Thus, at some point in life, even the strongest, the most intelligent person will face a situation when he will depend on the help of others. At the end of the day, neither strength, intelligence, self-confidence nor knowledge can prevent Wolf Larsen from falling. With his book, Jack London rejects Nietzsche and his concept of the superhuman, which was and still is a much-discussed idea. It is not the strong, unscrupulous sea-wolf who prevails but the humanity of a van Weyden. During a storm, Larsen dies and van Weyden gives him a decent burial. When the tables turn and Larsen – blind and paralyzed – is left at his mercy, van Weyden treats him as a human being, cares for him, nurses him, even though Larsen tries to kill him. He remains decent and lives the Christian maxim that the true nature of a person reveals itself in the way he treats his enemies. He believes in his ideals, a human soul and the dignity inherent in every man.
Humphrey van Weyden resists, not only in words, but in deeds. He wants to break him and make him become a devoted supporter of materialism. He wants to convert him to his own Darwinian approach to life. After all, Larsen is fascinated by the idealistic intellectual. First as a cabin-boy, then as a helmsman. He does not put him ashore, in accordance with customs and decency, but rather fills his own ranks with him. And so, he treats the castaway Humphrey van Weyden as ‘human material’ fate has provided him with. He is living his life by this simple maxim, without caring about anything at all. Anything useful to him is good anything that compromises him is bad. To Captain Wolf Larsen, as the sea-wolf is called by his common name, no life other than his own is important. He is strong, intelligent, handsome, self-confident and absolutely unscrupulous. With his Sea-Wolf he has created a hero who gets under the skin and sticks in the mind. The model for this book was provided by Jack London, known to us as the author of countless thrilling novels.
Most of us remember Raimund Harmstorf, who in 1971 squashed a potato with his bare hand in the title role of the four-part television adaptation of the same name. You do not have to introduce the Sea-Wolf.
0 kommentar(er)
