance, one of those haphazard things men do when they have no immediate call to do anything in particular, but act because they are alive and must do something.
But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel being swallowed up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the wheel and the head of the other man turning, slowly turning, as his gaze struck the water and casually lifted along it toward me. His face wore an absent expression, as of deep thought, and I became afraid that if his eyes did light upon me he would nevertheless not see me. But his eyes did light upon me and looked squarely into mine, and he did see me, for he sprang to the wheel, thrusting the other man aside, and whirled it round and round, hand over hand, at the same time shouting orders of some sort. The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent to its former course and leapt almost instantly from view into the fog.
I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness and tried with all the power of my will to fight above the suffocating blankness and darkness that was rising around me. A little later I heard the stroke of oars, growing nearer and nearer, and the calls of a man. When he was very near I heard him crying in vexed fashion, “Why in hell don’t you sing out?” This meant me, I thought, and then the blankness and darkness rose over me.