The Industrial Revolution was a time filled with hard working conditions, often dangerous to the lives of the workers. These people experienced long, challenging hours in mills or other factories just to provide their families with their daily needs. These factories consisted of laborers, not only where there adults, but there were also children of around seven years of age. Jack London’s “The Apostate” is about a boy named Johnny, who undergoes this specific childhood hardship. Over the years slaving away in the factories, Johnny has improved to the point where he has become nearly as perfect as a machine. Through Johnny, Jack London shows that the Industrial Revolution was a time of harsh and demeaning working conditions that destroyed
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He was born into the work, and by the time he was seven he became independent and equal to his mother, and fully embarked in his adolescence. Johnny was practically the father of the family, constantly having to raise and provide for his siblings. Because of this, Johnny fully embarked in, "Manhood, full-blown manhood, had come when he was eleven, at which time he had gone back to work on the night shift for six months. No child works on the night shift and remains a child” (128). London makes it clear that Johnny has lost all chance of experiencing a normal childhood. He was not able to experience joy of play, or obtain education that comes with childhood. Johnny began to acquire an emotionless character, due to his lack of boyhood and social experience. One example of this is when London is explaining how Johnny was once in love, but has now “…grown too old and tired to love” (127). He is about seven years old here, an age where most children are just beginning to know what love is, and Johnny has already lost all hope in ever finding love. Loss of emotion, loss of joy, and, loss of dreaming all hit Johnny before he was in his teenage years. A child 's life is to be full of dreaming fantasy and hope for the future, but all that Johnny had, was a blank mind, focusing only on becoming a perfect worker. “From the perfect worker he has evolved to the perfect machine” (121). London is saying that during the Industrial Revolution children slaved away to the point in which that small glimpse of childhood slowly drifts away into an endless cycle of despair, that turned the youth into the elderly in a matter of
He was born into the work, and by the time he was seven he became independent and equal to his mother, and fully embarked in his adolescence. Johnny was practically the father of the family, constantly having to raise and provide for his siblings. Because of this, Johnny fully embarked in, "Manhood, full-blown manhood, had come when he was eleven, at which time he had gone back to work on the night shift for six months. No child works on the night shift and remains a child” (128). London makes it clear that Johnny has lost all chance of experiencing a normal childhood. He was not able to experience joy of play, or obtain education that comes with childhood. Johnny began to acquire an emotionless character, due to his lack of boyhood and social experience. One example of this is when London is explaining how Johnny was once in love, but has now “…grown too old and tired to love” (127). He is about seven years old here, an age where most children are just beginning to know what love is, and Johnny has already lost all hope in ever finding love. Loss of emotion, loss of joy, and, loss of dreaming all hit Johnny before he was in his teenage years. A child 's life is to be full of dreaming fantasy and hope for the future, but all that Johnny had, was a blank mind, focusing only on becoming a perfect worker. “From the perfect worker he has evolved to the perfect machine” (121). London is saying that during the Industrial Revolution children slaved away to the point in which that small glimpse of childhood slowly drifts away into an endless cycle of despair, that turned the youth into the elderly in a matter of