The Iron Heel

The Iron Heel is a dystopian novel by American writer Jack London and was first published in 1908. London was a prominent writer and activist of socialist causes and is best known for his adventure novels The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906). The Iron Heel is considered an early example of modern dystopian fiction and was cited by George Orwell as a portentous work on fascism. Framed as a found text discovered 700 years in the future, the novel recounts the vicissitudes of socialist revolutions from the perspective of Avis Everhard, an activist and the wife of revolutionist Ernest Everhard. Through Avis’s words and the annotations of Anthony Meredith, a scholar from the future, London explores the systemic brutality of capitalism, the exploitation of the working class, and the struggles to challenge an authoritarian regime known as the Oligarchy. 

This guide refers to the 1908 Macmillan Company edition, available on the Internet Archive.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, death by suicide, and racism.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with a Foreword by Anthony Meredith, a scholar from a future utopian society called the Brotherhood of Man (BOM). Meredith writes from the year 419 BOM in the city of Ardis. He introduces the main narrative as the Everhard Manuscript, a work that was found hidden in an oak tree and written by socialist activist Avis Everhard 700 years ago. 

Avis’s story recounts the turbulent events from 1912 to 1932 when she and her husband, revolutionist Ernest Everhard, took part in the First Revolt, a failed attempt to overthrow the authoritarian regime known as the Oligarchy, or “the Iron Heel.” Meredith presents the manuscript as a documentation of the past’s mistakes and inhumanity. He notes that Avis’s narrative ends abruptly just before the Second Revolt and concludes that she was executed. It would take three more centuries to finally overthrow the Iron Heel. The manuscript is published with Meredith’s annotations, where he offers corrections and historical contexts of the events for his contemporary readers. His annotations are composed of both fictional and real-world references. Meredith contends that Avis has exaggerated the significance of her husband’s role in the Revolution, yet he believes that her narrative captures the feelings of the time and can evoke sympathy. 

Avis’s manuscript begins on the eve of the Second Revolt in 1932. Ernest has been dead for two months, and Avis is anxious yet confident that the next day’s revolution will finally succeed in overthrowing the Oligarchy. To ease her restlessness, she recounts how she first met Ernest in 1912, beginning the main narrative of the novel.

Avis’s first impressions are that Ernest is an arrogant and unsophisticated misfit of the working class. When Ernest expounds on the injustices of capitalism and extols the virtues of class solidarity, Avis is inspired by his passionate pleas and becomes enamored with his confidence and intellectual vigor. Her father, physics professor Dr. John Cunningham, and their friend Bishop Morehouse share Avis’s enthusiasm, and all three convert to the socialist cause. 

Ernest takes Bishop Morehouse on a tour of low-income neighborhoods in San Francisco, California, and exposes him to the systemic exploitation of the working class. The Bishop begins to preach against class disparity but is quickly silenced. Avis interviews workers and lawyers and comes to a deeper understanding of how corporations use their power and intimidation to rake in profits and deny any accountability for workers’ conditions. During a lecture at a socialite’s home, Ernest delivers a scathing critique of the capitalist class and their greed and hypocrisy. The audience, all members of the ruling class, accuse Ernest of demagoguery. One member, Mr. Wickson, vows to crush any resistance that threatens their power and wealth. Wickson proposes denying elections and utilizing the military to tighten their control, foreshadowing the rise of the Oligarchy and their authoritarian rule over society. 

Avis, Dr. Cunningham, and Bishop Morehouse all experience the repercussions of their association with Ernest and socialist activism. Avis is ostracized from high society, and Cunningham is forced to resign and loses his wealth and home. The Bishop is committed to a psychiatric hospital and is only released when he reverts back to his traditional sermons. Ernest tells them that the Oligarchy’s power stretches not only through the police and the law but also through the banks, education, and religion. He believes that capitalism is destined for failure and that the international community of the proletariat will rise, take control of the machines, and distribute wealth equally. 

Ernest and Avis marry and move into a small apartment with Avis’s father. Dr. Cunningham publishes a book criticizing the corporatization of higher education, and the text is banned. The Oligarchy suppresses other socialist publications and burns down a socialist publishing house. Bishop Morehouse sells all his belongings and disappears. Avis later encounters him in the streets clandestinely feeding the poor. He is discovered by the authorities and re-committed. 

In 1912, Ernest and some of his colleagues in the Socialist Party are elected to Congress. They organize a successful international general strike, but their victory is short-lived. The Oligarchy retaliates by bribing union leaders and creating a labor caste system where favored workers in the capitalist industries receive privileges while the general working class suffer. The Oligarchy also develops a new class of soldiers called Mercenaries who live and act above the law. Ernest realizes that their revolution is no match against the crushing power of the Iron Heel. He is framed for a terrorist bombing, and he and his comrades are imprisoned. The socialists infiltrate the Iron Heel and, with the aid of their network of spies, free Ernest and his comrades from prison in 1915. 

Ernest and Avis remain in hiding for two years and later become secret agents in the Iron Heel. They plan an elaborate First Revolt for 1918, but their preparations are disrupted when a traitor informs the Oligarchy of their plans. The Oligarchy devises a pre-emptive strike in Chicago, Illinois, and instigates riots and bombings in the city to enrage the masses and revolutionists. The Oligarchy antagonizes their own supporters in the favored labor castes and the Mercenaries to further breed resentment and chaos. Chicago becomes a site of bloodshed and repression as the police and Mercenaries are sent in to crush the rebellion. Tens of thousands on both sides are killed, and Avis is unable to distinguish between her comrades and enemies. Dr. Cunningham disappears and is never found, and the Bishop’s body is found among the dead. Laborers from other neighborhoods are conscripted to Chicago to rebuild the city for the rich. 

Avis and Ernest reorganize with their comrades to plan a Second Revolt. Avis’s narrative ends mid-sentence, and Meredith’s footnote explains that she was likely captured and executed. He laments that historians will never know how Ernest died.