He is also adrift intellectually, examining books randomly he does not yet have the background to read and understand, intimidated by Ruth's superior education. London says about Eden at this time, "it seemed that the room was lifting, heeling, and plunging like a ship upon the sea" (Chapter 7, p. 1). Frustrated, he is like a sailor caught in a storm before he has learned how to sail. He knows he is smart enough to understand the books he has chosen but that his education has great gaps in it. Thus his quest for a middle class life is intellectual as well as social, financial and professional. He is at the mercy of the elements around him just as surely as if he had been caught in a storm at sea. By Chapter 11, Eden has embarked on his journey of self-improvement and has enrolled in classes. He also plans to use the stories he is writing to demonstrate to Ruth that he is serious about writing, so she will take him seriously. Even in his physics class, Eden is drawn to the sea, where he sees order in chaos: "He had accepted the world as the world, but now he was comprehending the organization of it, the play and interplay of force and matter... Levers and purchases fascinated him, and his mind roved backward to hand-spikes and blocks and tackles at sea. The theory of navigation, which enabled the ships to travel unerringly their courses over the pathless ocean, was made clear to him. The mysteries of storm, and rain, and tide were revealed" Chapter 11, pp. 2-3. Unfortunately for Eden, life does not follow the laws of physics, and the sea is only predictable when calm. This incident also foreshadows how the sea, and his tumultuous life, is going...

Eden has idealized his memories of the sea, imagining tropical islands with scant attention to cold and forbidding waters, and now he imagines that the sea can be mastered, just as he thinks he can happily re-invent himself as a middle class young man.
In Chapter 37, Eden is still uncertain about his relationship with Ruth, and still using ocean imagery to express his confusion, as he says, "He glanced at Ruth for reassurance, much in the same manner that a passenger, with sudden panic thought of possible shipwreck, will strive to locate the life preservers" (Chapter 37, p. 2). Throughout the book, Eden has expressed all of his difficult or confused times with references to the sea. This imagery has reflected the difficulties he faces in life. He is unsure about who he is, and because of this, where his place in the world is. He remains throughout the book very much like a rudderless ship on a churning ocean, out of sight of land, his past, and not yet able to see the next shore, his future. He looks to Ruth as his life preserver, but Ruth will not make a sturdy one, as she knows exactly where she is in life. It is Eden who is adrift.

By the end of the novel it is no surprise when Eden ends his life by drowning in the sea he loved so much. He has concluded that all the goals he had set for himself were either false or took him in unexpected directions. The one true and abiding love he has had is for the sea, and in the end he chooses to become a part of it.

Bibliography

London, Jack. Martin Eden. Accessed via the Internet 9/2/05. http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/35/73/frameset.html