Jack London’s North Stories

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Contents

Introduction

I. The image of man and nature in “North Stories” of Jack London

1.1. The biography of Jack London

1.2. Jack London's North Stories

1.3. The image of man and nature in North Stories

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The actuality of the course work

There is no question Jack London influenced the times he lived in and continues to impact this age. His life was marked by magnificence that few people know or could ever match in their lifetimes, and he only lived to the age of forty. He traveled the world by dog sled, train, foot, boat, car, and horse. Wanderlust to the core, he used novels, short stories, articles, and manifestos to bring unimaginable adventures to readers all over the world. He created a persona and characters who people came to speculate were autobiographical sketches of the man he actually was.

The aim of the course work

The course work focuses on a specific extension of the concept white silence and how a man and nature are described skilfully in the “Northern stories” by Jack London. The concept white silence is one of the most interesting concepts not only in the literary works of J. London, but also in American culture. Applying the statements of the concept layer's structure, we discover that the figurative layer of the concept white silence consists of the ten conceptual features as `territorial area', `ice', `cold', `snow', `frost', `silence', `mental illnesses', `famine', `pain', `physical death'. It also includes three micro concepts LANDSCAPE, NOTHERN NATURE, NORTHERN LIFE CONDITIONS. The most vivid means such as epithet, metaphor, intensification and personification in the “Northern stories” are used.

The practical value of the course work

Literary space, as well as time, is the organizational centre of the main plot events in the J. London's works. The study of the spatial image allows researchers to determine the functions of the dominant spatial reference points in the text. Indeed, the opposition of nature, man and civilization is the main theme of J. London's works. The human, his problems, the ways of how he survived in a new environment, the transformation of his worldview are the central objects in "Northern stories". Through this struggle J. London was able to literary reflect the topical issues of contemporary reality, focusing on the collision of two different races and cultures.

The structure of the course work

The present study is based mainly on the theory that concept has the multicomponent structure. It seems clear to many researchers that concept has a layer structure, the most common layers are etymological, conceptual, figurative-evaluate, and emotional-evaluative (for example, Karasik, Slyshkin 2001, Maslova 2004, and Stepanov 2007). I analysed the texts of the "Northern stories collections" ("The Son of the Wolf", "The God of His Father", "Children of the Frost", "Lost Face") by Jack London. The literary works I study are written in the genre of romantic realism. The texts are in the public domain and were retrieved from Project Gutenberg website. The following course takes this shape.

I.The image of man and nature in “North Stories” of Jack London

1.1 The biography of Jack London

Jack London was a 19th century American author and journalist, best known for the adventure novels 'White Fang' and 'The Call of the Wild.' An extremist, radical and searcher, Jack London was never destined to grow old. On November 22, 1916, London, author of The Call of the Wild, died at age 40. His short life was controversial and contradictory.

Born in 1876, the year of Little Bighorn and Custer's Last Stand, the prolific writer would die in the year John T. Thompson invented the submachine gun. London's life embodied the frenzied modernization of America between the Civil War and World War I. With his thirst for adventure, his rags-to-riches success story, and his progressive political ideas, London's stories mirrored the passing of the American frontier and the nation's transformation into an urban-industrial global power. 

With a keen eye and an innate sense, London recognized that the country's growing readership was ready for a different kind of writing. The style needed to be direct and robust and vivid. And he had the ace setting of the “Last Frontier” in Alaska and the Klondike--a strong draw for American readers, who were prone to creative nostalgia. Notably, London's stories endorsed reciprocation, cooperation, adaptability and grit.

In his fictional universe, lone wolves die and abusive alpha males never win out in the end.

The 1,400-acre Jack London State Historic Park lies in the heart of Sonoma Valley wine country, some 60 miles north of San Francisco in Glen Ellen, California. Originally, the land was the site of Jack London's Beauty Ranch, where the author earnestly pursued his interests in scientific farming and animal husbandry.

“I ride out of my beautiful ranch,” London wrote. “Between my legs is a beautiful horse. The air is wine. The grapes on a score of rolling hills are red with autumn flame. Across Sonoma Mountain wisps of sea fog are stealing. The afternoon sun smoulders in the drowsy sky. I have everything to make me glad I am alive.”

The park's varied bucolic landscape still exudes this same captivating vibe. The grounds offer 29 miles of trails, redwood groves, meadowlands, wine vineyards, stunning scenery, a museum, London's restored cottage, ranch exhibits and the austere ruins of the writer's Wolf House. An idyllic bounty of pristine northern California scenery is on full display. For a traveller in search of a distinctly pastoral escape fortified with a rustic dose of California cultural history, Jack London State Historic Park is pay-dirt. (It also doesn't hurt that the park is surrounded by a myriad of the world's premier wineries.)

Who Was Jack London?

After working in the Klondike, Jack London returned home and began publishing stories Auerbach, Jonathan. Male Call: Becoming Jack London. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996.. His novels, including The Call of the Wild, White Fang and Martin Eden, placed London among the most popular American authors of his time. London, who was also a journalist and an outspoken socialist, died in 1916.

Early Years

John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was born on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco, California. Jack, as he came to call himself as a boy, was the son of Flora Wellman, an unwed mother, and William Chaney, an attorney, journalist and pioneering leader in the new field of American astrology.

His father was never part of his life, and his mother ended up marrying John London, a Civil War veteran, who moved his new family around the Bay Area before settling in Oakland.

London grew up working-class. He carved out his own hardscrabble life as a teen. He rode trains, pirated oysters, shoveled coal, worked on a sealing ship on the Pacific and found employment in a cannery. In his free time, he hunkered down at libraries, soaking up novels and travel books.

The Young Writer

His life as a writer essentially began in 1893. That year he had weathered a harrowing sealing voyage, one in which a typhoon had nearly taken out London and his crew. The 17-year-old adventurer had made it home and regaled his mother with his tales of what had happened to him. When she saw an announcement in one of the local papers for a writing contest, she pushed her son to write down and submit his story. London grew up on the grungier streets of San Francisco and Oakland in a working class household. His mother was a spiritualist, who eked out a living conducting séances and teaching music. His stepfather was a disabled Civil War veteran who scraped by, working variously as a farmer, a grocer and a night watchman. (London's probable biological father, a traveling astrologer, had abruptly exited the scene prior to the future author's arrival.)

As a child, London laboured as a farm hand, hawked newspapers, delivered ice and set up pins in a bowling alley. By the age of 14, he was making ten cents an hour as a factory worker at Hickmott's Cannery. The scrimping and tedium of the “work-beast” life proved stifling for a tough, but imaginative kid, who had discovered the treasure trove of books in the Oakland Free Library.

Works by Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson and Washington Irving fortified him for the dangerous delights of the Oakland waterfront, where he ventured at the age of 15.

Using his small sailboat, the Razzle-Dazzle, to poach oysters and sell them to local restaurants and saloons, he could make more money in a one night than he could working a full month at the cannery. Here on the seedy waterfront among an underworld of vagabonds and delinquents, he quickly fell in with a roguish crew of hard drinking sailors and wastrels. His fellow ne'er-do-wells tagged him as “The Prince of the Oyster Pirates,” and he declared that it was better “to reign among booze fighters, a prince than to toil twelve hours a day at a machine for ten cents an hour.”

The pilfering, debauchery and comradeship were totally exhilarating--at least for a while. But London wanted to see more of the world.

So he shipped out on a seal hunting expedition aboard the schooner Sophia Sutherland and voyaged across the Pacific to Japan and the Bonin Islands. He returned to San Francisco, worked in a jute mill, as a coal heaver, then took off to ride the rails and hobo across America and served time for vagrancy. All before the age of 20.

“I had been born in the working-class,” he recalled, “and I was now, at the age of eighteen, beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in the cellar of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery . . . I was in the pit, the abyss, the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel house of our civilization. . . . I was scared into thinking.” He resolved to stop depending on his brawn, get an education, and become a “brain merchant.”

Back in California, London enrolled in high school and joined the Socialist Labour Party. By 1896, he had entered the University of California at Berkeley, where he lasted one semester before his money ran out. He then took a lacklustre crack at the writing game for a few months, but bolted to the Klondike when he got the chance to join the Gold Rush in July of 1897. He spent 11 months soaking in the sublime vibe of the Northland and its unique cast of prospectors and wayfarers.

The frozen wilds provided the foreboding landscape that ignited his creative energies. “It was in the Klondike,” London said, “that I found myself. There nobody talks. Everybody thinks. There you get your perspective. I got mine.” 

By 1899, he had honed his craft and major magazines began snapping up his vigorous stories. When it came to evoking elemental sensations, he was a literary maven. If you want to know what it feels like to freeze to death, read his short story, “To Build a Fire.” If you want to know what it feels like for a factory worker to devolve into a machine, read “The Apostate.” If you want to know what it feels like to have the raw ecstasy of life surging through your body, read The Call of the Wild. And if want to know what it feels like to live free or die, read “Koolau the Leper.”

The publication of his early Klondike stories granted him a secure middle class life Cassuto, Leonard, and Jeanne Campbell Reesman, eds. Rereading Jack London. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996.. In 1900, he married his former math tutor, Bess Maddern, and they had two daughters. The appearance of The Call of the Wild in 1903 made the 27-year-old author a huge celebrity. Magazines and newspapers frequently published photographs showcasing his rugged good looks that exuded an air of youthful vitality. His travels, political activism and personal exploits made ample fodder for political reporters and gossip columnists.

London was suddenly an icon of masculinity and a leading public intellectual. Still, writing remained the dominant activity of his life. Novelist E. L. Doctorow aptly described him as “a great gobbler-up of the world, physically and intellectually, the kind of writer who went to a place and wrote his dreams into it, the kind of writer who found an Idea and spun his psyche around it.”

In his stories, London simultaneously occupies opposing perspectives Furer, Andrew J. “Jack London's New Women: A Little Lady with a Big Stick.” Studies in American Fiction 22 (Autumn, 1994): 185-214.. At times, for instance, social Darwinism will seem to overtake his professed egalitarianism, but in another work (or later in the same one) his political idealism will reassert itself, only to be challenged again later on. London fluctuates and contradicts himself, providing a series of dialectically shifting viewpoints that resist easy resolution. He was one of the first writers to seriously, though not always successfully, confront the multiplicities unique to modernism. Race remains an acutely vexing topic in London studies. Distressingly, like other leading intellectuals of the period, his racial views were shaped by the prevailing theories of scientific racism that falsely propagated a racial hierarchy and valorised Anglo-Saxons.

Armed with just an eighth-grade education, London captured the $25 first prize, beating out college students from Berkeley and Stanford.

For London, the contest was an eye-opening experience, and he decided to dedicate his life to writing short stories. But he had trouble finding willing publishers. After trying to make a go of it on the East Coast, he returned to California and briefly enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, before heading north to Canada to seek at least a small fortune in the gold rush happening in the Yukon. By the age of 22, however, London still hadn't put together much of a living. He had once again returned to California and was still determined to carve out a living as a writer. His experience in the Yukon had convinced him he had stories he could tell. In addition, his own poverty and that of the struggling men and women he encountered pushed him to embrace socialism.

In 1899 he began publishing stories in the Overland Monthly. The experience of writing and getting published greatly disciplined London as a writer. From that time forward, London made it a practice to write at least a thousand words a day.

Commercial Success

London found fame and some fortune at the age of 27 with his novel The Call of the Wild (1903), which told the story of a dog that finds its place in the world as a sled dog in the Yukon.

The success did little to soften London's hard-driving lifestyle. A prolific writer, he published more than 50 books over the last 16 years of his life. The titles included The People of the Abyss (1903), which offered a scathing critique of capitalism; White Fang (1906), a popular tale about a wild wolf dog becoming domesticated; and John Barleycorn (1913), a memoir of sorts that detailed his lifelong battle with alcohol.

He charged forth in other ways, too. He covered the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 for Hearst papers, introduced American readers to Hawaii and the sport of surfing, and frequently lectured about the problems associated with capitalism.

Final Years and Death

In 1900 London married Bess Maddern. The couple had two daughters together, Joan and Bess. By some accounts Bess and London's relationship was constructed less around love and more around the idea that they could have strong, healthy children together. It's not surprising, then, that their marriage lasted just a few years. In 1905, following his divorce from Bess, London married Charmian Kittredge, whom he would be with for the rest of his life.

For much of the last decade of his life, London faced a number of health issues. This included kidney disease, which ended up taking his life. He died at his California ranch, which he shared with Kittredge, on November 22, 1916.

1.2 Jack London's North Stories

Jack London's fame as a writer came about largely through his ability to interpret realistically humans' struggle in a hostile environment. Early in his career, London realized that he had no talent for invention and that in his writing he would have to be an interpreter of the things that are rather than a creator of the things that might be Howard, Ronald W. “A Piece of Steak.” In Masterplots II: Short Story Series, edited by Charles E. May. Rev. ed. Vol. 6. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2004.. Accordingly, he turned to the Canadian Northland, the locale where he had gained experience, for his settings and characters. Later on he would move his setting to the primitive South Seas, after his travels had also made him familiar with that region. By turning to harsh, frontier environment for his setting and themes, London soon came to be a strong voice heard over the genteel tradition of nineteenth century parlor-fiction writers. His stories became like the men and women about whom he wrote--bold, violent, sometimes primitive. London was able to give his stories greater depth by using his extraordinary powers of narrative and language, and by infusing them with a remarkable sense of irony.

To Build a Fire

“To Build a Fire” has often been called London's masterpiece. It is a story which contrasts the intelligence of human beings with the intuition of the animal and suggests that humans alone cannot successfully face the harsh realities of nature. The story begins at dawn as a man and his dog walk along a trail which eventually could lead them, thirty-two miles away, to a companion's cabin and safety. The air is colder than the man has ever experienced before, and although the man does not know about the cold, the dog does. Although the animal instinctively realizes that it is time to curl up in the snow and wait for warmer weather, the man lacks the imagination which would give him a grasp of the laws of nature. Such perception would have enabled him to see the absurdity of attempting to combat the unknown, especially since an old-timer had warned him about the dangers of the cold to inexperienced men. With his warm mittens, thick clothes, and heavy coat, the man feels prepared for the cold and protected while the dog longs for the warmth of a fire. As the man walks along the trail, he looks carefully for hidden traps of nature, springs under the snow beneath which pools of water lie, since to step into one of these pools would mean calamity. Once he forces the dog to act as a trail breaker for him, and, when the dog breaks through and ice immediately forms on its extremities, the man helps the dog remove the ice.

At midday the man stops, builds a fire, and eats his lunch. The dog, without knowing why, feels relieved; he is safe. The man, however, does not stay beside the fire; he continues on the trail and forces the dog onward too. Finally, almost inevitably, the man's feet become wet. Although he builds a fire to dry out, snow puts out the fire, and before he can build another fire, the cold envelops him, and he freezes to death. The dog senses the man's death and continues on the trail toward the cabin, wherein lies food and the warmth of a fire.

The irony of the story is that the man, even with the benefit of all the tools with which civilization has provided him, fails in his attempt to conquer nature and instead falls victim to it, while the dog, equipped only with the instinct which nature has provided, survives. The story, representing London's most mature expression of pessimism, stresses the inability of human beings to shape their environment and conquer the unknown. Unlike the dog, they cannot draw from instinct since civilization has deprived them of it. They are therefore unfit and totally unequipped to face the unknown and conquer the cosmic power.

Law of Life

“Law of Life” exhibits another recurring theme in London's work, the inability of humans to assert positive values. It tells the story of the last moments of life for an old Native American. As the tale begins, the old man, son of the chief of the tribe, sits by a small fire with a bundle of wood nearby. The tribesmen are busy breaking camp in preparation for departure since they must go to new hunting grounds in order to survive. The old man, too old to benefit the tribe further, represents only a burden to the rest of his society and must therefore stay behind. As the man sits beside the fire, he remembers the days of his youth and an incident when he tracked an old moose. The animal had become separated from the rest of the herd and was being trailed by wolves. Twice the young Native American had come across the scene of a struggle between the moose and the wolves, and twice the moose had survived. Finally, the Native American witnessed the kill, the old moose dying so that the wolves might live. The moose-wolf analogy to the old Native American's situation is obvious, and as the story closes, the old Native American feels the muzzle of a wolf upon his cheek. At first he picks up a burning ember in preparation for battle, but then resigns himself to the inevitability of fate and extinguishes it.

London uses several vehicles to express his pessimism. Like the protagonist in “To Build a Fire,” the old Native American is a man of limited vision. Encircled by an ever constricting set of circumstances, he waits by a dying fire for his own death. Finally, as the moose-wolf analogy has foretold, the inevitability of nature dominates. As the story ends, the fire goes out, the wolves are no longer kept at bay, and the reader is left repulsed by the knowledge of the Native American's horrible death. London employs a number of symbols in this story as well. The fire gives light which symbolizes life, as does the white snow which falls gently at the beginning of the story. As the fire ebbs, the man remembers the grey wolves, and at the end of the moose-wolf analogy, London writes of the dark point in the midst of the stamped snow, foretelling the end of the fire, and thus of life.

Although London's earlier stories embody a pessimism which reflects humans' helplessness in challenging the unknown, his later ones mark a dramatic changeover Kershaw, Alex. Jack London: A Life. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.. Following an intensive study of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, London began writing stories in the last years of his life which reflected his discovery of some unique human quality that enabled humans to challenge successfully the cosmos and withstand the crushing forces of nature. One of London's last stories, also with a Northland setting, reflects this change of philosophy and contrasts markedly with the earlier “To Build a Fire” and “Law of Life.”

Like Argus of Ancient Times

“Like Argus of Ancient Times” begins as a largely autobiographical account of London's trek to Dawson City with a man known as “Old Man” or “John” Tarwater. Unlike the unnamed protagonist of “To Build a Fire,” Tarwater is totally unequipped to face the rigors and challenges of the north. He is old and weak; furthermore, he arrives on the trail without money, camping gear, food, and proper clothing. Somehow he manages to join a group of miners, serve as their cook, and earn his passage to Dawson. Although the winter snows force the group to make camp until spring, Tarwater (who is also called “Old Hero” and “Father Christmas”) is driven by gold fever. He strikes out on his own, gets lost in a snowstorm, and falls to the ground, drifting off into a dreamlike world between consciousness and unconsciousness. Unlike London's earlier characters, Tarwater survives this confrontation with nature, awakens from his dream, turns toward the “rebirthing east,” and discovers a treasure of gold in the ground. Couched in Jungian terms, the story is directly analogous to the Jungian concepts of the wandering hero who, undertaking a dangerous night journey in search of treasure difficult to attain, faces death, reaches the highest pinnacle of life, and emerges in the East, reborn. “Like Argus of Ancient Times” marks London's return to the many stories he wrote in which the hero feels the call of adventure, encounters difficulties and confronts nature, battles with death, and finally achieves dignity.

Often called the successor to Edgar Allan Poe, an imitator of Rudyard Kipling, or a leader of writers emerging from the nineteenth century, London wrote stories which mark the conflict between the primitive and the modern, between optimism and pessimism McClintock, James I. White Logic: Jack London's Short Stories. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wolf House Books, 1975.. He created fiction which combined actuality and ideals, realism and romance, and rational versus subjective responses to life. More than a new Poe, imitator of Kipling, or new genre writer, however, London is a legitimate folk hero whose greatness stems from his primordial vision and ability to centre upon the fundamental human struggles for salvation and fears of damnation.

A critic by the name of Alfred Kazin once said “that the greatest story London ever wrote was the one he lived.” London had a hard life as a child and as a young man, in spite of this London grew to become one of Americas most popular and highly paid authors ever. He was not a baby boomer. This was not just an American thing, London was known around the world for his great adventure stories, that could be enjoyed by all ages. London's life was diversified and so were his writings.

Today, London is mostly known for his “dog stories”, The Call of the Wild and White Fang. In addition to those great works London wrote many other stories and novels, all of which were published in the seventeen years that he wrote professionally. London's writings vary in quality as well as in subject, his from the cheapest and worst kind of pieces to the beautiful works like The Call of the Wild and Sea Wolf. In this literary analysis the focus will be on London's more well-known and enjoyed works. London's life defiantly coincides with his writing. Professor Earle Labour attributes London's success as a writer to three different factors: poverty- how London rose from the bottom all the way to the top, wanderlust- the fact that he spent a good portion of his life on the road gave him ample material to write about, and last but not least was, “the omnivorous appetite for reading that gave him his philosophical substance and sense of artistic form.” London was a complex individual whose character was made up of apparent contradictions. He was a declared socialist, but above all, a devout individualist.

He believed in the politics and economics of socialism and decried the iniquities of capitalism, but at the same time set out to succeed within that system. And he did, earning more money than any other writer before him. He appeared to be a well-rounded man in all things, but he was plagued by ill health, and he consistently hurt his physical state by exerting himself to the utmost. He helped create a London myth by refraining from denying untrue stories of his superhuman exploits, but yet he strongly believed in being honest to everyone.

Finally, beginning in the 1960's, there was a new reassessment and revival of London's works, as several studies, biographies, and reprints of many of his stories were published. It is true that London's writings have many shortcomings, and the weaknesses are not hidden. Some of his characters seem one-dimensional, especially the women; many of the men seem unbelievably heroic. His image of love and sex was romantic and sentimental. A master of the episode-the basis for his short Stories-London could rarely integrate his longer works successfully.

concept white silence jack london's northern tales

1.3 The image of man and nature in North Stories

Northland Stories comprises nineteen of Jack London's greatest short works, including “An Odyssey of the North” (London's major breakthrough as a young author), “The White Silence,” “The Law of Life,” “The League of the Old Men,” and the world classic “To Build a Fire.”

 In 1897 Jack London has left on gold mines of far Klondike, where he wrote a series of stories about North. After it he became professional the prose of writer. And in 1913 Jack London was one of the most popular and highly paid writer in the world. London's creativity differs the variety. He wrote novels, stories, sketches, the plays. Events of this stories spread in the far north, within of Alaska and Canada, in edge of the Eternal Cold and White Silence. One of the main themes of northern stories- romantic opposition and bourgeois civilization. Jack London wanted to show the wild, severe North where the life is more difficult, but also is more free, where it is easier to people to breathe. In northern stories Jack London acts as magnificent master of a landscape, the original poet of the North. Jack London called the North -White silence. London tried to doing him story more realistic, truthful, that why he based on real events. In Jack's stories simple inhabitant of North: hunters, drovers of dogs, gold digger, adventurers, tramp and animals- could be heroes. Jack London wrote many stories about animals. Such northern stories as «White Canine», «Sea wolf» and other will live eternally. London not simple told about animals, but also emphasized their ability to gratitude and love to the person. One of the most famous Jack London's literary work in the world is story «White Canine». This story about animals and animal's mutual relations, existing to people would, which very severe. White Canine it is small wild wolf, which has got from wood to people's world and learnt that world of people severe. In 1914 in Mexico started the revolution. At this moment Jack London started writing Fantastic. One of the first fantastic works was novel «Martin Eden». Martin Eden - simple sailor, the native of people. He feels talent and calling and aspires to become the whiter. In the novel «Martin Eden» Jack London has revealed the realistic sights on the literature and art. His sights express and protects Martin Eden. He is firmly convinced that in the centre of attention of each writer there should be a life Reesman, Jeanne Campbell. “`Never Travel Alone': Naturalism, Jack London, and the White Silence.” American Literary Realism 29 (Winter, 1997): 33-49.. About Jack London talk as about the rebel, the wanderer, the bulletin of great fights, the working fellow from oklendscoi suburbs, which has stepped in the literature as one of path breakers of conflicts and heroes 20th centuries and has remained in it for ever. He has brought the big contribution to development of the literature.

London is rather stingy in describing the appearance of his characters. Therefore, he gives a much greater preference for his heroes' and heroines' inner world. The human psyche, its shades always interest the writer. In the Northern stories he creates great for its strength and expressiveness pictures of human experience: he shows unbearable pangs of hunger, a passionate love to life, the tragic death from cold, describes whether the hero's courage, or his dread of the inevitable impending doom: He came out of a dozen that was half nightmare, to see the red-hued she-wolf before him. She was not more than half a dozen feet away sitting in the snow and wistfully regarding him. The two dogs were whimpering and snarling at his feet, but she took no notice of them. She was looking at the man, and for some time he returned her look. There was nothing threatening about her. She looked at him merely with a great wistfulness, but he knew it to be the wistfulness of an equally great hunger. He was the food, and the sight of him excited in her the gustatory sensations. Her mouth opened, the saliva drooled forth, and she licked her chops with the pleasure of anticipation. In the description of the nature, as in the description of humans or animals, London makes heroic qualities dominate Stefoff, Rebecca. Jack London: An American Original. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.. Northern nature in his works is majestic, grandiose. Very often, it has got not only strength and power, but some mystery, secret. It hides something terrible and unknown in itself. On the other hand, towards to a man nature looks as the beginning of something hostile, destructive, perhaps even apocalyptic. It could be either snow, which extinguishes some freezing traveller's fire, or icy chaos, destroying everything in its path, and so on. But more often it is frost, which penetrates directly the lungs. The man starts coughing sharp dry cough, and next spring dies of pneumonia, wondering where it came from. However, the characters of "North Stories", as the characters of other Jack London's works don't nearly know hopeless situations. There are no tests that are able to slant their will. Struggling against the nature, they find the way to salvation and victory. There is nothing unusual or irrational, or mystical in “North Stories”. They are based on real events, and real people and the real nature of the north are described in them. But on the other hand, in the northern stories the extent of the realistic typification is quite limited. In favour of romanticism is the fact that the actions unfold far away from the bourgeois civilization, in the Far North. The writer in most cases recounts the exceptional events imbued with romance of adventures. He focuses on romantically elevated, exceptional people, this also regards animals. Let's take Collie, for example. She's Scott's sheepdog. This dog is quite kind and very faithful to her owner, though even she “took advantage of her sex to pick upon and maltreat him Welsh, James M. “To Build a Fire.” In Masterplots II: Short Story Series, edited by Charles E. May. Rev. ed. Vol. 7. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2004.. His instinct would not permit him to attack her, while her persistence would not permit him to ignore her. When she rushed at him he turned his fur-protected shoulder to her sharp teeth and walked away stiff-legged and stately. When she forced him too hard, he was compelled to go about in a circle, his shoulder presented to her, his head turned from her, and on his face and in his eyes a patient and bored expression.” “She never gave him a moment's peace. She was not so amenable to the law as he. She defied all efforts of the master to make her become friends with White Fang. Ever in his ears was sounding her sharp and nervous snarl. She had never forgiven him the chicken-killing episode, and persistently held to the belief that his intentions were bad. She found him guilty before the act, and treated him accordingly. She became a pest to him, like a policeman following him around the stable and the hounds, and, if he even so much as glanced curiously at a pigeon or chicken, bursting into an outcry of indignation and wrath. His favourite way of ignoring her was to lie down, with his head on his fore-paws, and pretend sleep. This always dumfounded and silenced her” No way, she trusts White Fang at first, but then thanks to his truly loving, sincere, big heart White Fang earns Collie's trust and respect at the end of the story: Collie had been taken in charge by one of the woman-gods, who held arms around her neck and petted and caressed her; but Collie was very much perplexed and worried, whining and restless, outraged by the permitted presence of this wolf and confident that the gods were making a mistake. Extremely deep penetration into the psychology of animals, perfect knowledge of their instincts helped London to create one of the best works in the animalistic literature.

Jack London gives a special description of the North, where we can find not only cognitive components of WHITE SILENCE enshrined in the dictionaries, but also a special individual author's interpretation of the concept. On the one hand, White Silence is a deserted vast space, and on the other - it is inspired by nature, animals and birds. It is interesting that White Silence is a metaphoric expression denoting the North and shows the equality of all living things before the laws of nature. Getting into the White Silence, a person becomes either stronger or dies.

The analysis shows that in context of White silence such lexical items as north, North, Northland, Arctic, pole (Pole), as well as their derivates polar, northern, Northland are used. For example, A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny the Earth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches of smiling land (In the Forests of the North) [17].

The concept WHITE SILENCE is resented both within the texts of the works and in the title of the story "The White Silence". There are 5 representatives in total, on the basis of which 213 literary contexts were selected.

According to three dictionary (Collins English Language Dictionary, Macmillan English Dictionary for advanced learners, Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus) definitions [19-21], the conceptual layer is represented by the following cognitive features: `direction', `left', `northern part', `compass point', `towards the North Pole', `opposite to south', `more economically developed country', `extremely cold', `area around the North Pole', `the most northern point on the Earth', area with absolute absence of sounds', `area covered with snow'.

The identified conceptual features are combined into several microconcepts that make up the cognitive volume of the conceptual layer. The most significant microconcepts are FAR NORTH, ARTIC REGION, DIRECTION, MOVEMENT, NOTHERN PART OF AN AREA.

Thus, the figurative layer generates the following microconcepts in itself: LANDSCAPE, NORTHERN NATURE, NOTHERN LIFE CONDITIONS (1390 literary contexts).

Microconcept LANDSCAPE. This microconcept includes the following conceptual feature `territorial area' (241 literary contexts).

I. The textual means used for expressing the microconcept LANDSCAPE can be found in the titles of the "Northern stories", for example, "White Silence", "The Men of Forty-Mile", "In a Far Country", "To the Man on the Trail", "The Wisdom of the Trail", "An Odyssey of the North", "Where the Trail Forks", "At the Rainbow's End", "In the Forests of the North". The listed stories' headings contain semantically close lexical items of the analyzed concept, below we list them: mile, country, trail, Odyssey, north. Jack London gives a special description of the North, where we can find not only cognitive components of WHITE SILENCE enshrined in the dictionaries, but also a special individual author's interpretation of the concept. On the one hand, White Silence is a deserted vast space, and on the other - it is inspired by nature, animals and birds. It is interesting that White Silence is a metaphoric expression denoting the North and shows the equality of all living things before the laws of nature. Getting into the White Silence, a person becomes either stronger or dies.

The analysis shows that in context of White silence such lexical items as north, North, Northland, Arctic, pole (Pole), as well as their derivates polar, northern, Northland are used. For example, A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny the Earth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches of smiling land (In the Forests of the North) [17].

The concept WHITE SILENCE is resented both within the texts of the works and in the title of the story "The White Silence". There are 5 representatives in total, on the basis of which 213 literary contexts were selected. According to three dictionary (Collins English

Language Dictionary, Macmillan English Dictionary for advanced learners, Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus) definitions [19-21], the conceptual layer is represented by the following cognitive features: `direction', `left', `northern part', `compass point', `towards the North Pole', `opposite to south', `more economically developed country', `extremely cold', `area around the North Pole', `the most northern point on the Earth', area with absolute absence of sounds', `area covered with snow'. The identified conceptual features are combined into several microconcepts that make up the cognitive volume of the conceptual layer. The most significant microconcepts are FAR NORTH, ARTIC REGION, DIRECTION, MOVEMENT, NOTHERN PART OF AN AREA.

Thus, the figurative layer generates the following microconcepts in itself: LANDSCAPE, NORTHERN NATURE, NOTHERN LIFE CONDITIONS (1390 literary contexts).

Microconcept LANDSCAPE. This microconcept includes the following conceptual feature `territorial area' (241 literary contexts). I. The textual means used for expressing the microconcept LANDSCAPE can be found in the titles of the "Northern stories", for example, "White Silence", "The Men of Forty-Mile", "In a Far Country", "To the Man on the Trail", "The Wisdom of the Trail", "An Odyssey of the North", "Where the Trail Forks", "At the Rainbow's End", "In the Forests of the North". The listed stories' headings contain semantically close lexical items of the analyzed concept, below we list them: mile, country, trail, Odyssey, north. Jack London gives a special description of the North, where we can find not only cognitive components of WHITE SILENCE enshrined in the dictionaries, but also a special individual author's interpretation of the concept. On the one hand, White Silence is a deserted vast space, and on the other - it is inspired by nature, animals and birds. It is interesting that White Silence is a metaphoric expression denoting the North and shows the equality of all living things before the laws of nature. Getting into the White Silence, a person becomes either stronger or dies.

The analysis shows that in context of White silence such lexical items as north, North, Northland, Arctic, pole (Pole), as well as their derivates polar, northern, Northland are used. For example, A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny the Earth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches of smiling land (In the Forests of the North) [17].

The concept WHITE SILENCE is resented both within the texts of the works and in the title of the story "The White Silence". There are 5 representatives in total, on the basis of which 213 literary contexts were selected. According to three dictionary (Collins English Language Dictionary, Macmillan English Dictionary for advanced learners, Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus) definitions [19-21], the conceptual layer is represented by the following cognitive features: `direction', `left', `northern part', `compass point', `towards the North Pole', `opposite to south', `more economically developed country', `extremely cold', `area around the North Pole', `the most northern point on the Earth', area with absolute absence of sounds', `area covered with snow'.

The identified conceptual features are combined into several microconcepts that make up the cognitive volume of the conceptual layer. The most significant microconcepts are FAR NORTH, ARTIC REGION, DIRECTION, MOVEMENT, NOTHERN PART OF AN AREA.

Thus, the figurative layer generates the following microconcepts in itself: LANDSCAPE, NORTHERN NATURE, NOTHERN LIFE CONDITIONS (1390 literary contexts).

Microconcept LANDSCAPE. This microconcept includes the following conceptual feature `territorial area' (241 literary contexts).

I. The textual means used for expressing the microconcept LANDSCAPE can be found in the titles of the "Northern stories", for example, "White Silence", "The Men of Forty-Mile", "In a Far Country", "To the Man on the Trail", "The Wisdom of the Trail", "An Odyssey of the North", "Where the Trail Forks", "At the Rainbow's End", "In the Forests of the North". The listed stories' headings contain semantically close lexical items of the analyzed concept, below we list them: mile, country, trail, Odyssey, north. Jack London gives a special description of the North, where we can find not only cognitive components of WHITE SILENCE enshrined in the dictionaries, but also a special individual author's interpretation of the concept. On the one hand, White Silence is a deserted vast space, and on the other - it is inspired by nature, animals and birds. It is interesting that White Silence is a metaphoric expression denoting the North and shows the equality of all living things before the laws of nature. Getting into the White Silence, a person becomes either stronger or dies. The analysis shows that in context of White silence such lexical items as north, North, Northland, Arctic, pole (Pole), as well as their derivates polar, northern, Northland are used. For example, A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny the Earth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches of smiling land (In the Forests of the North) [17].

The concept WHITE SILENCE is resented both within the texts of the works and in the title of the story "The White Silence". There are 5 representatives in total, on the basis of which 213 literary contexts were selected.

According to three dictionary (Collins English Language Dictionary, Macmillan English Dictionary for advanced learners, Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus) definitions [19-21], the conceptual layer is represented by the following cognitive features: `direction', `left', `northern part', `compass point', `towards the North Pole', `opposite to south', `more economically developed country', `extremely cold', `area around the North Pole', `the most northern point on the Earth', area with absolute absence of sounds', `area covered with snow'.

The identified conceptual features are combined into several microconcepts that make up the cognitive volume of the conceptual layer. The most significant microconcepts are FAR NORTH, ARTIC REGION, DIRECTION, MOVEMENT, NOTHERN PART OF AN AREA.

Thus, the figurative layer generates the following microconcepts in itself: LANDSCAPE, NORTHERN NATURE, NOTHERN LIFE CONDITIONS (1390 literary contexts).

Microconcept LANDSCAPE. This microconcept includes the following conceptual feature `territorial area' (241 literary contexts).

I. The textual means used for expressing the microconcept LANDSCAPE can be found in the titles of the "Northern stories", for example, "White Silence", "The Men of Forty-Mile", "In a Far Country", "To the Man on the Trail", "The Wisdom of the Trail", "An Odyssey of the North", "Where the Trail Forks", "At the Rainbow's End", "In the Forests of the North". The listed stories' headings contain semantically close lexical items of the analyzed concept, below we list them: mile, country, trail, Odyssey, north. Jack London gives a special description of the North, where we can find not only cognitive components of WHITE SILENCE enshrined in the dictionaries, but also a special individual author's interpretation of the concept. On the one hand, White Silence is a deserted vast space, and on the other - it is inspired by nature, animals and birds. It is interesting that White Silence is a metaphoric expression denoting the North and shows the equality of all living things before the laws of nature. Getting into the White Silence, a person becomes either stronger or dies.

The analysis shows that in context of White silence such lexical items as north, North, Northland, Arctic, pole (Pole), as well as their derivates polar, northern, Northland are used. For example, A weary journey beyond the last scrub timber and straggling copses, into the heart of the Barrens where the niggard North is supposed to deny the Earth, are to be found great sweeps of forests and stretches of smiling land (In the Forests of the North) [17].

The concept WHITE SILENCE is resented both within the texts of the works and in the title of the story "The White Silence". There are 5 representatives in total, on the basis of which 213 literary contexts were selected. According to three dictionary (Collins English Language Dictionary, Macmillan English Dictionary for advanced learners, Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus) definitions [19-21], the conceptual layer is represented by the following cognitive features: `direction', `left', `northern part', `compass point', `towards the North Pole', `opposite to south', `more economically developed country', `extremely cold', `area around the North Pole', `the most northern point on the Earth', area with absolute absence of sounds', `area covered with snow'.

The identified conceptual features are combined into several microconcepts that make up the cognitive volume of the conceptual layer. The most significant microconcepts are FAR NORTH, ARTIC REGION, DIRECTION, MOVEMENT, NOTHERN PART OF AN AREA.

Thus, the figurative layer generates the following microconcepts in itself: LANDSCAPE, NORTHERN NATURE, NOTHERN LIFE CONDITIONS (1390 literary contexts).

Microconcept LANDSCAPE. This microconcept includes the following conceptual feature `territorial area' (241 literary contexts).

I. The textual means used for expressing the microconcept LANDSCAPE can be found in the titles of the "Northern stories", for example, "White Silence", "The Men of Forty-Mile", "In a Far Country", "To the Man on the Trail", "The Wisdom of the Trail", "An Odyssey of the North", "Where the Trail Forks", "At the Rainbow's End", "In the Forests of the North". The listed stories' headings contain semantically close lexical items of the analyzed concept, below we list them: mile, country, trail, Odyssey, north.