Jack London love of life that liked. Russian Literature Lesson "Jack London"

Jack London's story "The Love of Life" made a deep impression on me. From the first to the last line, you are in suspense, you follow the fate of the hero with bated breath. You worry and believe that he will survive.

At the beginning of the story, we have two comrades wandering around Alaska in search of gold. They are exhausted, hungry, moving with the last of their strength. It seems obvious that it is possible to survive in such difficult conditions if there is mutual support, mutual assistance. But Bill turns out to be a bad friend: he leaves a friend after he twisted his leg while crossing a rocky stream. When main character left alone among the deserted desert, with an injured leg, he was seized by despair. But he couldn't believe that Bill had finally abandoned him, because he would never have done that to Bill. He decided that Bill was waiting for him near the cache, where they hid together the pre-byte gold, food supplies, cartridges. And this hope helps him to go, overcoming a terrible pain in his leg, hunger, cold and fear of Loneliness.

But what was the disappointment of the hero when he saw that the cache was empty. Bill betrayed him a second time, taking all the supplies and dooming him to certain death. And then the man decided that he would come at all costs, that he would survive, despite Bill's betrayal. The hero gathers all his will and courage into a fist and fights for his life. He tries to catch partridges with his bare hands, eats the roots of plants, defends himself from hungry wolves and crawls, crawls, crawls when he can no longer walk, skinning his knees to blood. Along the way, he finds the body of Bill, who was killed by wolves. Betrayal did not help him to be saved. Nearby lies a bag-check with gold, which the greedy Bill did not throw until the last moment.

And the main character does not even think to take the gold. It doesn't matter to him now. A person understands that the most precious thing is life. material from the site

And his path becomes more and more difficult and dangerous. He has a companion - a hungry and sick wolf. An exciting duel begins between an exhausted and weakened man and a wolf. Each of them understands that they will only survive if they kill the other. Now a person is always on the alert, he is deprived of rest and sleep. The wolf guards him. As soon as a person falls asleep for a minute, he feels the teeth of a wolf on himself. But the hero emerges victorious from this test and eventually gets to the people.

I was very worried when I read how a man of the last strength was crawling towards the ship for several days. It seemed to me that people would not notice it. But everything ended well. The hero was saved.

I think that it was his courage, perseverance, great power will and love for life. This story helps to understand that even in the most dangerous situation one should not despair, but one must believe in the good, gather strength and fight for life.

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7th grade.

№ 57.

Date: 15.04.15

Subject: Jack London. " Love of life".

Target: the image of the strength of the human spirit, the infinity of possibilities in an extreme situation in the story of D. London "Love for life"

Tasks:
Learning tasks:

Development tasks:

Educational tasks:

Epigraph:
Dearer than life
in humans
only life.
B.Show

During the classes:

introduction teachers:
Guys! Before we start the lesson, let's repeat the rules of the lesson:

1. Raised hand rule.

2. Do not interrupt.

3. do not take offense at criticism.

4. be able to evaluate their work and the work of the group.

2. division into groups. 3 groups "gold", "sand", "food".

4. Compiling a cluster . Topics: "Love", "Life", "Aspirations"

5. Analysis of the epigraph. Dearer than life
in humans
only life.
B.Show

6.Problem issue. Exhibition of books "Robinson Crusoe", " Destiny of Man»,

poem by R. Rozhdestvensky. Listen.

it would be
inhumane...
How to find out,
what are you worth in life?
How to feel
what is risk?
Jump into the sea?
So don't drown!
Climb to the fire?
So you won't burn!
Plow the field?
Then I can...
Gunpowder to invent?
And for what?!.

Prisoners of their immortality.
They wouldn't do anything!
Never come out of the darkness...
Maybe the most important
stimulus of life

Today we have to reflect on the heroes of J. London. It will be necessary to find out: What are they? What drives them? What is the most precious thing in the world? What's happened real man?

Jack London himself was an eyewitness to many of the events described in his works.

7. Biography story : (accompanied by presentation)
Jack London (1876–1916), American writer
Born January 12, 1876 in San Francisco. At birth he was named John Cheney, but eight months later, when his mother married, he became John Griffith London. His stepfather was a farmer, later went bankrupt. The family was poor, and Jack could only finish elementary school.
The youth of London came at a time of economic depression and unemployment, the financial situation of the family became increasingly precarious. By the age of twenty-three, he changed many occupations: he worked in factories, in a laundry, was arrested for vagrancy and speaking at socialist rallies.
In 1896, the richest deposits of gold were discovered in Alaska, and everyone rushed there, hoping to get rich.
London also went there. He was a prospector in Alaska during the Gold Rush. But the young man stayed there for a year and returned as poor as he left. But this year changed his life: he began to write.
Starting with short stories, soon conquered the east coast literary market with stories of adventure in Alaska.
Jack London became famous when he published his northern stories in 1900, among them was the story "The Love of Life". Their actions are unfolding in Alaska.
In 1900, London published his first book, Son of the Wolf. For the next seventeen years, he published two and even three books a year.
London died at Glen Ellen, California on November 22, 1916.

- We see that nothing broke London, because he was, in my opinion, a real person.

8.Working with text : Today we must follow the fate of one of the heroes of the story

1 group : "Bill!" he shouted. It was a desperate plea from a man in distress, but Bill didn't turn his head. The man "looked around the circle of the universe in which he was left alone after Bill's departure." He overcame fear, followed in the footsteps of Bill, hoping that he was waiting for him at the cache of food and ammunition. “He should have thought so, otherwise there was no point in fighting further…”

Tasks:

Teacher: How do you rate Bill's behavior? Find words that describe his behavior.

- Bill is gone, but the main thing is that for the remaining hero, Bill becomes a goal, a movement forward, towards life, a hope for a meeting with Bill.(“... Bill didn’t leave him, he was waiting at the hiding place. He had to think so, otherwise there was no point in fighting further, all that remained was to lie on the ground and die”).

What is an emergency situation?
- (from lat. extremus "extreme") An extreme situation is an extremely tense, dangerous situation, requiring the highest rise in mental and physical strength from a person.

- The hero finds himself in a difficult situation.
What is the complexity of his position?
-Uncertainty;
- Pain (dislocation of the leg);
- Hunger
-Loneliness.
-These difficulties give rise to a feeling of fear, despair. What do you think is the worst thing for a person?
- Follow through the texthow our hero behaves when left alone:
(“Melancholy appeared in his eyes, like a wounded deer”, in his last cry “the desperate plea of ​​a man in trouble”, finally, a feeling of complete loneliness not only on earth, but throughout the universe.)

2 group : The man "also roared, ferociously like a wild beast, expressing the fear that is associated with life and is closely intertwined with its deepest roots."“Such is life, vain, coming soon. Only life makes you suffer... Death is peace. But why does he not want to die, he starts to gnaw on the bones.

Tasks:

Teacher:

Episode with matches. “He unpacked the bale and, first of all, counted how many matches he had ... When he did all this, he suddenly became afraid; he unfolded all three bundles and counted again. There were still sixty-seven matches.” (Struggle with fear).
Pain. “The ankle was in great pain ..., it swelled up, became almost as thick as the knee”, “the joints rusted, and it took a lot of willpower to bend or straighten each time”, “His leg became stiff, he began to limp even more, but this pain meant nothing compared to the pain in my stomach. The pain gnawed and gnawed at him…”. (Fighting the pain)
“In desperation, he sank down on the wet ground and wept. At first he wept quietly, then he began to sob loudly, awakening the merciless desert... and for a long time he wept without tears, shaking with sobs.” “He was possessed by only one desire - to eat! He went mad with hunger.” He dreams of feasts and dinner parties. (Fight against hunger).
But gradually the feeling of hunger weakens, but the person, "afraid to die", continues to move forward. ("Life in him did not want to die and drove him forward")

3 group : "And then the most cruel struggle that ever happens in life began: a sick man on all fours and a sick wolf hobbled after him - both of them, half-dead, trudged through the desert, lying in wait for each other."“Another five minutes, and the man crushed the wolf with all his weight. His hands did not have enough strength to strangle the wolf, but the man pressed his face against the wolf's neck ... "

Tasks:

Teacher: One test is replaced by another. He wants to find out who is stronger.

How are wolf and man shown?
- fangs squeezed his hand, the wolf wants to sink his teeth into prey;
-a man is waiting and clenching the wolf's jaw;
- the other hand grabs the wolf;
- the wolf is crushed under the person;
- the man clung to the wolf's neck, wool in his mouth.

- The man is trying to survive! Is it only a person?
- The beast too.
The author shows a man and a beast (wolf) in the struggle for life side by side: who wins?What does the wolf symbolize?
(Thisdeath symbol, which drags after life, by all indications a person must perish, die. Then she, death, will take him. But look, it’s not for nothing that death is given in the guise of a sick wolf: life is stronger than death.)

We see that the man and the wolf are sick, weak, but still the man wins. What helped man to win over animals? (Strength of mind).
- And what is the strength of the spirit?
(Strength of mind - inner fire which elevates a person to nobility, selfless and courageous deeds).

We see that the man turned out to be stronger. But why? Conclusion: thanks to the calculationfortitude , patience, endurance andlove for life man conquers fear.

9. Working with text according to the method of "Socratic readings"

Teacher: Are there moments in the text where a person reminds us of an animal? (Prove.)

Partridge hunting. “He threw a stone at them, but missed. Then, crawling, like a cat sneaking up on sparrows, he began to sneak up on them. His pants were torn on sharp stones, a bloody trail stretched from his knees, but he did not feel pain - hunger drowned it out. Not catching a single bird, he began to loudly mimic their cry.
Meeting with a fox, with a bear. “He met a black-brown fox with a partridge in his teeth. He screamed. His cry was terrible…” As we can see, the tragedy of the situation is growing, a person is changing before our eyes, becoming like a beast.

“He threw off his luggage and crawled on all fours into the reeds, crunching and munching like a ruminant animal. He was possessed by only one desire: to eat!
The episode with the bones : “Soon he was already squatting, holding the bone in his teeth and sucking out the last particles of life from it ... The sweet taste of meat, barely audible, elusive, like a memory, drove him furious. He clenched his teeth tighter and began to gnaw. The last particles of life leave not only from the gnawed bones, but also from a person. As if the thread that connected our hero with people is torn.

Teacher: And yet, what distinguishes a man from an animal? What episode, very important, helps us understand this?
(Episode with Bill).

10. compose a poster . Let's express our thoughts graphically.

11 . Compilation of syncuine:

Life. Patience. Target.

12. Reflection:

Teacher: Can the hero be considered a real person? What qualities are inherent in such people? Choose from the proposed 10 qualities and values, leave 3 that a person needs in all cases of life. (Health, love, wealth, friendship, kindness, care, perseverance, patience, courage, compassion). Comment.
13. Finishing work on the story "Love for Life", I would like you to listen to R. Rozhdestvensky's poem and determine:What is the relationship between a poem and a story? 4 . Reading a poem:

If only people lived forever
it would be
inhumane...
How to find out,
what are you worth in life?
How to feel
what is risk?
Jump into the sea?
So don't drown!
Climb to the fire?
So you won't burn!
Plow the field?
Then I can...
Gunpowder to invent?
And for what?!
Would enjoy lazy arrogance
Prisoners of their immortality.
They wouldn't do anything!
Never come out of the darkness...
Maybe the most important
stimulus of life

In the bitter truth that we are mortal.

Teacher: (In the poem and the story, the authors solve the issue of life and death, the stimulus of life is death, a person fights death in order to live, sometimes overcoming the impossible).

Teacher : Very often people in difficult moments turned to the work of J. London. Why?
What lessons can be learned from this work?

Conclusion.
"Love of Life" is a story about a courageous man who survived such terrible trials as loneliness, the betrayal of a friend and the struggle with the harsh northern nature. Most importantly, he overcame himself, his fear, his pain.

14. evaluation . Completing the Feelings Sheet.

Homework:

1. answer the quiz questions in writing.2. crossword.

Secondary School No. 22, Aktobe.

Subject : "Jack London. " Love of life"".

Class 7 "A".

Teacher: Kasimova M.S. (teacher of Russian language and literature).

2014-2015 academic year.

Literature lesson in the 6th grade on the topic: "Long way home" (based on Jack London's story "Love of Life")

The purpose of the lesson: depiction of the strength of the human spirit, the infinity of possibilities in an extreme situation in the story of D. London "Love for Life"

Learning tasks: learn to read, correctly understand the text through the analysis of the work; retell the text;

Development tasks: express impressions of the text, formulate questions on the text based on their own impressions, navigate in the text, answering questions, generalize observations;

Educational tasks: to educate a compassionate person, to infect with faith in the ability of a person to win in hopeless situations, in moments of mortal danger.

DURING THE CLASSES

1. We continue to work over D. London's story "Love for Life". And let's start with a poem by R. Rozhdestvensky. Listen.

If only people lived forever
it would be
inhumane...
How to find out,
what are you worth in life?
How to feel
what is risk?
Jump into the sea?
So don't drown!
Climb to the fire?
So you won't burn!
Plow the field?
Then I can...
Gunpowder to invent?
And for what?!.
Would enjoy lazy arrogance
Prisoners of their immortality.
They wouldn't do anything!
Never come out of the darkness...
Maybe the most important
stimulus of life
In the bitter truth that we are mortal.

What is the semantic connection between the poem and D. London's story "Love of Life"? (In the poem and the story, the authors solve the issue of life and death, the stimulus of life is death, a person struggles with death in order to live, overcoming the sometimes insurmountable).

Do you know works about strong and courageous people?

2. Today at the lesson we have to think about the people strong in spirit, reading the text of the story “Love for Life”, about long road home to life.

The genre of the work is a story. What features of the short story genre do you know? (The story shows an incident from a person’s life, a small number of heroes, this is a small work in size).

Who are the heroes? ( HE - unnamed characterBill ).

How do we find them in the story at the beginning of the journey?

(In an emergency,situation of extreme danger: For many days the heroes of the story have been on the road. They are verytired . The author confirms this with details in the text:“They are>tired and exhausted” : faces expressed “patient obedience”, “shoulders pulled back heavy bales”, “walked hunched over, bowing their heads low, not raising their eyes” , They say"indifferent" , voice"sounds dull" ) .

How is it easier to overcome difficulties, dangers: alone or in a group, with someone?

How do you rate Bill's behavior?

Is Bill gone forever from the story, or will we meet him again? (Forever, we will see only his bones).

But the main thing is that for the remaining hero, Bill becomes a goal, a movement forward, towards life, a hope for a meeting. (Quote:“Bill didn't leave him, he's waiting by the hiding place. He had to think so, otherwise it would make no sense to fight on - it only remained to lie down on the ground and die”).

And the man is fighting.

What is the complexity of his position?

Uncertainty.
Loneliness.
Pain (dislocation of the leg).
Hunger (gun without cartridges).

Human possibilities are limited. These difficulties give rise to a feeling of fear, despair.

Loneliness - an unpleasant feeling. Follow the text how our hero behaves when left alone: ​​“longing appeared in the eyes, like a wounded deer ", in his last cry "the desperate plea of ​​a man in distress ”, finally, the feeling of complete loneliness not only on earth, but throughout the universe.

Nature, surrounding the hero does not bode well for him."The picture was gloomy. Low hills closed the horizon in a monotonous wavy line. No trees, no bushes, no and you - nothing but a boundless and terrible desert, - and an expression of fear appeared in his eyes. What do you think is the purpose of using single-root wordsfear and scary? (To enhance the sad state of a person).

Recall episodes of the hero's journey. What does the hero have to overcome?

Episode with matches. “He unpacked the bale and, first of all, counted how many matches he had ... When he did all this, he suddenly became afraid; he unfolded all three bundles and counted again. There were still sixty-seven matches.” ( fight fear).

Pain. “ The ankle hurt a lot ..., it swelled up, it became almost as thick as the knee”, “the joints rusted, and it took a lot of willpower to bend or straighten each time”, “His leg became stiff, he began to limp even more, but this pain is nothing didn't mean compared to stomach pain. The pain gnawed and gnawed at him…” . (Fighting the pain)

An episode with a partridge, fishing, meeting with a deer, etc. “In desperation, he sank down on the wet ground and wept. At first he wept quietly, then he began to sob loudly, awakening the merciless desert... and for a long time he wept without tears, shaking with sobs.” “He was possessed by only one desire - to eat! He gone mad from hunger". He dreams of feasts and dinner parties. (Fight against hunger).

Meeting with a bear, wolf (struggle for life).

How does a person overcome uncertainty, loneliness, pain, hunger? What does he discover in the struggle for life?

He is helped by such qualities as:

prudence (episode with matches, in food, in the fight against the wolf, with gold, the way to the ship: “He sat down and thought about the most urgent matters ... ” ;

patience (in the fight against the wolf, against hunger);

reason (“ stomach is asleep ”, but our hero still continues to look for food for himself, what drives him? - mind: he must eat something in order not to die);

strength of mind (The strength of the spirit is an inner fire that elevates a person to nobility, selfless and courageous deeds.

“At times, the mind was confused, and he continued to wander on, like an automaton, ” “ He walked without understanding the time, both night and day, rested where he fell, and trudged forward when the life fading in him flared up and flared up brighter. He is more didn't fight like people fight. This very life in him did not want to perish and drove him forward. .)

“Before his eyes were only visions. His soul and body walked side by side and yet apart - the thread that connected them became so thin. . The body is weakened, then the spirit rises!

But he has gold. Does it help him?

Love of life.

Life and death go side by side. And a person, philosophizing, begins to realize the value of life: it is not in a bag of gold, not in food, but in something more. Looks at the gnawed bones of Bill and argues: “After all, such is life, vain and fleeting. Only life makes you suffer. It doesn't hurt to die. To die is to sleep. Death means the end, peace. Why then does he not want to die?”

“ He wanted to live, so“the man still ate marsh berries and minnows, drank boiling water and watched the sick wolf, not taking his eyes off him.”

So, thanks to calculation, fortitude, patience, endurance and love of life, a person overcomes fear.

The man is trying to survive!Is it only a person? - Beast too (wolf ).

Is there a moment in the text where a person reminds us of an animal?

Partridge hunting. “He threw a stone at them, but missed. Then, crawling, like a cat sneaking up on sparrows, he began to sneak up on them. His pants were torn on sharp stones, a bloody trail stretched from his knees, but he did not feel pain - hunger drowned it out. Not catching a single bird, he began to loudly mimic their cry.

Meeting with a fox, with a bear . “He met a black-brown fox with a partridge in his teeth. He screamed. His scream was terrible…” . As you can see, the tragedy of the situation is growing, a person is changing before our eyes, likened to a beast.

Find the words of the author that directly call a person an animal? “He dropped his load and crawled on all fours into the reeds, crunching and munching like a ruminant.” He was possessed by only one desire: to eat!

The episode with the bones : “Soon he was already squatting, holding the bone in his teeth and sucking out the last bits of life from it ... The sweet taste of meat, barely audible, elusive, like a memory, drove him furious. He clenched his teeth tighter and began to gnaw. . The last particles of life leave not only from the gnawed bones, but also from a person. As if the thread that connected our hero with people is torn.

And yet, what distinguishes a man from an animal? What episode, very important, helps us understand this? (Episode with Bill).

Exercise: look in the text for a fragment of the meeting with the remains of Bill. What are your opinions, opinions?

This is a symbol of death, which drags along after life, by all indications, a person must perish, die. Then she, death, will take him. But look, it's not for nothing that death is given in the guise of a sick wolf: life is stronger than death.

Exercise: retelling of the fragment “Victory of man over the wolf” (you can invite students to make a film fragment).

Read the text, find out the meaning of unknown words.

What is the title of this piece? (“Victory of life over death”).

The main idea is in the title.

Read the text carefully. Emphasize the author's details that characterize the wolf and the man in the fight. Review the text. How are the wolf and the man shown? Follow their activities.

a) Fangs squeezed his hand, the wolf wants to stick them into the prey.

b) The man is waiting and clenching the jaw of the beast.

d) His other hand grabs the wolf.

e) The wolf is crushed under the person.

f) The man clung to the wolf's neck, wool in his mouth.

Think about what type of speech (narration, reasoning, description) will be the main one in your story? (Narrative with elements of description).

Style: colloquial, bookish, artistic, journalistic, etc.

Reread and retell the text.

What helped man to win over animals? (Strength of mind).

What (who) gave strength to the spirit and flesh of man? (The target, the proximity of the target: first it was Bill, then the ship). “off deck noticed some strange creature on the shore. It crawled to the sea, barely moving on the sand ... Scientists could not understand what it was, and, as befits naturalists, got into a boat and swam to the shore. They saw a living creature, but it could hardly be called a man. It heard nothing, understood nothing, and writhed in the sand like a giant worm. It almost did not succeed in moving forward, but it did not retreat and, writhing and wriggling, advanced twenty paces an hour. As you can see, the author does not call this creature a man, he compares it with a worm that moves forward, writhing and wriggling. But there was not a trace left of that “patient humility” that we saw at the beginning of the story: let it be twenty paces an hour, let it be crawling, but man goes forward.

Was the person saved? Myself? (Myself). Only himself? (He was helped by Bill, chance, the wolf, even nature: “Indian summer was delayed”, nature bowed before the strength of the human spirit, people).

How did people react to the saved? (With kindness, understanding, we created good rehabilitation conditions).

Is it possible to say that the path of a person is the path to people, life, the path to home? (Yes, a house for a person is a symbol of happiness, peace, rest).

3. General questions :

Why do you think the story is called “Love of Life”? - The love of life helps the hero to survive.

Have you noticed that the hero has no name? Why? - This special technique is used by the author to show what a real person, every person, should be like. Therefore, he uses a contrast technique: the hero and Bill. (The author, if you notice, builds a lot on opposition: animal and man, life and death, nature and man.) Both heroes go through life, but their paths diverge. Our hero makes the way to himself, without losing himself, fortitude and love of life, and Bill lost himself while still alive, betraying his friend.

Conclusion. Loving life, let's remember that it involves both difficult and extreme situations. Then you need to be a worthy person, to survive.

Homework: share your impressions, thoughts about the story with parents. Ask what they know, have read or heard about similar situations. Talk about it in class. To the lesson extracurricular reading read the story of B. Polevoy “The Tale of a Real Man”.

Reference materials for the lesson

Annex 1

Circumstances

Human

Beast

loneliness

calculation

instinct

suspense

patience

pain

strength of mind

hunger

love of life

Strength of mind - an inner fire that elevates a person to nobility, selfless and courageous deeds.

“From time to time his mind was confused, and he continued to plod on like an automaton.

“He walked without understanding the time, both at night and during the day, he rested where he fell , and trudged forward as the life fading in him flared up and flared up brighter. He no longer fought the way people fight. This very life in him did not want to perish and drove him forward.

“… in some inexplicable way, the remnants of will helped him to get to the surface again.

“Before his eyes were only visions. His soul and body walked side by side and yet apart - the thread that connected them became so thin.

Love of life

“After all, such is life, vain and fleeting. Only life makes you suffer. It doesn't hurt to die. To die is to sleep. Death means the end, peace. Why then does he not want to die?”

“He knew he wouldn't crawl half a mile. And yet he wanted to live. It would be foolish to die after all that he had endured. Fate demanded too much from him. Even when he died, he did not submit to death. It may have been pure madness, but in the clutches of death he challenged and fought her.”

He wanted to live, so “the man still ate marsh berries and minnows, drank boiling water and watched the sick wolf, not taking his eyes off him”

Story "Love of life" was written by Jack London in 1905. In it, the author showed the strength of the human spirit, which does not retreat before anything on the path to life. Main character works - an unknown man (we do not know his name, occupation, or even age), wandering through the desert Canadian lands towards Hudson Bay. Abandoned by his friend Bill in the middle of the river, as soon as he twists his leg and turns into a burden, the man, exhausted by prolonged starvation, is left alone with the outside world - not yet hostile, but not much help in overcoming difficult road miles.

The main task of the hero is to reach the cache with cartridges, fishing tackle and a small supply of food in order to be able to go to the area with more food, which is complicated by the betrayal of a friend, a leg injury and physical exhaustion. Survival in the wild requires a person to realize all his internal (physiological and moral) forces, which form the basis of any personality and have little to do with the social status of their carrier.

The protagonist of "Love of Life" can be a bandit (thief, robber, murderer), and an ordinary adventurer. The only thing that connects him with the world of people is a bag of gold that weighs like all his luggage. The author does not talk about how it was obtained (righteously or not), but throughout the story he shows the internal struggle between the hero's desire for life and his unwillingness to enter this life as a beggar. The traveler tries several times to part with the gold, realizing that it is an additional obstacle on his path to life, but only a strong weakness makes him make this decision.

The first attempt to leave the bag is made by the hero as soon as he is alone: ​​counting the matches three times and placing them in three different places, the traveler already sees an incredible treasure in them, but does not yet understand this, and therefore drags heavy gold with him. The second attempt to part with the money takes place against the backdrop of severe hunger, bringing the hero to a semi-conscious state, when he decides to hide half of his treasures in a noticeable rock ledge. The third (final) attempt to throw off a life-threatening burden is carried out at the moment of the highest despair (the traveler sees the traces of a friend who betrayed him) and the complete dulling of any feelings except hunger (the hero eats alive the newly hatched partridge chicks, and then spends half a day in a fruitless pursuit of their knocked-out mother). At this stage of the journey, the man no longer regrets and does not hide (he does not have the strength to do this): he throws the gold on the ground and moves on.

The deserted land does not give the traveler the opportunity to ask for help from people, the lack of cartridges - to hunt, the lack of fishing tackle - to fish. Strong physical exhaustion deprives dexterity (the hero cannot catch not so mobile partridges), internal (the character is not able to fight the bear that came out to meet him) and external force(a weak person is not afraid of a fox carrying caught prey in his teeth, nor a sick wolf, for whom healthy man is mortal danger). The only way to get enough - marsh berries and bulbs of reeds - do not give even a hundredth of what a person needs to maintain strength. Hunger drives the hero crazy - puts into his head thoughts about a non-existent patron, deprives him of fear of violent death. The traveler sees food in every living being. The latter becomes for him the only way to maintain life in himself.

At first, the main character feeds himself with hopes - for new meeting with Bill, who is waiting for him at the cache of ammunition and provisions, on a trip to the Land of Small Sticks, from where you can get to an area abounding in tall trees and numerous living creatures. Then the traveler is left with nothing but the natural desire to be satisfied. Trying to solve the problem of hunger, the hero stops at nothing: day after day he eats plant foods that come his way, looks for frogs in the swamp, earthworms in the ground, spends a huge amount of time catching small minnows and eats alive everything that gets into his hands - fish, chicks, the remains of meat on the bones of a lamb gnawed by wolves, and even the bones themselves. The only thing a man does not dare to do is eat the remains of a friend, which he stumbles upon at the most tragic moment of his life.

A ship on the horizon and a sick wolf as a guardian companion become the last, decisive battle in the struggle for existence: the hero gathers his last strength, pretends to be dead and strangles the wolf, whose warm blood saturates him to such an extent that he may not even go, but at least crawl towards the ship. Having turned into a big fat worm (this is how scientists from the Bedford whaling ship see the character), a person, once in his natural habitat, cannot recover for a long time: he greedily absorbs food all the way to San Francisco, looks with hatred on how other people eat, and constantly begging the sailors for crackers to fill his berth with them.

The love of life is shown in the story through simple (gathering, hunting, saving strength, kindling a fire, bandaging legs, the inflexibility of the human spirit in the fight against hunger, cold and own weakness) and terrible (injuries, pain, sleeping in the rain, loss of orientation in space). , spending a huge amount of energy on the extraction of constantly elusive food, the absorption of living beings by a person) things. At the beginning of the work, the main character is a man who has a friend and gold; in the end - just a helpless worm, desperately fighting for his life, but still retaining the remnants of human dignity manifested in unwillingness to eat bones dead friend.

Review of Jack London's book "Love of Life", written as part of the "My Favorite Book" competition. Reviewer: Anastasia Khalyavina. .

He experienced an incomparable sensation that could not be called either mental or physical, or a mixture of the two; in that moment, leaving no room for anything else, he was consumed by the love of life.
Francis Scott Kay Fitzgerald The Beautiful and the Damned.

“Love of Life” is one of the works that turned my mind around. I started reading this story only because of the title, continued because of the fascinating plot, finished to understand all the meanings of the book, in which the author showed the strength of the human spirit, not retreating from anything on the way to life. It's incredible strong book mentally strong...

Jack London did not name either the name of the protagonist or the purpose of his journey. Therefore, I will henceforth refer to him as a "traveler". He probably did this on purpose so that readers would not focus on this. He wanted to show that the most important thing is not in this, but in the fact that the “stranger” was a strong and purposeful person, that his actions were guided by nothing more than “love of life”! It all started with the fact that Bill left his friend on the road due to the fact that he had sprained his leg and could not quickly and costlessly continue the journey for cartridges, food, gold. But the traveler loved life, and therefore did not stay and, albeit slowly, but went on alone! He loved life more than anything in the world, and the surest death in his case was starvation. And he stopped at nothing. He ate everything that came in his way, from berries, leaves and roots to the remnants of meat on a lamb gnawed by a wolf. The only thing the traveler did not dare to do was to eat the remains of a friend, which he stumbled upon at the most tragic moment of his life.

The book amazed me with its capacity. After all, Jack London was able to fit so many meanings in just some fourteen pages! The story opened before me one very important thought: “If a person is led by a “love of life”, then he can no longer be stopped by anything! And this is exactly the thought that turned my mind upside down. It suddenly seemed to me that the world could no longer be the way it was before reading. In the work, love for life is shown both through simple and complex, terrible things. At the beginning of the work, the traveler is a man who has a friend and gold; in the end - just a helpless creature, desperately fighting for his life, but still retaining the remnants of human dignity, manifested in the unwillingness to eat the bones of a dead friend, even in the most extreme case!

Dear Bookley Readers, Read This small work! Believe me, it takes much less time than it gives emotions and thoughts. Perhaps the story will turn your mind too, as it did with mine!

The review was written as part of the contest "".