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- W14525815 abstract "In tales of South Seas, Jack London so often employs dark humor and grim in order to illuminate ruthless exploitation of nonwhite people by white capitalist interlopers that, at first reading, and Whale Tooth seem to offer little that is different. In one a person of color, a Chinese coolie, is caught in harrow of European efforts to colonize and exploit resources of a remote island. In other a white man becomes victim of own impulse to proselytize benighted heathen on Melanesia. Both stories depict victims of clash of cultures, and in both an innocent man dies because world's varying races seem incapable of mutual understanding. Another reading, however, reveals a profoundly layered series of misread texts, of misunderstood data, all related to inability of characters to interpret their situation, and all tending to promote violence because of culture-bound epistemologies. Both stories have been rather neglected by critics (The Whale Tooth hardly given passing mention), even though King Hendricks has called the greatest story of London's career, citing its building of an atmosphere, telling of a narrative, and development of irony (Hendricks 24). Neither story is mentioned in introduction to recently published edition of The Complete Short Stories of Jack London edited by Earle Labor, Robert C. Leitz III, and I. Milo Shepard. What strikes us in case of and Whale Tooth is how singularly and how invitingly texts offer themselves to modern critical penetration. Jeanne C. Reesman, writing about London's Water Baby, addresses hermeneutic approach to knowledge London took in most mature work, especially after reading Jung (201). We would add that and Whale Tooth are pre-Jungian attempts by London to address his life-long preoccupation with problem of knowing self (202) and also problem of knowing anything with certainty. If demonstrates that fatal misunderstandings can arise from ignorance of truth and foolish reliance on text, Whale Tooth sardonically explores parallel possibility that it can also be disastrous to be quite sure of Absolute Truth and invincibility afforded by an Absolute Text. is a tale that grows out of one of two great reasons for white European presence in South Seas--commercial exploitation; Whale Tooth exposes other great reason--the Christian missionary impulse to show that accurate perception of world is only reliably provided by one, true, immutable and sacred text. In addition, we want to argue here that these somewhat neglected stories only open up their true depths in light of critical approaches developed nearly half a century after they were written. Both first sentence of Chinago and last deal with knowing. The first, Cho did not understand (London, Chinago' 1405), and last, That much he knew before he ceased to know (1417), trace main character's movement from abstract, cultural and linguistic alienation and ignorance to direct, unambiguous, and perfectly private, albeit limited, knowledge and experience. Between these statements of inarticulate ignorance and transcendent certainty, text presents several internal texts that obscure interpretation. Briefly, story concerns Ah Cho, a Chinese laborer imported by plantation owners to work in Tahiti. In third year of indenture, Ah Cho has been a witness to murder of another coolie. However, on testimony of a plantation overseer, Ah Cho and four companions are arrested and charged with murder. Ah Cho knows who did murder, as do all other Chinese laborers, and he assumes French ought to be able to discern it also. The first part of story is framed by a trial--theoretically a search for Truth; however, from accused's perspective, process is unintelligible because it is in French. …" @default.
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- W14525815 title "Misinterpreting the Unreadable: Jack London's The Chinago and The Whale Tooth" @default.
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