摘 要

《海狼》是美国著名作家杰克·伦敦创作的长篇小说，小说讲述了凡.卫登与幽灵号船长，绰号海狼的沃尔夫.拉森之间的故事。卫登在一场海难后被拉森救起并被胁迫呆在“幽灵”号海豹捕猎船上。卫登先生来自于上层社会，却被胁迫与一群来自社会底层的水手呆在一起，被要求做各种他之前从未接触过的辛苦工作，与此同时，他还要与残暴的船长拉森周旋，一段惊险的冒险故事由此展开。拉森是小说中极其重要的角色，他不但异常强壮，而且智力超群。本文主要研究拉森的内心世界和个人行为。这将有助于我们更好地理解他的人生观和价值观。他的言行将成为本文最重要的研究对象。本文试图从一些独特的角度来分析海狼拉尔森性格的心理活动，并且通过前面介绍的方法来分析拉森的人生观和价值观。为了实现上述目标，本文还将借鉴国内外学者的研究成果，更好地实现写作目的。最后，本文将揭示拉森的人生观和价值观的本质。

关键词：海狼； 沃尔夫.拉森； 人生观和价值观

Abstract

Sea Wolf is a novel written by famous American writer Jack London. The novel is about the story about Van Weyden and the Captain of the Ghost, Sea Wolf Larsen. Mr. Weyden was rescued by Larsen after a shipwreck and forced to stay in the hunting boat named “Ghost”. Mr. Weyden, in the upper class, was forced to live with a group of seafarers at the bottom of the society. He was forced to take on the hard work which he had never done before. While working hard, he had to deal with the cruel and strong Captain Larsen. From this, a thrilling adventure story is unfolding. Larsen is an important character of this novel. He is very strong and cruel, but at the same time, he is a learned and intelligent man. This paper mainly focuses on Larsen’s inner world and behavior. This will help us better understand his outlook on life and sense of worth. The words and behavior of him will become the most important and valuable research object of this paper. At the same time, combining Larsen's words and deeds with the protagonist Van Weyden's evaluation of him can make a more comprehensive analysis of Larsen's inner world. This article seeks to analyze the psychological activities of the character of the Sea Wolf Larsen through some unique angles. This article will analyze Larsen's outlook on life and sense of worth through the methods introduced before. In order to achieve the goals mentioned above, this paper will also draw on the research results of scholars at home and abroad, to better achieve the purpose of this writing. In the end, this paper will expose the truth that Larsen's outlook on life and sense of worth which full of idealism and the law of the jungle.

Key Words: Sea Wolf； Wolf Larsen ；Sense of Worth and Outlook on Life

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 3

3 The Sense of Worth 5

3.1 The value of life 5

3.2 The theories to judge right and wrong 6

4 The outlook on life 9

4.1 Purpose of life 9

4.2 The attitude to life 10

4.3 The Personal value 11

5 Conclusion 13

References 14

Acknowledgements 15

A Brief Analysis of the Sense of Worth and Outlook on Life of the Sea Wolf in Jack London's Full-length Novel The Sea Wolf

1 Introduction

Sea Wolf is a novel written by famous American writer Jack London. The novel is about the story about Van Weyden and the Captain of the Ghost, Sea Wolf Larsen. Mr. Weyden was rescued by Larsen after a shipwreck and forced to stay in the hunting boat named “Ghost”. Mr. Weyden, in the upper class, was forced to live with a group of seafarers at the bottom of the society. He was forced to take on the hard work which he had never done before. While working hard, he had to deal with the cruel and strong Captain Larsen. He gradually found out that Larsen was not only an ignorant person, but also a knowledgeable and intelligent man. At the end of the story, Larsen the Sea Wolf died painfully and Mr. Weyden not only became a brave man, but also found his true love. Thus, many stories reflect the social reality which unfolds on the stage of this ship. Violence and death are rife with the whole novel. The adventure stories are fascinating. The “Sea Wolf” in the novel is not only the code name of Captain Larsen. For the author, it is also synonymous with the strong. The author leads the reader to enter the bold and rough wilderness through the works, experience the ruthless life at sea and the darkness of human nature.

As the core figure of the whole novel, Sea Wolf Larsen was most carefully portrayed and defined by the author. The description of him in the text is even more than the author's description of the protagonist of the novel “Van Weyden”. In this novel, his image contrasts sharply with that of Mr. Weyden. Mr. Weyden is in the high society and never has to worry about his own survival. Larsen is at the bottom of the whole society, fighting against the dangerous society and nature all the time. He was born in a poor family and grew up at sea. The life of the sailor tells him the cruelty of the world, so he gradually realized that in the brutal world, people can survive and overcome others by their own strength. So he became a man who kept fighting and struggling. These experiences are also the reasons for his abnormal behavior in this novel. His unusual personality and behavior are very attractive for the reader and literary critic. This personality also made him a unique and attractive object in the history of marine literature. Even so, there is still an enormous space to explore the research field of Sea Wolf Larsen.

2 Literature Review

As the main character in Jack London's famous novel, “Sea Wolf” Larsen has been listed as a valuable object of many literary criticisms and research.

Ambroz Beers pointed out that the greatness of Sea Wolf lies in its successful portrayal of Wolf Larsen as a character. "If Wolf Larsen does not have a permanent literary history, it will at least remain in the memory of readers." Critics have different opinions on the image of Wolf Larsen. Most critics believe that he is a "superman" image created by Jack London under the influence of Nietzsche's philosophy. Cha C. Walcott and Robert H. Woodward holds different views. To them, Wolf Larsen is only a primitive savage with materialistic ideas. Abraham Rosberg and Joan D. Hedgek pointed out that in Wolf Larsen and Humphrey Van Wedden, London's self-contradiction and self-division were reflected. （Yi，2012：120）

All in all, the research on the character of the Sea Wolf Larsen is diversified. Most literary critics have different understandings and opinions about the character of the Sea Wolf Larsen.

Although past critics have analyzed the image of Wolf Larsen from different angles, few people have explored his outlook on life and sense of worth. The outlook on life and sense of worth is the important basis of studying one's inner world. Undoubtedly, exploring his outlook on life and sense of worth can help us better understand the image of Sea Wolf Larsen. The outlook of life and sense of worth of Sea Wolf Larsen can be summarized to a certain extent by Darwin's biological evolutionary theory. In his world, nothing is weak and has no value. The death of a weak person is a common thing, whether it is kind or viciousness, integrity or evil.Wolf Larsen has said:

I believe that life has no order, no meaning. It has movement,yes. It moves and may move for a minute, an hour. A year, or 100 years. The big creatures eat the little ones, so that they may continue to move. The strong ones eat the weak, so that they may keep their strength.（Jack London，1904：38）

From this passage we can see that in the mind of Captain Larsen, life has no value. Such remarks also echoed his actions in the book that despised the lives of others. Throughout the book, Sea Wolf Larsen turned a blind eye to the pain and danger of the surrounding people. Not only that, he also deliberately harmed others because of his evil taste. For example, when the tyro in crews， Harrison was in danger, Larsen not only did not consider rescue, but also prevented another crew member Johnson from assisting Harris. Of course, this is only a small part of abnormal behavior which Larsen did.

Wolves are animals which live on land, but in this novel, the wolf becomes the code name of Captain Larsen. It's all because Larsen has the temperament and characteristics of a wolf. He is cold-blooded, ruthless and intelligent, and these qualities are reflected in every chapter of the novel. He used his strong body to kill his crew without hesitation, pushing one life after another into a desperate situation, and enjoyed it. On the other hand, Larsen's room is full of books written by world-famous writers. His understanding of science and philosophical thinking is far beyond normal persons. He was able to combine the works of Spencer, a world-famous philosopher, to describe his personal outlook on life and sense of worth, and to discuss literary issues with Van Weyden who was a literary critic. He even invented a method of sailing, claiming that even a child could sail a boat with this method.

3 The Sense of Worth

The sense of worth is based on people's understanding and judgment on the basis of their thinking and senses, that is, people's thinking or orientation of identifying things and deciding whether they are right or wrong. It embodies the value and function of people and things. Captain Larsen's sense of worth can be seen as typical representative of self-centered sense of worth. Apart from himself and his own property, Larsen seems to be indifferent to anyone and everything around him.