ABSTRACT
This paper proposes that the label “immigrant” is not enough, as it is necessary to acknowledge one’s socioeconomic place to understand the meaning of immigration. To explore this idea, the paper analyzes different immigrant characters in Jack London’s novel Martin Eden (1907-1909) using a dialectic fusion of text and context, as Antonio Candido has proposed. The novel has a group of secondary characters who can be identified as immigrants and/or have their non-American identity underlined. This article argues that the immigration condition in the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century was influenced by intensifying class tensions, as well as by the political and philosophical disputes waged during the weakening of liberal ideology, result of the historical consolidation of monopoly capitalism.
Keywords
United States History; Immigration; American Literature; Jack London;
Martin Eden