John Barleycorn (novel)

1st edition cover
(The Century Company)

John Barleycorn is an autobiographical novel by Jack London dealing with his struggles with alcoholism. It was published in 1913. The title is taken from the British folksong "John Barleycorn".

Themes

In this memoir, there is the theme of masculinity and male comradeship. Those themes are especially evident in one scene of the memoir where the men are at a pub. Jack London goes to the pub with his acquaintance, Nelson, who is well known around the town as being the prime definition of masculinity. Jack goes to the pub to drink with Nelson because he wants to prove his masculinity to this other manly man. Jack London also wants to become friends with Nelson because this will also prove his masculinity. The theme of friendship is shown through them buying each other drinks which connects to alcohol.

The Role of Alcohol

Alcoholic beverages play a big role in facilitating the themes listed above. To prove one's masculinity, one feels the need to drink more to show only a “manly man” can drink that much. Also, alcohol appears to be the basis of John and Nelson’s friendship. They are only shown as friends as they share a beer at the pub. While at the bar, Nelson buys John Barleycorn several rounds of drinks. Then, after six drinks John Barleycorn decides to make an appearance in the place of Jack. John Barleycorn is Jack London's alter-ego and he only appears to come out when Jack London is feeling drunk. Therefore, John feels he has to pay Nelson back when in actuality he does not have the money to do so. By having John Barleycorn buying Nelson drinks, it in a way emphasizes his masculine image because it gives off the image that he has enough money to buy all the drinks because he has a high-paying successful career, when he really does not have the high-paying career. John Barleycorn stated, “Money no longer counted. It was comradeship that counted” (p50).¹ However, in another way, it also de-masculinizes John because he is in a way buying his friendship with Nelson through the drinks. The role of alcohol is very prevalent in this memoir because Jack London is the sober version of himself and John Barleycorn is the version of Jack London that leaks drunkenness everywhere.

Seeing pink elephants

The first recorded use of pink elephants as the stereotypical hallucination of the extremely drunk occurs at the beginning of chapter two:

There are, broadly speaking, two types of drinkers. There is the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers.

This is contrasted to drinkers such as the narrator, who are possessed of imagination and become drunk more in brain than in body. To them, John Barleycorn sends clear visions of the eventual pointlessness of life and love and struggle.

See also

• The Three-Day Blow
• The Sun Also Rises
  

References

1. London, Jack. John Barleycorn New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.

External links

• John Barleycorn by Jack London' at Project Gutenberg