HISTORY OF THE NOVEL

Oral tradition: Epic Poems

Romances of Middle Ages: Verse (16th)

Renaissance: Picaresque Prose (17th )

Adventure Novels: (18th-Robinson Crusoe)

Plot Novels: (18th-19th A Christmas Carol)

Journey Novels: (19th-Huckleberry Finn)

Elements of a Novel

A novel is a fictional long story, between 100-500 pages.

Huckleberry Finn

A novel uses all elements of storytelling:•plot

•character

•setting

•theme•point of view

The novel first appeared as a genre of literature in England in the eighteenth century.

•1719 Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

Rob

inso

n C

ruso

e

Though novels share all the elements of a short story, they differ in their scope...

ShortStory Novel

Oneconflict

Manyconflicts

FewCharacters

Many Characters

OneTheme

ManyThemes

ShortRead

LongRead

Why do people enjoy novels?

•They entertain the reader.

•They teach the reader a little about themselves and about the whole they live in.

•The reader feels like he/she gets to know the characters, cares about them, and gets involved in their lives.

ByJack London

George Washington Carmack, Tagish Charlie, and Skookum Jim made a discovery that brought tens of thousands of people streaming into the northwestern part of Canada.

They discovered gold in Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River, in August 1896.

The quantity of the gold in thestream was remarkable.

Much of the gold was easy to get, using simple mining techniques.

The Klondike Gold Rush, as it came to be called, attracted thousands of hopeful miners.

Many came by ship to Skagway, Alaska, where they purchased supplies at inflated prices and outfitted themselves for the trip north.

Winter was the easiest season during which to travel because the rivers were frozen, but winter temperatures regularlyregistered 50 degrees below zero.

Few miners came away wealthy. Many who actually did find gold spent it all while celebrating in boomtowns such as Dawson City.

Miners were often the targetof lawless men who were willing to rob or murder to get a share of the riches.

The elements claimed many victims as inexperienced prospectors froze, starved, or got lost in the forests and snowfields.

The territory’s rushing rivers also claimed many victims.

All of these conditions Jack London encountered when he arrived at the Chilkoot Pass in 1898 as a twenty-year-old aspiring writer.

Traveling north to the gold fields he experienced the hardships and lived for a while in the northern frontier town of Dawson.

Here, where there were over fifteen hundred dogs, it was not uncommon for dog fights to break out in the streets.

These animals, whose teams could pull up to five hundred pounds along ice trails, and could travel at a rate of twenty-five miles per hour, had become the most important element in the pursuit of gold.

Jack London drew from his personal experience in the North.

Buck is believed to be modeled after an actual animal, owned by Belinda Mulroney, the proprietor of the Fairview Hotel in Dawson.

The Protagonist Buck

“Lived in a big house…

…in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley

“…a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen

Spitz

…friendly, in a treacherous sort of way…

…smiling…while he meditated some underhand trick…

Sol-lecks Curly Pike Dave Dolly Billee Joe

Judge Miller--Manuel Perrault Francois Hal Charles Mercedes Yeehats John Thornton

Travel the Yukon territory through Wind Blizzards Starvation Fights-to-the-Death Famine Fear-Hatred-Unconditional Love

Santa Clara Valley Klondike Gold Rush Route ‘Frisco Seattle( See Klondike) Yukon Dyea Beach Dyea Canyon Lake Lebarge(See larger map-Klondike)