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美国文学史作业（3）读海狼The Sea Wolf 指导教师：赵云梅（老师）班级：11级英语本科二班 姓名：殷老涛 学号:110350243 、A brief introduction to authorJohn Griffith Jack London（1876-1916） was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. He is best remembered as the author of White Fang and Call of the Wild, set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories To Build a Fire, An Odyssey of the North, and Love of Life.citation needed He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as The Pearls of Parlay and The Heathen, and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea WolfII、plot and main characterThe story starts with a soft, domesticated, intellectual character named Humphrey van Weyden onboard a San Francisco ferry, called Martinez, which collides with another ship in the fog and sinks. And eventually being picked up by Wolf Larsen and forced to become tough and self-reliant and know about cruelty and brutalities. Larsen is the captain of the seal-hunting ship called Ghost. Brutal and cynical, yet also highly intelligent, he rules over his ship and terrorizes the crew with the aid of his great physical strength. Being interested in someone capable of intellectual disputes, he somewhat takes care of Hump while forcing him to become a cabin boy, do menial work, and learn to fight to protect himself from a brutal crew. It is said that where there is oppression, there is resistance.One night, several sailors worked together to throw Larsen and his mate Johansen into the sea. His mate died while Larsen managed to climb back to rule over the ship again and try to avenge but failed at first. He later gets his vengeance. Following this, the Ghost picks up another set of castaways, including a woman poet named Maud Brewster. Both Wolf Larsen and Humphrey immediately feel attraction to her due to her intelligence. Humphrey sees her as his first true love. He strives to protect her from the crew, the horrors of the sea, and Wolf Larsen. As this happens, tension begins to rise between Wolf Larsen and his brother, Death Larsen, with the two aggressively competing for seals. During one of Larsens intense headaches, which render him near immobile, Humphrey steals a boat and flees with Maud. The two land on an uninhabited island and the Ghost eventually crashes on the island with Wolf Larsen the only crew member. In vengeance, Death Larsen had tracked his brother, bought his crew, destroyed his sails, and set Wolf adrift at sea. At that time Wolfs headaches only grow worse and generally blind. Finally Wolf dies on the island, and Humphrey finishes repairing the Ghost. He and Maud set sail. The story ends with them being rescued by an American revenue cutter.III、SummaryJack London was a prolific American novelist and short story writer, whose works deal romantically with the overwhelming power of nature and the struggle for survival. He was born on January 12, 1876 in California. His family was very poor, and Jack had to leave school to make money. He worked hard in many different jobs. Later, Jack returned to school. But he didnt stay long. In the year 1897, he went to Alaska to find gold. Instead of getting much gold, he found ideas for his books and stories. But Jack London was not a happy man. In poor health, he took his own life in 1916. He was then only forty years old. To further show his theme of survival, London chose to use strong, hardy characters. In the Sea Wolf, he shaped a power one Wolf and weak sailors and Humphrey used for comparison. All the men on the ship have their sad stories and take life as nothing and just want to destroy others because they want to survive. But Humphrey is the only gentlemen on the Ghost. He is weak of body but strong of mind and grows stronger as the story progresses. Wolf and Humphrey are intelligent. But they have different beliefs because of different social class. All these plots relate to the authors tough experiences to hunt seal and expose the cruelty of capitalism to express his sympathy to the miserable people. Maybe the author didnt success in the coherence of the plot to the novel, like how Larsen and Humphrey fall in love with Maud. The conflict between them was sudden; but the scenes description is wonderful. It focuses on the conflict between the different ideas about life and all the plots are about struggle for living. As Larsen does not believe in the immortality of the soul, he finds no meaning in his life saving survival and pleasure and ha