South of the Slot(路界以南)
--Jack London(杰克.伦敦)
The author
作者简介
杰克·伦敦，1876年出生于美国旧金山，从该城附近阿卡兰的工人阶级中成长为美国最受欢迎的作者之一。他自幼家境贫寒，年仅10岁被被迫进工厂干活。离开阿卡兰后，从伦敦坐货车横穿美国，像水手那样去亚洲航行，还因为居无定所而跑到监狱里待过一阵子。1896年，当约肯（地名）发现黄金后，伦敦也被传染上了“淘金热”。他跟随其他千千万万的无业青年奔向阿拉斯加淘金。在那里他没有发现黄金，但是这段经历让他写成了“野性的呼唤”，一部奠定他作家声誉的作品。在阅读完卡尔马克思的著作后，伦敦变成了一个社会卡尔马克思主义者。在《路界以南》中，作者对于工人阶级的同情是显而易见的。
Born in San Francisco in 1876, Jack London grou up in nearby working-class Oakland to become one of American’s most popular writers. His family was so poor that he was forced to begin working when only ten years old. After leaving Oakland, London rode freight trains with hobos across the United States, sailed as a common seaman to Asia, and served time in jail for vagrancy. In 1896, when gold was discovered in the Yukon, London caught gold fever and followed thousands of other umemployed young men to Alaska. He didn’t find any gold, but from the experience he write Call the the Wild, a novel that ensured his success as a writer. After reading the works of Karl Marx, London became a socialist. In “South of the Slot” his sympathies with the workers are obvious.
The Story
“South of the Slot ” is a story of inner confilict within one character—Freddie Drummond, a sociology professor at the University of California at Berkeley. This battle symbolized a much larger struggle: the fight betweent newly formed labor unions and the rich who ruled San Francisco society at the turn of the twentith century. At that time, laborers worked long hours in poor conditions for small wages. The Berkeley professor has a good position in society. But his work take him into a new world of workers and poverty unknown to others of his social class. Surprisingly, Professor Drummond finds life South of the Slot more attractive than the lifestyles of the wealthy and welleducated people he leaves behind him. Even in today’s society and improved working conditions, could anyone argue that ordinary lavorers have better lives than the rich? Do the poor have anything that the wealthy do not have? Would Jack London still prefer to live among the poor if he were alive today?
《路界以南》写的是一位社会学教授内心冲突的故事。弗雷迪·德拉蒙德教授在伯克利的加利福尼亚大学从事研究工作。他内心的冲突征着一种极大的矛盾，那就是在20世纪初新成立的工会与统治旧金山的富人之间的斗争。在当时，工人们在极端恶劣的条件下劳作很长时间，得到的仅是微薄的一点薪水。这位伯克利的教授有非常好的社会地位，但是他的工作使他接触到另一个与他同阶层的人所不能了解的世界：工人们的生活，还有贫困。令人吃惊的是，德拉蒙教授发现贫民窟南部人生活更魅力，远远超过了那些所谓的富人以及受过良好教育的人的生活，他因此抛弃了他原来的生活。
即使到现在，在工人的劳动条件得到极大改善的今天，谁会说普通工人的生活要比富人的好？穷人有什么东西就富人不具有的？如果杰克·伦敦依然健在，他是否仍然愿意与穷人生活在一起？
