Martin Eden

Content Warning: This section refers to death by suicide.

“He was no gentle lamb, and the part of second fiddle would never do for the high-pitched dominance of his nature. He talked only when he had to, and then his speech was like his walk to the table, filled with jerks and halts as he groped in his polyglot vocabulary for words, debating over words he knew were fit but which he feared he could not pronounce, rejecting other words he knew would not be understood or would be raw and harsh. But all the time he was oppressed by the consciousness that this carefulness of diction was making a booby of him, preventing him from expressing what he had in him. Also, his love of freedom chafed against the restriction in much the same way his neck chafed against the starched fetter of a collar. Besides, he was confident that he could not keep it up. He was by nature powerful of thought and sensibility, and the creative spirit was restive and urgent. He was swiftly mastered by the concept or sensation in him that struggled in birth-throes to receive expression and form, and then he forgot himself and where he was, and the old words—the tools of speech he knew—slipped out.”

This passage illustrates the state of Martin’s uneducated mind: He’s naturally intelligent and keenly perceptive but lacks the education and vocabulary to easily converse with the sophisticated Morse family. Martin has a wealth of practical, real-world knowledge; however, because bourgeois society undervalues such knowledge, Ruth and the others treat it as a barbaric curiosity.

“He was used to the harsh callousness of factory girls and working women. Well he knew why their hands were rough; but this hand of hers…It was soft because she had never used it to work with. The gulf yawned between her and him at the awesome thought of a person who did not have to work for a living. He suddenly saw the aristocracy of the people who did not labor.”

Early on, Martin is already conscious of the physical differences that class imposes on one’s body. His own body, powerful, scarred, and sun-bronzed by his life at sea, starkly contrasts with that of Ruth, who has never seen a day of hard labor in her life. The hands of Martin’s family members, calloused and damaged by lives of hard labor, likewise emphasize class differences.

“She knew her Browning, but it had never sunk into her that it was an awkward thing to play with souls. As her interest in Martin increased, the remodeling of his life became a passion with her.”

As Ruth’s interest in Martin grows, she begins to derive a sense of satisfaction from “remolding” Martin’s life through education. She doesn’t consider the impact this may have on him, including that this education could alienate him from his former life and identity.