A short description of the love of life. Jack London "The Love of Life": Book Review

"Love of life" is one of the most famous stories by Jack London.

Jack London "Love of Life" read summary

Two tired people went down the stone placer to a small river. “Their faces expressed patient resignation - a trace of long hardship,” and heavy bundles tied with belts pulled back their shoulders. The first man had already crossed the river when the second stumbled on a slippery boulder and twisted his leg. He called out to his companion Bill, but he did not even look back. Soon Bill disappeared behind a low hill, and the man was left alone.

These two, having washed over a heavy bag of golden sand, were heading to Lake Titchinnichili, which translated from the local language means "the Land of Big Sticks." A stream flowed out of the lake and flowed into the Diz River. There the companions had a cache of food and ammunition. With him, the man carried an unloaded gun, a knife, a pair of blankets and a bag of gold.

Wincing in pain, he hurried up the hill, but found no sign of Bill. He went down and wandered across the swampy plain to the "Land of Big Sticks," collecting bits of dry moss for a fire and tasteless, watery marsh berries along the way. In the evening he built a fire and divided 67 matches into three parts, which he scattered in his rags. His shoes were completely collapsed, and his leg was swollen. I had to cut one blanket into strips and wrap them around my blood-soaked feet.

A man walked on this plain for several days. Game swarmed around, but he had no cartridges, and he ate berries, plant roots and small gudgeon fish, which he caught with his hands and ate raw. Three days later, clouds covered the sky, it started to snow. The man could no longer orient himself by the sun and lost his way. He was very weak, and the pangs of hunger that had tormented him for several days were dulled. Now he ate because he had to eat. There was more and more game around. Wolves soon appeared.

The man stubbornly wandered through the thick fog that enveloped the plain, "unconsciously, like an automaton." Often he lost consciousness, "strange thoughts and ridiculous ideas sharpened his brain like worms." The pangs of hunger brought a person to himself, which now became even more acute. Once, having come to himself, he saw a bear in front of him. The man wanted to kill him with a knife, but he got scared. He was not afraid of death, but he did not want to be eaten. Soon he came across the bones left over from wolf prey. They kept him alive a little.

"The terrible days of rain and snow have come." He no longer fought "like people fight" and did not suffer, but "the very life in him did not want to perish and drove him forward." His brain was filled with "strange visions, rainbow dreams." He got rid of his gold long ago - he hid half of it, poured the rest on the ground. The tightly packed pouch was too heavy for him.

One day he woke up on the bank of the river. The sun warmed him, and before his eyes stretched the "shining sea" and the ship on its surface. He decided that this was another vision, but suddenly he heard behind him "some kind of puffing - either a sigh or a cough." Turning around, the man saw a wolf. The animal was in pain. Then the man realized that the ship is not a mirage. Lost, he went not to the "Land of Big Sticks", but to the Arctic Ocean.

Gathering the remaining strength, he moved towards the ocean, and the wolf followed. The predator wanted to eat a man, but he did not have the strength to kill him. Now the man was conscious, but his strength was quickly leaving him, and the wolf was getting closer and closer. On the way, he noticed gnawed human bones - the remains of Bill, among which lay a bag of gold. The man did not take it.

He moved more and more slowly, and soon he could only crawl. The wolf did not lag behind, and the man had to kill him. He lost the knife, and strangled the animal, leaning on him with his whole body. After drinking wolf blood, he fell asleep.

Members of the scientific expedition, traveling on the whaling ship "Bedford", saw a strange creature on the shore, which turned out to be a mortally emaciated person. They picked him up, and a month later he “was already sitting at the table<…>in the wardroom of the ship ”. For a while the man was obsessed with food and stuffed his cabin with it, but that passed "before Bedford anchored in San Francisco harbor."

In this article, you will get acquainted with a short but meaningful retelling of the work of D. London “Love for Life”, as well as get to know the main characters.

Jack London "Love of Life" - Betrayal

Two tired men arrived at a small river. Their faces showed resignation, and heavy bundles of things hung on their shoulders. One of them has already crossed the river, and the other, stumbling, twisted his leg. He called his friend Bill, but he didn't even turn around. Then Bill disappeared from sight, leaving the man alone.

Jack London "Love of Life" - Alone

These two took a heavy sack of gold each and went to Lake Titchinnichili, which is translated from the local language as "Country of Big Sticks." These people had a cache in which they hid clothes, food and ammunition. A loner carried an unloaded gun, a knife, a blanket, and a bag of gold.

Grimacing with pain, he climbed the hill, but saw no sign of Bill. He had to go down and head towards Titchinnichili, collecting moss for the fire. In the evening he lit a fire. His shoes deteriorated and his leg was swollen. He was forced to cut one blanket in order to wrap his cut feet.

Jack London “Love of Life” - Survival

The man walked for several days. There was a lot of game around, but there were no cartridges with him, so he had to eat berries, plant roots and small raw fish. After 3 days, the weather worsened, snow fell. It was impossible to navigate by the sun, the man got lost. He was weakened, the feeling of hunger tormented him for days. The person often fainted, but the feeling of hunger brought him to his senses. One day the wanderer saw a bear and wanted to kill him with a knife, but was frightened. He was not afraid of death, he was afraid of being eaten. Later he found the bones of the killed prey, they helped him to last a couple of days.

Snow and rain fell. Life in a poor man drove him forward. He was disturbed by various visions and had joyful dreams. A tightly packed bag of gold had long interfered with his movement, so he had to get rid of the wealth.

Jack London "The Love of Life" - the fight for life

One of the days of his wandering, he woke up on the bank of the river. The sun's rays caressed his face, and before his eyes the sea flaunted with visible ships in the distance. He took it as another vision, but a puff from behind made him turn around. He saw the beast. It turned out to be a wolf. The predator was weak and sick. At that moment, the wanderer realized that this was not a mirage. In fact, he did not come to the lake, but to the Arctic Ocean.

The man found the last strength in himself and moved to the ocean, and the beast followed. The wolf wanted to eat a man, but he did not have the strength to kill him. The man's strength was almost exhausted, but he continued to walk towards the ocean. On the way, he noticed Bill's remains, among which was his bag of gold. The man did not dare to take the bag.

The man walked more and more slowly, and later crawled altogether. The wolf came very close, and the man had to kill him. He strangled him by shifting his weight onto him. The man fell asleep after drinking wolf blood.

Jack London “Love of Life” - salvation

On the ship, which the man saw, there were members of a scientific expedition. They noticed him and picked him up barely alive. And a month later he was already sitting among the company of the ship and still could not gorge himself on the food with which he filled the cabin. Soon, the scientific expedition, along with the rescued man, arrived in San Francisco.

Brief description of the heroes of the story "Love for Life" by D. London

Throughout the story, the focus is on a person whose name we do not know. Bill is the second but secondary character in this story. Also, the members of the scientific expedition and the wolf are secondary characters in this story.

The main character with his friend Bill returned to the cache, gaining a lot of gold. This suggests that both characters are quite greedy people. At the beginning of the story, we understand that Bill is not only greedy, but also a mean person. Bill did not provide the man with the necessary help and left him alone, apparently so that only he could get to the cache of gold.

Further, we begin to admire the main character for his courage, as well as pity him, since he was in a difficult situation, but nevertheless, he continues to fight for his life, while leaving gold on the ground. The abandoned person endures cold and hunger, as well as loneliness and pain resulting from trauma. Later, having reached a possible salvation, he has to save himself from a wolf who wanted to attack a person. Having gained the last strength, the man kills the wolf, after which he falls asleep on the ground already half-dead. This act, indeed, suggests that the hero was fighting for his own life. We also know that after seeing Bill's remains and his gold, the man did not take his share. He no longer needed gold, he wanted to live. It can be assumed that the wolf was very similar to humans in that it also wished to stay alive. The wolf was also weak and hungry, like the main character story.

The members of the scientific expedition showed humanity by picking up the main character. They gave him first aid, warmth and food.

Jack London teaches with his work to value life and fight for it. And also the work proves that to inhuman and indifferent people everything bad comes back like a boomerang, as happened with Bill. The author calls to love life and be human.

Year: 1905 Genre: story

Main characters: Wanderer

In the story, two weary men walk through the wilderness carrying mined gold. One twists his leg and the other leaves him. The whole plot is built on how this other is trying to survive. He suffers hunger, cold and pain. At some point, he decides to leave the gold to lighten the burden. At the end of the path, a sick wolf pursues him. He also finds the bones and gold of his friend. It became a dinner for the wolves. At the end, people pick him up and take him to San Francisco.

The story teaches love life and put it above money, and not give up under any circumstances.

Read Briefly Jack London Love of Life

Two emaciated men descend to the river. They carry guns and heavy bales with them. One of them slipped on a boulder and twisted his leg. He tried to move on, but he staggered. The second companion, Bill, walked in front without looking back, and did not react even when called by his name. Soon he got out to the opposite bank and disappeared over the horizon.

The remaining man looked at his watch. He didn’t know exactly what month it was because he had lost count of late. The man tried to orient himself on the terrain. He only knew that the tributary of the Coppermike River, where he was now, ran towards the ocean. The traveler once again tried to call his friend, but in vain. He straightened the bale and walked through the pain to the shore. The man climbs the hill and sees that below, in the valley, there is not a single living soul. Fear crept up to him, but he decided not to give up and followed in the footsteps of his companion. They were supposed to lead him to a hiding place where you can stock up on food and ammunition. Besides, he is sure that Bill is waiting for him there, and then they will go together to Hudson's Bay. These thoughts helped him move forward. The main thing that gave him strength was the confidence that his friend would be waiting for him. Two days before that he had not eaten and now dreamed of getting to the secret reserves, but for now he ate marsh berries. After bruising his big toe, the man made a fire, dried his clothes, bandaged his leg and fell asleep.

The next day the traveler woke up feeling hungry. A deer ran not far from him, but he could not shoot him, because there were no cartridges in the weapon. The man tied up the bale and for the first time thought about leaving him here the bag in which the gold was kept. Its weight was equal to the weight of the rest of the load. Nevertheless, he decided to leave the money and went on. Every step he took was painful in his leg and stomach. During the day, he walked through the area where there were many animals, but he could not catch anything. In the evening, in a puddle, he noticed a fish, but he could not even catch it. Then he began to cry.

Waking up the next morning, the man saw that it had snowed during the night. The moss became damp, the fire went out. He went on, but all the time he thought only of food. At night he slept without a fire, cold drops of rain fell on him. In the morning, the traveler rewound his legs, which were worn out in blood, but did not dare to give up the gold. The next day he was in a state of semi-fainting. During the day and evening, he managed to catch several minnows and eat them alive. He walked more and more slowly. Environment began to gradually change its appearance. There were more and more signs of predators staying here.

A day later, the man saw a rock ledge and decided to hide some of the gold there, so that later he could return and pick it up. Going further, he constantly stumbled, and at the end fell into partridge's nest. Here he found small chicks and ate them alive. The rest of the day he chased the partridge. A day later, he decided to throw the money without even hiding it. He just poured gold on the ground and moved on. On the way, the traveler met a brown bear and tried to kill him hunting knife but realized that he was too weak for that. The bear decided to stay away from the strange creature and disappeared. The person continues on the path. Now obsessive thoughts of death begin to appear in the teeth of predators.

In the evening, he stumbles upon the recently gnawed bones of a deer that has fallen prey to wolves. The man grinds the bones into porridge and eats, what is left, takes with him. He moves on, but no longer distinguishes between days. He then loses consciousness, then comes to himself. One day he regained consciousness while lying on a protruding stone and looked down. A wide river flowed there, which flowed into the sea. There he saw a standing ship. However, not far from him, he notices a wolf. The animal is clearly sick and is waiting for the victim to die on its own. With the last of his strength, the man moves in the direction of the ship. The wolf trails behind him. On the way, he sees the footprints of a man crawling on all fours. Following the trail, he finds gnawed bones and the same bag of gold as he had. He now knows Bill's fate. Several days pass and the man himself falls on all fours. He erases his knees to the blood, and the wolf crawls after him and licks the bloody trail.

Already very little remains to go to the ship, but the person begins to fall into oblivion. He tries to save his strength to fight the wolf and even pretends to be dead. One day he manages to kill the wolf, and he drinks his warm blood. It writhes like a worm on the ground when it is found by scientists from a whaling ship. The ship takes him to San Francisco and all the way he eats, begs the sailors for crackers and hides them in his mattress.

Picture or drawing Love of life

The main characters of the story

Main characters:

The unnamed traveler is a gold digger who has had many trials.

Other characters:

Bill is the protagonist's companion who betrayed him.
Captain, sailors, scientists - the crew of the whaling ship "Bedfor", who saved the dying hero.

"Love of Life" very short summary

"Love of Life" by Jack London Reader's Diary Summary:

Two travelers walked to their hiding place, to Lake Titchinnichili. Crossing the river, one of them twisted his leg, but his friend Bill did not heed the cries for help, and simply disappeared. And he burdened the wanderer with a large load.

The main jewel was a bag of golden sand. There was no sign of Bill, so I had to make my way across the swampy plain. The shoes fell apart and the leg was swollen. He cut the blanket and wrapped them around his legs. For several days he ate raw fish. But soon it began to snow, and in the absence of the sun, the man stopped orienting himself.

Having met a bear, he wanted to kill it with a knife, but was frightened. I had to eat the bones left by the wolves. He left his bag, so he wanted to survive. Then I saw the remains of Bill. After killing a sick wolf with his bare hands, the man fell asleep. A whaling ship rescued an exhausted wanderer.

The story shows how the inflexibility of the spirit helped a person fight cold, hunger and weakness. He walked all the time with the hope of reaching the right place, did not let go of his hands. He also did not go through food, and ate everything that he saw, except for the remains of his friend. And Bill did not understand an important truth. It is difficult to survive on the way alone; by sticking together, difficulties can be avoided.

The novel "White Fang" of London was first published in 1906. This is a fascinating story about the fate of a tamed wolf who lived in Alaska during the "gold rush". For better preparation to the literature lesson, we recommend that you read the chapters and parts. Main feature of the piece is the fact that most of it is shown through the eyes of White Fang.

Short retelling of "Love of Life"

Read also the story "Mitya's love" by Bunin was written in 1924, and touched on the author's favorite topic - difficult love relationship... For better preparation for the literature lesson, we recommend reading the chapters. Bunin managed to very subtly and at the same time artistically convey the feelings of a young man who found himself alone with unrequited love.

The content of the story "Love of Life" with quotes

Two tired men, loaded with heavy bales and guns, descended to a small river. Long hardships left their mark on their faces, which expressed nothing but patient obedience. The first man had already safely crossed to the other side when the second stumbled on a slippery stone and dislocated his leg. He began to call his companion Bill, but he walked forward and never even looked back. In the eyes of the injured man, "there was melancholy, like a wounded deer."

The man looked "that circle of the universe in which he was now alone." A sad picture appeared to his gaze: a monotonous wavy line of hills, and not a single tree or bush. Gathering up his courage, he slowly and carefully walked to the shore. Each step hurt him sharply, but he climbed the hill with grim determination. Having hardly climbed to the top, he "saw that there was no one in the shallow valley."

The man tried to follow in Bill's footsteps, but without them he would not have lost the path that he remembered well. We need to go down to the Dease River, where he and Bill arranged a cache with food, cartridges, fishing net and hooks. The man had no doubt that his companion would certainly wait at the hiding place, and then together they would go south, "where you want as much food as you want."

Thoughts of Bill's betrayal in a sticky web entwined his brain, but he tried not to think about it - then "all that remained was to lie on the ground and die." For two days he did not eat anything, and the remnants of his strength were supported only by the memories of the cache of food.

In the evening, the man made a fire and counted the matches several times - there were exactly sixty-seven of them. He cut one blanket into strips, which he wrapped around his legs, which had been knocked into blood - “only tatters remained from the shoes.” In the morning, with great difficulty, he was able to get up and straighten up. "His joints seemed to be rusted," and every movement caused severe pain.

The man continued on his way, plucking watery berries on the go, which could not saturate him. Seeing the partridges, he tried to catch them, but to no avail. As if in mockery, in the valley he came across a lot of game, but the traveler had no cartridges, and he had no choice but to scream from his own impotence.

On the bank of a muddy stream, the man tried to find frogs or worms, but found nothing. Seeing a small gudgeon in a puddle, he began frantically to scoop out water with a bucket, but the fish slipped through the crevice into the reservoir. The man sank to the ground and sobbed soundlessly - for dinner he had only boiling water.

The wanderer woke up completely sick. During the night, the sky was covered with clouds, a strong wind blew, and "the first snowfall bleached the hills." The man wandered wherever his eyes, no longer thinking about Bill or the cherished cache - the unbearable pangs of hunger clouded his mind. His food was only dead grass under the snow and watery berries. At night, instead of snow, it began to rain, and the exhausted traveler had not only dinner, but also no fire.

The next day, the man managed to catch in a puddle two gudgeons "with a little finger in length." By that time, his stomach no longer required food, but he forced himself to eat the fish raw, chewing them thoroughly.

The stomach stopped bothering him, but his heart did not let him walk quickly, which after five minutes of walking began pounding mercilessly, "bringing him to suffocation and dizziness." To lighten his burden a little, he divided the gold he had mined in half, and hid part of it "on a ledge of rock visible from afar."

The man became so weak that he got rid of the rest of the gold without even bothering to hide it. He often fainted, and strange thoughts overwhelmed him. The pangs of hunger became simply unbearable. The bones of a deer, gnawed clean by wolves, supported his life a little.

One day a man woke up on the river bank. He did not know how long he lay here - two days or two weeks. With surprise he saw the "bright shining sea" and the outlines of the ship. At first, the man thought it was another vision, but neither the sea nor the ship disappeared. With difficulty concentrating and remembering the map, he realized that by some miracle he had come out to the Arctic Ocean.

The man gathered the rest of his strength and headed towards the ocean. He noticed that an old sick wolf was sneaking up behind him, which no longer had the strength to attack a man, and he only waited for the victim to finally weaken. On the way, the wanderer came across human bones, which turned out to be the remains of Bill. Nearby lay a "tightly packed bag" of gold. The man decided that "he will not take gold and will not suck Bill's bones."

By the end of the fifth day of the journey, the wanderer no longer walked, but crawled on all fours. His feet and knees “were stripped to living meat,” and the bloody trail was greedily licked by the wolf, which never left its pursuit for a minute. Gathering the remnants of his strength, the man leaned with all the weight of his body on the wolf and grabbed his teeth with his neck. Warm wolf blood helped him to crawl to the shore, where he was noticed by members of a scientific expedition who found themselves on the whaling ship "Bedford".

By that time, it was difficult to call a man a human - rather, it was a kind of creature that "heard nothing, understood nothing and writhed in the sand like a giant worm." After a month of full-fledged care, the man became so strong that he could tell about himself, about the hardships he had suffered.

He was healthy, but he was very sensitive to the people who were eating - "he was tormented by the fear that there would not be enough food." The man begged the sailors for crackers, and filled his cabin with them. He was sane, however, and the food craze passed "before the Bedford anchored in San Francisco Harbor."

Conclusion

The work of Jack London teaches determination and fortitude. You should never give up if there is even the slightest chance to change the situation for the better.

This is interesting: What is love? This is one of the most mysterious human feelings. She inspires someone, makes them happy, and brings pain and disappointment to someone. Despite this, every person dreams of experiencing this feeling, hoping that it will give him happiness. - perhaps, there is not a single poet and writer who has bypassed this beautiful topic with his attention.

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