The Heathen is a short story by Jack London. which introduces us the life of sailors through Jack London's eyes.it takes readers into a different world of sea,ships,sailors,buyers of pearls & different territories.
It introduced Jack's racist ideas with his experiences.as a sailor,to make a truly humanist tale of two macho sailors who maintains an unbreakable 17 years bond. The story highlights the dangerous at the Pacific ocean very closely.
The story is narrated by first person singular. The narrator comes as a Pearl buyer.on the middle way,the ship faces many hurdles like small pox,a deadly disease which claims many lives in the ship.then a terrible Strom damaged the ship very badly.
The narrator luckily survives himself & with the heathen,Otoo visits other parts of the sea. Otoo becomes like a brother.he makes money in certain business too.on the way, the narrator about to be swallowed by a shark,but Otoo comes in between & saved him.unfortunately he lost his life himself.
In short,the story leads into the world of sea life. It also shows the bond of him with Otoo & lay man's sacrifice for him
The narrative pattern of this story is very complicated. The narrator named Charley has directly dedicated this story his mate cum friend Otoo. Who is a negro man. The story presents the voyages of these two character. They have been living together for seventeen years. Their relationship is based on their emotion.
The very meaning of heathen is the person, who does not belong to fix or particular class or community. And the story reveals that Otoo is considered to be the heathen as he does not belong to the suppressed class though he is from the African American class. The African people are suppressed by the whites and they are dragged to their own class but they are considered to be slaves. This story also demonstrates the idea of Master-Slave relationship. The whites believe that the blacks are born to be merely slaves and that is why they are forced to be African Christion in which Otoo remains different from them and thus, he becomes the heathen of that community.
Jack London given his views over how society creates injustice to the people. If Otoo does not belong to his christian community when society does not belong to the religion named''HUMANITY'' And it does not lot the human beings live their life the way they want to.
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