LITERATURE AND THE CITY

            Before slumming gained popularity as a practice of the upper classes dressing up to experience lives of the impoverished mostly for a charitable cause in 1830s-40s or as a leisure-time activity that inspired literary work from 1840s onwards; its precursor, literary slumming, dated as early as the sixteenth century, provided representations of “scams, crimes and confidence tricks” of the underclass as a form of upper class entertainment (Seaton 22; Steinbrink, Frenzel and Koens 2). Yet, clothing and make-up are extrinsic and subjected to manipulation, like the ‘arranged clothing’ of the ragged children in Barnardo’s photographs and the ‘scar’ of Hugh Boone in Conan Doyle’s “The Man with the Twisted Lip” (i.e. contracted as “Twisted Lip” below) (Doyle 136; Koven 113). Thus, disguise creates a paradox, as pointed out by Seth Koven — individuals judging others by clothing while knowing that it is an “unreliable [signifier] of identity” (19), which undermines the feasibility of creating and living a second identity authentically during slumming. As a result, there are doubts over the authenticity of Jack London’s journalistic project in The People of the Abyss (contracted as Abyss), which is based upon his slumming experience. This paper argues that in The People of the Abyss, while Jack London draws upon ethnographic methodologies in an effort to represent the London poor in an authentic way; he reveals the limits of his middle-class perspective, literary representation and slumming.

            From the beginning, Abyss poses a difficult question in establishing the narrator’s identity. Indeed, textual and contextual evidence is sufficient to identify the persona as Jack London himself. For instance, in chapter one, the narrator is addressed as ‘Jack’ and later, his foreign identity is spotted by the woman and man, who concludes ‘E’s a ‘Yank’ (London 9, 89). Apart from Jack London’s claim in the Preface (i.e. “in the summer of 1902…I went down into the underworld”), biographical information supports that he put on disguise and spent seven weeks in East End conducting his fieldwork (5; McLaughlin 104). The “autobiographic opening” of Abyss on “how the ethnographer got to the field site” is also a strategy commonly adopted in ethnographic writing to “anchor the experience as truth” (McLaughlin 107). Nevertheless, there are moments when the narrator appears more like a hero in adventure stories than an ethnographer, especially in the beginning and the ending. The danger of visiting the East End is first emphasized by the association to Dante’s Inferno in the chapter and book titles (i.e. “The Descent”, “Abyss”) and feedbacks from friends and company staff (e.g. “should you be murdered, we would be in position to identify the corpse”) (8). Despite the risks, the narrator sacrifices his safety for his readers and demonstrates courage of a classical hero by insisting on his journey. His heroic identity is further developed at the end of his journey, where he confronts the culprit of average men’s sufferings (i.e. ‘mismanagement’ of the British ‘Civilization’) and offers solutions to punish the bad, or in this case, the unproductive population, and help the poor (181-182). These details remind readers of dramatic qualities in the entertaining genre of literary slumming and lead them to question the legitimacy of Jack London claims of authenticity.

            Since all ethnographic writing, including Abyss, aims to realistically portray a culture from the perspective of that particular cultural group; to evaluate the claimed genuineness of Jack London’s portrayal, it is essential to consider if he views East End from within. On one hand, London is among the poor through becoming anonymous in his disguise and practising classical ethnographic techniques. His newly acquired clothes put him in the shoes of “the other and unimaginable men” (12). “In a twinkling of an eye”, he becomes the “[comrade]” of the fellow poor (12-13). Hence, it allows him to obtain first-hand information without raising much suspicion. Moreover, rather than adopting a continuing narrative with plot twists or climax, London reveals different aspects of lower class life (e.g. lodging, wages) in thematic chapters adopting various ethnographic strategies. Whitehead summarized the ‘traditional’ ethnographic techniques as “secondary data analysis, fieldwork, observing activities of interest, recording…observations, participating in activities during observations…and carrying out various forms of…interviewing” (2). For instance, to objectify his accounts, London incorporates statistics, newspaper excerpts, and even voices of scholars, including Mr. Arthur Cecil Pigou, the famous British economist (28-29, 85, 89). Without mentioning of his journalistic project, London informally interviews a landlady and a fireman through casual conversations, during which he closely observes his subjects, their utterances and actions. Later, he also records himself joining and scrutinizing the Coronation Day as “the unwashed of the East End” (82). His fieldwork offers him a vantage point from within the crowd and thus creates an appearance of authenticity.

            On the other hand, Jack London’s sympathising gaze and his comments, which reveal his middle-class ideology, knowledge and superiority, mark him as above the crowd and again destabilises the authenticity of his representation. Although London’s appearance has helped him “[slip] gently into” the crowd, his intention to be incognito is against the mentality and practice of the true underclass, as revealed in the comparison with Hugh Boone, the “professional beggar” in “Twisted Lip” (14; Doyle 136). Unlike London’s efforts to blend in, Boone’s “remarkable” “appearance” allows him to stand ‘out from amid the common crowd of mendicants’ which directs all sympathising gaze of passerby towards him (136). Since sympathy is often a mean to “appeal for alms” and very likely, only the upper class has the financial power to provide aids; it is the norm for upper class individuals to sympathize with lower classes, and rarely vice versa (13). As in the “Twisted Lip”, being “a piteous spectacle”, Boone takes advantage of the sympathy and the subsequent monetary gain directed to him (Doyle 136). In contrast, while Jack London attempts to view the community of the poor from the inside “on a basis of equality”, he still casts his sympathizing gaze towards the poor, which elevates him from the crowd (13). For instance, London sympathises with the “scene-shifter” who “never miss[es] a night’s work” and the landlady who has “been hard at work” for their unrewarded diligence (24).

            Furthermore, from Jack London’s comments, readers observe much of his middle-class ideology and education and his superiority. In London’s conversation with the fireman, he shares his ideas of ‘home’, which is rejected by the fireman (25-26). In judging his new friend, London continues to impose his values and framework on him. Stressing the importance of ‘family’, which is deeply rooted in his middle-class values, London condemns the fireman as an “unmoral”, “materialist” “hedonist” simply because the fireman would rather spend money on alcohol than raising a family (27). In London’s perspective, the fireman is selfish; however, to the underclass, it is likely a choice to minimise tragedies of ‘out-of-works killing their wives and babies’, which, in fact, is quite a moral thing to do (91). In addition, from the Coronation parade, Jack London’s middle-class education allows him to identify famous people among ‘the fighting men of England’ and recognizes “all the breeds of all the world”, which illustrates his knowledge and his ability to see through the façade to the core issue of the Empire and to comment critically (85,86). This stands in contrast with the superficiality in the woman he later interviews (i.e. a true East Ender). All she sees and enjoys is the grandeur of the parade, such as “bu’ful” “duchesses” and ‘”bu’ful” “lydies” who wear some “gran’ w’ite dresses” (90). The fact that he is not oblivious to the bigger picture, like her, indicates his elite status.  London’s superiority is further strengthened in his overly assertive observations. For instance, not long after meeting the young fireman near the West Indian Dock, he states that “I knew him pretty fairly for what he was”, which claims authority over people and the situation (25). In short, there are awkward moments when he outperforms his lower class and let his middle-class self break out of his disguise. Perhaps similar to how London’s “rag” is still considered as better “clothes” by the underclass; his middle-class identity remains permanently undetachable and undisguisable (90). Hence, instead of viewing East End objectively, Abyss aligns readers with London’s subjective voice from a higher social class, which initiates a new round of debate on the truthfulness in the representation of the lower class culture.

            Nonetheless, the authenticity of Abyss should not be completely dismissed by subjectivity, which haunts many, if not all, representations. Subjectivity is unavoidable in representation (i.e. “hold[ing] up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life”) because details of the represented objects are carefully selected and described through the agency of the author (Johnson 62). It is sometimes even questioned whether details should be modified to “represent higher truths” (Koven 95). If the more scientifically accurate medium of representation (i.e. photographs) is vulnerable towards subjectivity, as in Barnardo’s “artistic fiction” and his “staged” photographs of the ragged children; it will be a surprise that representations solely constructed by words, like Abyss, can escape from subjectivity (113). Jack London’s reference to his experience and knowledge of a middle-class person, is merely a way to make sense of the new experience, which is also what everybody does in similar situations. In spite of the heavy influence from his own thinking, it should be noted that London’s observations do not appear untrue and different strategies are used to minimize the effect of subjectivity. Regardless of his initial suggestion of East End as a place of danger and degradation, London does not exaggerate such widely-recognised views or discriminate against the lower classes. Rather, he reports their challenges in life and, at times, even appreciates the goodness in those ‘city savages’ (e.g. diligence) (164). There is also deliberate mimicry of non-standard accents of the East Enders, as in “’Ow dirty I am, bein’ around the w’y I ’ave”, to make recalled conversations more believable (90). Moreover, he does not leave his descriptions as absolute, scientific truth, but acknowledges his own subjectivity. The first-person narrator, demonstrated through the ‘I’s and ‘me’s, suggests to readers that they are seeing East End through “[his] eyes” (5).

            Apart from the problems with representation, the inauthenticity may stem from the limitation in the activity of slumming because the upper classes participated in slumming always have a way out of poverty. In the Abyss, Jack London is recognised as a member of the upper society because “a man’ at the ‘American Consul-general’ ‘[will] remember [him] and keep track” (9). Going undercover in East End, London still has a “stoker’s singlet” to buy his way out of poverty (14). Similarly, in “Twisted Lips”, Boone has a middle-class life outside his profession as a beggar. He has a “wife”, “children” and “a house in country”, where he calls home (149, 151). Their ability to opt out of the life as a poor and return to a better way of living determines the incompleteness in their experience of poverty — the rich suffer no permanent fear or desperation over the lack of “food and shelter” experienced by the lower classes (180). To upper class members, poverty is a choice; yet, to the poor, it is an inescapable life.  Therefore, slumming does not change one’s true identity, nor does it offer a completely native perspective of viewing the world.

            To conclude, while The People of the Abyss establishes the narrator as Jack London himself and enhances the genuineness of the narrative through ethnographic techniques; these two temporary conclusions are constantly contested and destabilized throughout the book by tensions between the narrator’s identity as hero and ethnographer, between the narrator’s equality and superiority to the poor, between the text as non-fiction and fiction and ultimately between the nature of the work as authentic and inauthentic. It is argued that in The People of the Abyss, Jack London’s incomplete success in authentically representing the London poor may reflect limits of his middle-class perspective and contradictions inherent in the practice of representation and slumming.