摘要

    美国著名的无产阶级文学之父杰克·伦敦是一个著名的现实主义与自然主义作家。他于1909年完成出版了半自传体小说《马丁·伊登》，这是他最著名的作品之一。小说主要讲了主人公马丁·伊登是生活在社会底层的水手，爱上了资产阶级小姐露西，为了能让自己配上她，马丁排除万难丰富自己的知识，并努力成为作家。在他功成名就时，突然发现自己之前所向往的一切都是那么的虚伪可笑，马丁最终跳海身亡。
许多国内外的学者从不同角度对马丁·伊登进行了研究。而本文将对马丁·伊登的悲剧命运进行深入分析，主要从爱情的失败，美国梦的幻灭以及马丁精神的崩溃这三个方面来阐述马丁的悲剧。另外，本文还将联系社会因素和个人主义深入挖掘造成马丁·伊登悲剧的原因。

关键词  马丁·伊登，悲剧，原因

Abstract

As a significant realistic and naturalistic writer, Jack London is regarded as the father of American proletarian literature. In 1909, Jack London finished the novel Martin Eden, which was a semi-autobiography of himself. As one of his most famous novels, Martin Eden is about an uneducated sailor called Martin who lives at the bottom of the society but falls in love with an upper-class girl called Ruth.To pursue his pure love, he starts to pay much more attention to improve his ability in literature and tries to be a writer. However, when Martin becomes famous, he finally finds that what he is pursuing all the time should be so ridiculous and absurd. At last, he ends up in suicide.
 Many scholars both at home and abroad have been studying this novel from different angles. Based on the research I have collected, this thesis is going to study Martin Eden’s tragedy from the perspectives of love, American Dream and spirit. Also, this paper will analyze the underlying causes of Martin’s tragedy, which can be divided into social factors and individualism. 

Keywords  Martin Eden, tragedy, reasons

1  Introduction
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was a turning point for the social ideology in America. The American Dream developed along with the trend. Many American authors added American Ideals to their works as a theme or other idea, which made a connection between American literature and the American Dream. Moreover, most of their literature works showed us the disillusion of the American Dream. Jack London was one of those realistic writers.
As a famous realistic writer of that era, Jack London inherited and developed Mark Twain’s critical realistic idea. He was born in a peasant family in San Francisco and lived in poverty for a long time. So all of his works were filled with contradictions between upper class and working class. During his whole life, he created more than 160 novels and some scripts, essays and papers, which had a profound influence on American literature. Among these works, Martin Eden and a lot of other novels of him are classics in American literature. Philip said that Jack London was the spokesman of that age, who had made a connection between life and literature.