A gold prospector in the American West sprained his ankle crossing a small river on his way back. Abandoned by his partner, Bill, he searched the wilderness alone. The foot injury made every step very difficult for him, and what was more terrible was the unbearable hunger. In desperation, he divided his treasure equally into two parts, carefully hid one part of it, and trudged on with the other. To his great joy, he found a wounded grouse on his way. He seemed to see hope, and tried to chase the grouse with great pain in his feet. He got lost. Now he had expended quite a lot of energy, so he chose to divide the rest of the sands into two more portions, but this time he poured one of them down on the ground. Before long, he threw away all the sands. When he was very weak, he met a sick wolf. He found the sick wolf following him, licking his blood. In this way, two dying creatures, dragging their dying bodies, hunt each other across the moor. In order to get back alive, at last the man won battle. He killed the wolf and drank its blood and survived.

In Love of Life, London places the protagonist in the treacherous northern frontier environment, facing the harsh reality: hunger and death, so that he understands the power of nature and his own smallness and vulnerability. London, however, has always been reluctant to conform and confine himself to a strictly defined naturalistic framework. He gave the gold prospectors in Love of Life the courage to face the harsh reality, the will to overcome adversity, and the courage to become superhuman to the strong. Therefore, Love of Life should not be a single pure naturalistic work, but an organic combination of naturalism and romanticism, which is the strength of the novel art and one of the real reasons for its enduring popularity. This plot in the novel also reflects the cancer of the human soul in the modern civilized society. Industrial civilization is advancing by leaps and bounds, science and technology are changing with each passing day, and products and consumer goods are greatly enriched, which arouses the infinite expansion of human desire. All the efforts made by people are ultimately aimed at obtaining material wealth and filling their personal desires. When the worship of money and egoism become the values of the civilized world, the relationship between people is only economic interests in the final analysis. In order to pursue the maximization of economic benefits, mutual use, intrigues, intrigues, extortion are common, spiritual degradation, moral decay is inevitable.

-Coreen C.