Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

60. Dystopian: London's Iron Heel, the 1984 of 1906!

                                                                    The Iron Heel: An Early 1984

           In his Introduction to London's The Iron Heel, Max Lerner writes, "The Iron Heel was the 1984 of its day. Like Orwell's book it was a nightmare vision of a future political struggle and life-style, of a tyranny established over the mind, of the freezing of society into status orders, of the dehumanizing of man" (Lerner vii).  This was in 1906. The first chapter contrasts the peacefulness of nature with the restlessness of mans anticipating an "impending storm" (3). Speaking through  Avis, the female narrator, London admits having witnessed how "poor humans attain our ends, striving through carnage and destruction to bring lasting peace and happiness upon the earth" (4). Throughout the novel, London traces Avis' emotional transformation or coming of age as she ultimately realizes the corruption of society through its greed and lust for power. The author uses imagery, irony  and characterization and the epistolary technique to create a tone of victimization, loss and betrayal. The protagonist  initially alludes to Ernest Everhard as the eagle of human freedom who planned the Second Revolt which pitted the international labor against the united oligarchies known as The Iron Heel, yet failed (3-4), the consequence of which power, fear, and corruption  have dominated world government for the past three hundred years (25). The narrator recalls her first meeting with Everhard at her father's estate in 1912, and describes him as a "fearless" and "direct" (7) "social philosopher" (6). Everhard tells the young lady's wealthy capitalist friends that they do not [really] know the working class" (18), and that her affluent guests accept the capitalist doctrines because their ideas  sustain their their positions of power and authority (19). The heroine then recalls how her father first met Ernest Everhard who was speaking at the time at a gathering of socialists (27). At the meeting with her father's associates,  among  whom include men of the cloth, Everhard proceeds to indict the Church as an instrument of the status quo that  fails to support the working man's needs by remaining silent rather than speaking out on their behalf  (30). Everhard tells the gathering that the "factory system" has led to the deterioration of the family, and as conditions worsen, it is now "a tale of blood" (31). The Church has been "dumb" to the needs of the working class since the eighteenth-century Industrial Revolution (32), and alludes to unconscionable child labor practices currently in the United States (33). If, however, a minister responds to their needs, the Church fires him as a troublemaker who disturbs the peace and harmony of the status quo (34).   The heroine and her father agree to let Ernest show them discriminatory practices in their own local industries, the Sierra Mills,  and they encounter a man named Jackson whose arm was caught and shredded in a machine there, yet the company's insurance lawyer, one of their close associates named Colonel Ingram, won the case against Jackson because of his greater experience and his close friendship with the Judge Caldwell (42).The young woman visits Jackson's home and witnesses dire poverty, depression, and bitterness. Jackson wife and children depend solely upon him. (42), yet even his foreman would not testify on his behalf because he , too, had a family with children and could not run the risk of losing his job as well (44). The company policy, foreman Jack Smith told him, was to fight all dangerous claims to the bitter end" (45).  It is a "society based upon blood"! (48). Even newspaper editors and owners were paid not to run those dangerous stories (49).  Reporters as well  "kept Jackson's case out of the papers." As London expressed it, "You will find them all slaves of the machine" (49). In an interview, Colonel Jackson said that  might , not right, determines the law  (55). Newspapers are "solid" with the corporations who only print their perspectives (56), and thus, the idea of a free and open society is a delusion or "a lie" (57). Ernest speaks at the wealthy and influential  Philomath Club, and there learns that the contents of their meetings were never disclosed to the public, and that he had been invited so that Colonel Van Gilbert, a prominent corporate lawyer, could verbally and intellectually destroy him (66), and how the attorney  cleverly interpreted the law for his own purposes(66).  In his defense, Ernest recounts the hypocrisy that he had encountered such as the lavish materialism of churchgoers and their leaders, the men who "invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their diatribes against war," yet would hire gunmen such as the Pinkertons to shoot and kill "strikers in their own factories" (70). Ernest tells the club members that a revolution is coming to save the working class, and his audience that they will use violence if necessary to protect their interests! (83). "Our reply will be couched in lead. We are in power. Nobody will deny it. By virtue of that power we shall remain in power," Mr. Wickson replied. "What if we don't turn over the government to you after you have captured it at the ballot box?" he continued.  In response,  Ernest replied, "And we shall give you an answer in terms of lead" (84).