The Iron Heel

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and racism.

“The soft summer wind stirs the redwoods, and Wild-Water ripples sweet cadences over its mossy stones. There are butterflies in the sunshine, and from everywhere arises the drowsy hum of bees. It is so quiet and peaceful, and I sit here, and ponder, and am restless.”

The novel’s opening lines describe the beauty and serenity of nature and function as an antithesis to the narrative’s subsequent depictions of brutality and turmoil. The lines juxtapose the desire to secure a peaceful future with the inevitable violence of revolution that Avis faces on the eve of the Second Revolt. Avis later describes feeling “oppressed by the peace and quiet” (1), which emphasizes that her world is one where peace is so rare that it is unnerving.

“The distinction between being native born and foreign born was sharp and invidious in those days.”

In a footnote, Anthony Meredith alludes to anti-immigration sentiments in the early 1900s, which saw over 14 million immigrants enter the United States in the span of two decades. Meredith frames the hostility against immigrants as outdated and obsolete in the utopian future, where international solidarity has presumably replaced the divisiveness of nationality and race. The comment adds complexity to the history of socialism and labor unions in the United States and Jack London’s controversial legacy on race. London upheld racist ideologies on Anglo-Saxon superiority and social Darwinism that contradicted some of the anti-colonial and anti-capitalist themes in his works. Scholars continue to analyze the contradictions in London’s work and political life.