Arthur Morse brings Martin Eden to the Morse family home after Martin saved him from a street assault.

Martin meets Ruth Morse at dinner and falls immediately and completely in love with her.

Martin begins an intensive self-education program, studying grammar and formal English under Ruth's guidance.

Martin returns from an eight-month treasure-hunting sea voyage consumed by a new passion to write.

Martin takes a laundry job at Shelly Hot Springs resort after his money runs completely out.

Martin and Joe Dawson quit the Shelly Hot Springs laundry after months of soul-crushing toil.

Martin and Ruth share their first kiss on a hillside outside Oakland and confess their love.

Martin and Ruth become formally engaged, and the Morse family reluctantly and tacitly accepts.

Martin moves into a small room at Maria Silva's boarding house in North Oakland.

Martin meets the enigmatic Russ Brissenden at a Morse social gathering and the two quickly become close friends.

Martin and Brissenden attend a socialist meeting where a reporter mistakenly frames Martin as a socialist leader.

Ruth breaks off the engagement with Martin following a slanderous newspaper article ruining his reputation.

Martin discovers that Brissenden died by suicide after going to seek his consent to publish Ephemera.

The Shame of the Sun is published and catapults Martin to sudden literary fame and wealth.

Martin dies by suicide, swimming down into the dark ocean through his ship's porthole at night.

Martin Eden, a young sailor with no formal education, enters the upper-class Morse household and falls deeply in love with Ruth, resolving to educate himself and become worthy of her. After years of voracious self-study guided by Ruth, he discovers a burning passion for writing and dedicates himself entirely to a literary career. A brutal stint working in a resort laundry nearly breaks his spirit, but his love for Ruth sustains him through poverty and rejection until they finally confess their feelings and get engaged. His friendship with the dying poet Brissenden gives Martin an intellectual equal and a lifeline, until a false newspaper article labels him a socialist agitator and Ruth abandons him. Fame arrives suddenly and absurdly after years of struggle, but it feels hollow — those who ignored Martin in poverty now celebrate him. Adrift in disillusionment, Martin dies by suicide, slipping into the ocean from his ship's porthole on a voyage to Tahiti.

Martin Eden's rise and fall as a working-class writer.

Martin arrives home to Bernard Higginbotham's dingy store and room, struck by the contrast with the Morse home.

Martin encounters Lizzie Connolly and her friend at a theater while lurking outside hoping to spot Ruth.

Martin fails the high school entrance examination in every subject except grammar.

Martin submits multiple stories and poems to publishers and receives rejection after rejection.

Martin joins Joe for a night of drinking at the bar during the laundry stint, feeling the beauty of life return.

Martin cures Ruth's headache using a massage technique he learned while traveling in Japan and Hawaii.

Martin and Ruth go on a moonlit sailing excursion with her brothers, and Ruth leans against him as he steers.

Martin's sister Marian announces her engagement to Hermann von Schmidt, a German bicycle mechanic.

Martin physically extorts the five dollars the Transcontinental magazine owes him from its elderly editors.

Brissenden gives Martin a hundred dollars he won at the racetrack, saving Martin from starvation and debt.

Martin runs into Ruth and Norman on the street after the scandal; Norman threatens to call the police.

Martin telegraphs The Parthenon consenting to publish Ephemera upon learning that Brissenden has died.

Martin reunites with Lizzie Connolly at a bricklayers' picnic and finds he cannot return her devoted love.

Martin buys Maria Silva's house and purchases the dairy farm she always dreamed of owning.

Martin boards the Mariposa bound for Tahiti, catching a last glimpse of Lizzie watching from the crowd.

Behind Martin Eden's central story lies a web of relationships and setbacks that define his character and social world. From his first encounter with Lizzie Connolly at a theater to the grinding reality of laundry work and endless manuscript rejections, Martin navigates hardships utterly foreign to Ruth's sheltered existence. His sister's marriage, his landlady Maria Silva's quiet generosity, and Brissenden's racetrack winnings each help keep Martin alive during his darkest years. The slanderous article's fallout strips away nearly everything, leaving Martin without credit, company, or hope, until fame arrives with cruel irony. Once wealthy, Martin makes good on every promise he made in poverty — buying Maria's dairy, funding Lizzie's future, settling debts — before boarding a ship for Tahiti with Lizzie watching from the crowd.

The people and hardships shaping Martin's journey.

Martin resolves to educate himself and become worthy of Ruth after his first evening at the Morse home.

Ruth lends Martin her personal copy of Swinburne's poetry at the end of the dinner.

Mrs. Morse decides to use Martin to awaken Ruth's interest in men, certain Ruth will never actually fall for him.

Martin discovers Herbert Spencer's First Principles through park philosophers and reads it obsessively through the night.

Ruth asks to read Martin's work for the first time; he reads The Wine of Life and Adventure aloud to her.

Martin pawns his watch and bicycle and uses the money to buy stamps to mail out his manuscripts.

Martin's story The Ring of Bells is accepted by the Transcontinental for only five dollars, shattering his expectations.

Martin holds his own intellectually against Professor Caldwell at a Morse dinner, privately surprising Ruth.

Brissenden visits Martin the morning after they meet and warns him directly that fame will be poison to him.

Brissenden takes Martin to Kreis's bohemian intellectual gathering in San Francisco, the greatest evening of Martin's life.

Martin sends Brissenden's poem Ephemera to prominent magazines against his friend's explicit wishes and refusal.

Martin finishes Overdue and collapses from hunger as the typewriter company arrives to repossess his machine.

Publishers begin accepting all of Martin's manuscripts en masse; Martin draws an advance and gives Gertrude five hundred dollars.

Ruth visits Martin's hotel room to win him back; Martin refuses, accusing her of wanting only his fame.

Martin sets Joe Dawson up with a laundry business and bids his family and friends farewell before departing.

Martin Eden's tragic arc is defined by a chain of pivotal discoveries and choices that reveal both his extraordinary potential and his fatal isolation. His vow to educate himself after first meeting Ruth sets everything in motion, and his discovery of Herbert Spencer gives his restless mind a philosophical framework for the first time. Crucial turning points — Mrs. Morse's calculated social experiment backfiring, Brissenden's warning that fame will be poison, and Martin secretly submitting Ephemera against his friend's wishes — each push Martin further from every community he might have belonged to. The hollow arrival of literary success confirms what Brissenden predicted: the public embraces work performed years earlier, out of mass consensus rather than genuine understanding. Martin's refusal of Ruth when she returns for his money marks the final collapse of his belief in love, and he departs for Tahiti having arranged everyone else's future but having abandoned his own.