Tuesday/WednesdaySpirals & Glue Stick

1. Intro to Jack London C-Notes on lecture (guided)

3. Metaphor (review) Notes in Section 14. Extended Metaphor

Worksheet (do together-glue into section 2)5. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Chapter 1Guided Reading Worksheet (due end of class)

Take notes in Section 1Glue guided C-Notes paper on the page across from narration Sled Dogs of the Arctic Circle

== you will take notes on the PowerPoint lecture about Jack London.

Jack London“…first millionaire writer in history…”

Born John Griffith Chaney January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916.

American author, journalist, and social activist.

Family

Born in San Francisco, January 12, 1876Birth name—John Griffith ChaneyBiological father-William Chaney “left”; never met JackMother: Flora Wellman “cold and depressed”Step Father: John London (married his mother before he turned 1 years old)Raised by ex-slave “Aunt Jenny”

Education• Quit school at 13 (after 8th grade graduation) to help

support his mother• Loved to read & write as a child– to escape his life• Returned to high school at age 18 and graduated at age 19• Did homework in a bar (Last Change Saloon); owner

loaned him money for college • Studied all summer to pass college entrance exams• Attended UC-Berkeley for only 1 semester• Dropped out due to finances

Work -- Jobs• Started working part-time at age of 10• Began working full-time at age 13 in a fish canning

factory (cannery); worked 12-18 hours a day• worked at various hard labor jobs before he

turned 19 --•pirated for oysters •served on a fish patrol to capture poachers,

•sailed to Japan on a sealing ship

•Railway power plant

• joined Kelly's Army to protest working conditions

•Tramped / hoboed around the country

Klondike Gold Rush• In 1897, he joined the Klondike Gold Rush with his brother-in-law He had just turned 21 years old.

•Found no gold•Returned home because of illnesses- almost died

•While recovering stayed at wealthy doctor’s home; his sons attended East Coast Colleges which left a lasting impression on Jack London.

He concluded that his only hope of escaping the work "trap" was to get an education and "sell his brains". He saw his writing as a business, his ticket out of poverty, and, he hoped, a means of beating the wealthy at their own game.

Metaphorical Gold

• His time in the Yukon provided the metaphorical gold for his first stories, which he began publishing in the Overland Monthly in 1899.

• He wrote about all his adventures – all his jobs, travels, the harsh realities of nature, hardships of the ordinary man

Making Money as a Writer

• He was paid $5 for his first published novel, To the Man On Fire

• $40 for his first magazine short story

Printing technology enabled lower-cost production of magazines so there was a huge market for short stories.

• In 1900 he made $2500 writing short stories for magazines ($70,000 in today’s market)

The Call of the Wild• Jan. 26, 1903, the Saturday

Evening Post agreed to publish, The Call of the Wild – IF he would shorten it!

• They paid him 3 cents a word -- $750. He was 27 years old.

• The short story was so popular, Macmillan Publishing Company bought the book rights for $2000

• His stories were raw. They were harsh, in a time the literary establishment was used to much more restrained, refined kinds of works of fiction.

• His stories took the literary world by storm.

• They printed 10,000 copies initially of The Call of the Wild. It was sold out in hours.

Realism• Characters appear in real complexity in

relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past

• Class is important, usually middle class• Events will usually be plausible, or highly

possible– reality based.• Diction is natural everyday speech (words)

NaturalismFocused on the lives of ordinary people in realistic situations:• Contrasted with the romantic view of nature as a

maternal and healing force• View of nature and the universe as cold

indifferent forces• Individuals are victims of forces they cannot

control

Evidence of naturalism in The Call of the Wild

Literary naturalism is the belief that when humans return to their natural, primitive state in nature, they will regains their natural instincts and become wild.

How does this relate to Buck?

As we listen to/read The Call of the Wild notice --

• Jack London’s use of vivid language (imagery)• Also, --

– Adverbs– Adjectives– Unusual word order– Repetition– Long sentences

The Call of the Wild -- Allegory• An allegory tells two stories at once – one set in

the reality of the story and one with more symbolic significance

• On one level the story is simply about a dog answering the “call of the wild”

• On a deeper level, however, the novel may be voicing London’s opinion that man is inherently savage and, like Buck, must learn to survive by any means necessary

Publishing History• Published fifty books from 1900-1916• Only twenty-one are still in print.

1903

• London is much like the dog Buck in that he was a scrapper. He fought for what he knew was his right. He fought for what he felt was due him, he never settled for less and Buck is very much that way. Buck starting out in a sheltered environment and then being thrown suddenly, rudely, brutally into this environment where he has to fight for his very life. Fight for food, fight to survive every single day and he has to learn those laws. If he doesn't learn the laws, he's not going to survive.

Section 2

Take notes on Metaphor on the left side because you will glue Extended Metaphors onto the right page. --later

Title left page: Metaphor ReviewTitle right page: Extended Metaphor

MetaphorMetaphor is a term for a figure of speech. It does not use a word in its basic literal sense. Instead, it uses a word in a kind of comparison.We use metaphors to make indirect comparisons, but without using 'like' or 'as' – because that would be a simile.

“All the world is a stage.”

a metaphor uses words to make a picture in our mind.

It takes a word from its original literal context, and uses it in another.

• "I beat him with a stick" = literal meaning of 'beat'.

• "I beat him in an argument" = metaphorical meaning of 'beat'

Which is the metaphor?

1. Love is war.

2. Love is like war.

Extended Metaphor

An extended metaphor, also called conceit, is a metaphor that continues into the sentence(s) that follow. It is often developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work of literature.