The Sea-Wolf

Jack London’s 1904 novel takes the reader on a turbulent journey across the high seas as part of a seal hunting expedition that forces Humphrey Van Weyden, a man of letters used to the finer things in life, to confront a brutal and unforgiving world as well as his own weakness. It explores the class divisions between its main characters, who are afforded very different lifestyles, and exposes their true place in the human hierarchy once society is reduced to its basic, primal elements. At the centre of the story is Wolf Larsen - an improbably-named and impossibly-strong antagonist - who acts as a catalyst for the personal transformation of Van Weyden from soft, comfortable intellectual to self-reliant Robinson Crusoe figure. It is the tension between these two contrasting characters that underlies a story set aboard the Ghost, an eighty-tonne schooner sailing for Japan, and that holds the reader’s interest until a somewhat anti-climactic ending.

Humphrey begins his hero’s journey aboard a ferry from San Francisco as a gentleman, who, at thirty-five years of age, knows little of life beyond the literary world he inhabits. He is blissfully unaware of the daily struggles experienced by men who provide him with the comfort to which he is accustomed. One of these men is Wolf Larsen, captain of the Ghost, who scoops Humphrey from the sea after the ferry he is travelling on is sunk. His saviour turns into his captor, however, and he soon finds that the delicate sensibilities of the gentleman are a detriment aboard what he later describes as a “hell-ship”. Shortly after rescuing Humphrey, the captain displays open contempt for him and men like him; men with soft hands who ‘stand on dead men’s legs’ – that is, who rely on others to provide for them. Larsen offers Humphrey the role of cabin-boy after the death of a sailor provides an opening in the crew, though, after he prevents the castaway’s escape on a passing vessel, it becomes clear that there is no choice but to serve the ship’s ruthless master.

Humphrey, now addressed derisively as ‘Hump’, is quickly humbled, and must adapt to his perilous surroundings and a rough crew comprised of sailors and seal hunters:

“The callousness of these men, to whom industrial organization gave control of the lives of other men, was appalling. I, who had lived out of the whirl of the world, had never dreamed that its work was carried on in such fashion.”

He gets off to a bad start, injuring himself after being thrown about the ship by a turbulent sea, though eventually manages to find his sea-legs and learns how to survive among the men as a lowly servant. We soon discover that his master and nemesis is no one-dimensional character but an intellectually-curious and well-read man as sharp as he is strong who enjoys discussing philosophy and literature as much as life-and-death battles upon, and against, the sea. He is brutal and capricious, physically unstoppable, and intellectually a match for Humphrey, whose idealist philosophy is challenged by Larsen’s worldview, forged by the brutality of his life experiences. Larsen is a lonely individualist, bitter at the privilege of lesser men granted opportunities in life they did not earn.

After an attempted mutiny and another death among the crew, Humphrey is promoted to mate, and, with little choice, he learns he is capable of more than the safe, bookish existence that now seems a lifetime away:

“…it lured me away and out of myself till I was no longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed away thirty-five years among books…This, too, I learned, and quickly, for I felt somehow a wild desire to vindicate myself in Wolf Larsen’s eyes, to prove my right to live in ways other than of the mind.”

This element of the story recalls the mythological path of the hero described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which begins with a separation, followed by initiation, and then return. Humphrey begins to earn the respect of the other men, and soon after meets a woman, Maud Brewster, who is also brought aboard after being stranded at sea. Maud is a famous writer known to Humphrey, and they soon become close. Larsen, too, has eyes for the young woman, however, and Humphrey becomes protective of his new love interest, sensing the probability of an assault that does, in fact, occur. The incident drives Humphrey to do what once seemed impossible – to escape the Ghost and the tyranny of Wolf Larsen.

The final third of the story largely follows Humphrey and Maud’s escape to a deserted island and details their growing bond as they learn to survive far from civilisation. I found this part of the story less interesting, with the anticipated showdown between the two men seemingly averted. Perhaps London felt the same, as Larsen soon washes up upon the shore of the couples’ idyllic island getaway and the stage seems set for Humphrey’s greatest challenge. But the monster is by now much diminished; blind and consumed by an obscure and unnamed medical condition, he poses little danger and wastes away into nothing. Humphrey’s final obstacle is not the Wolf, but his own inadequacy as a man, which he overcomes by repairing the Ghost and sailing it to safety. The change of narrative tack takes the wind out of the story’s sails in my opinion - I’d expected the ominous presence of ‘Death’ Larsen (Wolf’s apparently even more frightening brother and captain of a competing steamship, the Macedonia) to take the story in a different direction, and was disappointed that this element was not explored further.

The book is an enjoyable read, largely because of the fascinating and terrible presence of the almost super-human Wolf Larsen, though comes undone in its final act. Humphrey’s transformation from effete man of letters to capable sea-farer is compelling, demonstrating that part of becoming a man is confronting danger, overcoming adversity, and taking responsibility. The book’s success shows that the story of one man’s personal growth and attainment of mastery retains enduring appeal.