Abstract“Martin Eden” by Jack London is often seen as a novel about the collapse of America Dream. American dream, for inpiduals, is mostly about ascending to success and prosperity. And it emphasizes more on achieving abundant material than on moral development. Many great works such as “Sister Carrie”, “The Great Gatsby”, “On the Road” and so on expressed criticism on the negligence of moral aspect in American  dream. Superficially, Martin Eden seems to be the same as his contemporaries who, in the economic boom then, acted on their strong desire for wealth. But this essay is going to proclaim that Martin is not a henchman of wealth and American dream, but a faithful follower of Beauty, a purely spiritual goal. And it is because of the disillusion of Martin Eden’s spiritual world that he chooses to suicide to end his life.   61357

    This essay consists of four parts. The first part is “Introduction”, which is mainly about the background information and literature review of this novel. The second part is construction of Beauty, which will trace the development of Martin’s sense of Beauty and explain Beauty in Martin’s eyes in different periods. The third parts is Martin’s devotion to Beauty, which talks about how Beauty weighs in Martin’s mind. The fourth part brings the essay to a conclusion.

Key Words: Martin Eden, Disillusion, Beauty, Love, Bourgeois. 

摘要如今大众普遍认为杰克•伦敦的著作《马丁•伊登》是个一关于美国梦破碎的小说。就个人来说，美国梦的含义一般都是通过个人努力走向美好富裕的生活。它的侧重点更多的都放在了物质财富上，而常常忽略精神层面的提升。许多伟大的文学作品如《嘉莉妹妹》，《了不起的盖茨比》，《在路上》便是以美国梦中精神层面内涵的缺失为批判对象而创作的。从表面看来马丁•伊登与那个黄金时代的的奋斗者一样，为着物质财富不懈努力.这篇文章认为马丁•伊登并不是一个物质财富的追随者，而是以为专注精神提升的修行者。本文将从一个新的角度解读， 阐述马丁伊登的自杀是由于自我追求的精神世界的破灭。

毕业论文关键词：马丁•伊登，破灭，美，爱，中产阶级

Contents

1.Introduction4 

2.The development of Martin’s idea of Beauty.6

  2.1.The construction of Beauty..6

    2.1.1.Beauty in Love6 

2.1.2.Beauty in Bourgeois class7

2.1.3.What is Beauty..9

  2.2.Reestablishing Beauty9 

    2.2.1.The contention at the Mr Morse’s Table..9

2.2.2.Love Against Beauty10

2.2.3.What is Beauty12

3.The devotion to Beauty and Martin’s suicide13

   3.1.Beauty outweighs love..14

   3.2.Responsibility of Beauty..14

4.Conclusion16

5.References.17

1.Introduction  

    Martin Eden is a 1909 novel by American author Jack London. It talks about Martin Eden, a former sailor from a working-class background, struggling to become a writer. 

    Studies on Martin Eden has been made mainly in three directions. The first direction is to analyze it in the sense of a autobiography, such as Yu Jianhua’s “Study on Jack London”, which centers about the comparison between Martin Eden and Jack London himself and defines this novel as a spiritual autobiography. And Jiao Jianping and Cui Yaping’s Transformation of Life and Death: On Similar Fates of Jack London and Martin Eden also made a comparison between Jack London and Martin Eden. The second direction is to regard it as a realist novel protesting against the society. This category always touches upon the topic of American dream. SS Baskett’s Jack London's "Splendid Dream" focus on Martin Eden’s dream to interpret his final suicide. And Wang Lin, Lu Fang and Li Simen’s  Analysis Martin’s Tragedy in Martin Eden also analyzed from the perspective of American dream. The third direction is to interpret Martin Eden the person from the perspective of art, philosophy, psychology, faith and so on. All of these papers invariably tried to explain the reason of Martin Eden’s suicide, which may throw some light upon Jack London’s mysterious suicide. Psychologically, Li Huaibo’s Who Am I—Martin Eden’s Self Searching and Alienation attempted to explain Martin’s suicide with the study of self alienation and concluded that it was alienation that leaded to martin’s suicide; Zhang Jianping and Ren Li’s Passion for Living,Desire for death—A Psychonalytical Analysis of Martin Eden employed Freud’s theory of psychonalitic in analyzing the death of Martin and held that it is thanatos, sadism, masochism, self separated and dispelled in Martin Eden’s mental though that result in his final self-destruction; Jiao Jianping’s The heroism Complex in Jack London’s Novel gave an explanation for Martin Eden’s tragic ending from the perspective of heroism. Donald E Pease ,in his Martin Eden and the Limits of Aesthetic Experience, understand Martin’s drowning in an aesthetic view. Shen Lifeng’s On the Ethical Predicament and Ethical choice in Martin Eden attribute Martin’s suicide to his falling in to an ethical predicament.