The Familiar Uncommon Spectator: Jack 's Female Watchers In and the Abysmal Brute

Scott Emmert

In recent decades, 's significant contributions to American literature have gained an increasing amount of critical recognition. Among these acknowledged contributions is his status as the first "serious" writer of sports fiction in America. Biographer James Lundquist, for example, notes that London "was one ofthe first writers to take sports seriously as the raw material for novels and stories" (179), and critic Michael Oriard goes further, identify­ ing London the "father of American sports fiction" meant for adult readers (Dreaming 9). Specifically, London's accomplishments as a writer ofsports lit­ erature rest mainly on his boxing fiction. 1 As one biography puts it, "London virtually invented the modern prizefight story" (Labor and Reesman 157 n.7), this invention being represented by the short stories "A Piece ofSteak (1909) and "The Mexican" (1910) and by the short novels The Game (1905) and The Abysmal Brute (1913). Always mindful of his audience and of his sales, how­ ever, London crafted this inventive prizefight fiction so as not to offend his readers with the brutality ofboxing, a sport so violent and decadent that it was deemed unfit as a subject of serious literature until London "gave it literary respectability" (Oriard, Dreaming 9). When describing what happens inside the square ring, London seeks a measure of respectability for boxing by tempering his descriptions ofviolent action with a compassionate depiction ofhumanity. London's naturalistic box­ ing fictions, in the way of most naturalist stories, seek to evoke the reader's sympathy for protagonists at the mercy of fo~ces beyond their control. "A Piece 138 Aethlon XXII:l / Fall 2004

of Steak," for instance, features an aging prizefighter who faces inevitable de­ feat at the fists ofyounger man; that he does so without rancor or malice and with a stoical understanding of his own waning powers makes him a sympa­ thetic character. In The Game, Joe Fleming is a young, handsome, confident boxer on the rise. Recently engaged, he promises his fiancee that he will give up prizefighting after his latest bout. But the boxing game, ruled by chance as much as ability, cannot always be won by the most skillful (or even the best looking) man: the beast-like John Ponta kills Joe with a single "lightning lucky punch" (97). The pathos in the plight of these characters is not the only way London mitigates the brutality of boxing to encourage the sympathy of readers, how­ ever. In his boxing novels, London introduces two female characters, women each in love with a prizefighter, to evoke pity and respect for the male protago­ nists. In both novels, these female characters secretly watch their lovers fight, __ and through their reactions London reinforces existing notions ofgender not only to ensure the respectability ofhis subject matter but also to dramatize his ideas about infrangible masculine and feminine essences and to present his characters as mythic archetypes. Besides lending service to his stories dramatically and thematically, the device ofplacing female spectators in usually all-male boxing clubs was likely suggested to London by his own personal and journalistic experience and by contemporary newspaper stories that emphasized the rare and sensational at­ tendance bywomen at prizefights. Use ofsuch extraordinary real events is com­ mon in American fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; more particu­ larly, this use reflects the desire among naturalist writers to depict unusual experience found in everyday life. Frank Norris, a theorist as well as a leading practitioner of literary naturalism, expresses this preference for the unusual when he insists in the essay "A Plea for Romantic Fiction" that "the characters ofa naturalist tale ... must be twisted from the ordinary" (72). By basing dra­ matic situations onwhat Ihave termed "familiar uncommon" experience, natu­ ralist writers were able, in part, to combine the probability ofrealism with the extraordinary qualities ofromance, much in the manner ofthe yellow press of the time, which reported sensational stories as part of day-to-day events. Fa­ miliar but uncommon events significant in naturalist fiction include the real murders that inform Frank Norris's McTeague (1899) and Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy (1925), and the incidents ofshipwreck found in Norris's Vandover and the Brute (1914) and London's The Sea-Wolf (1904). In the late 19th century, the familiar uncommon occurrence of women watching boxing matches was also often reported, largely because such occur­ rences were transgressive. Historian Dan Streible summarizes this coverage: The figure of the lone, disguised woman at ringside became a recurring one in tabloid stories of the late 1890s; some were intended to be comical, others sensationalistic. In the Corbett- Emmert / The Familiar Uncommon Spectator 139

Fitszimmons era, such anecdotes peppered the pages ofthe widely read boxing bible, the Police Gazette. Colorful items such as 'How a Female Saw a Fight: in which a cigarette-smoking blonde sat near ringside dressed as a man, drew upon boxing lore which dated back to at least the days of John L. Sullivan (when his girlfriend, Ann Livingston, reportedly attended the Sullivan­ Charlie Mitchell fight 'dressed as a boy'). (31) Women also attended two later prizefights upon which Jack London based the bout portrayed in The Game, the 1901 fight between Jim Jeffries and Gus Ruhlin and the .1905 match between Jimmy Britt and (Oriard, "Introduction" Game xi-xv). One newspaper report mentioned the presence of women at the 1901 contest noting that "'[0]ccasionally women hide their fea­ tures behind thick veils [and attend] prize fights in '" (qtd.. in Oriard, "Introduction" Game xiv). Other newspaper accounts were less neutral in their reporting offemale spectators at boxing matches. Coverage ofthe 1905 fight called the women who attended "misplaced" and questioned their de­ cency by applying to them the epithet "jaded" (qtd. in Oriard, "Introduction" Game xiv-xv). In addition to remarking on female spectators at boxing matches, newspa­ pers at this time also presented stories ofactual female boxers. Frequent stories in the Police Gazette, for instance, featured "female pugilists" mainly for the purpose ofridiculing them as unfeminine (Streible 31). Not all press coverage ofthe time, however, sought simply to satirize female boxers. Two stories that appeared in 1892 in The Examiner (San Francisco), for example, present more straight-forward accounts ofwomen prizefighters. One ofthese stories, head­ lined "Defeated by a Woman," reports that a woman in Indianapolis "dressed in tights and short skirts" knocked out a man in "nine desperate rounds" to win "a purse of $500." The only hint of ridicule in this account is that the woman is called an "Amazon" who "tipped the beam at 166 pounds." A later report ofa so-called "prize fight" between two women is more tongue-in-cheek, as can be judged by its alliterative headline, "Pugilists in Petticoats." This story from Springfield, Ohio, narrates a three-round fight between "the wives oftwo respectable business men" engaged in a feud. Although the writer exhibits amused scorn for these women who scratch and pull hair during the fight, he also appreciates the technical skill of one boxer who "feinted with her right until she saw an opening"-before he concludes with the shocking detail that "[t] he women are both mothers offamilies." For his fictional accounts ofboxing, Jack London did not choose to ques­ tion the morality of female boxing spectators, nor did he choose to depict women in the ring. The explanation that he doubted the athletic ability of women might account for this latter choice. Yet, that explanation seems not to square with the fact that London sparred with his second wife, Charmian. In­ deed, as biographerAlex Kershaw writes, London was attracted to Charmian in 140 Aethlon XXII:1 / Fall 2004 large measure because she would avidly compete with him in a variety ofgames and sports, including boxing. Throughout their relationship, Charmian gamely accepted physical challenges from London, even though, as Kershaw notes, "Jack more often than not won their bouts with clinical efficiency" (133). A more likely explanation for why London never wrote about female box­ ers, choosing instead to write about women as boxing spectators, and then only under certain conditions, may be found in his thematic purposes. His first boxing novel, The Game, carefully presents his male and female protago­ nists as exemplars ofmasculine and feminine ideals. Genevieve Pritchard is, in keeping with the contemporary ideal, described as "sheerly feminine, tender and soft and clinging, with the smouldering passion of the mate and the motherliness of the woman" (26). One obvious illustration of her feminine credentials is her lack of understanding about boxing; she does not under­ stand, for example, how odds are set on Joe's chances ofwinning, nor does she comprehend, when first watching Joe in the ring, the action of the sport, its subtleties and strategies. Throughout The Game, London preserves Genevieve's essential innocence, her inviolable femininity. She must therefore remain a passive spectator, one who is doubly disguised: She not onlyviews Joe's prize­ fight screened by a wall and through a peephole, but she also dresses like a man to gain entry to the boxing club. After Joe is killed in the ring, Genevieve­ still in disguise-is hurried from the club lest her name appear in the newspa­ pers. In the end, she can be comforted only by Mrs. Silverstein, for only a woman's compassion can possibly console her. She will get no comfort from the invincible Game and "the grip it laid on men's souls" (102). Any direct contact with masculine contagion-in the realm ofsport, sex, or journalism­ would sully Genevieve and deny to The Game its depiction ofgender purity. As a witness to a boxing match, the fictional Genevieve is more sheltered than the real Winifred Sweet Black (Bonfils) (1863-1936), a reporter who may have provided London with the idea of placing a female spectator chastely behind a wall. Black began her pioneering career for William Randolph Hearst's newspapers writing under the pseudonym, "Annie Laurie." Considered by his­ torians to be the first American woman to report on a boxing match (Belford 104), Black is also noteworthy in the history of journalism for her exposes of official corruption and her brave reporting from Galveston, Texas, after a hur­ ricane in 1900. Black gained access to Galveston by dressing as a boy, and in addition to filing news reports from there, she helped to organize relief efforts financed by Hearst (Mills 26; Beasley and Gibbons 118).2 She did not have to dress in male clothing, however, to report on a boxing match in 1892.3 Appearing on June 5th ofthat year in The Examiner, her story, headlined "As Women Never Know T1:lem, " emphasizes the hidden, presum­ ably "truer" nature of men that emerges during prizefights. Black is able to witness the fight while being carefully protected from view: "The management ofthe club was kind enough to build a little box for me over the heads ofthe Emmert / The Familiar Uncommon Spectator 141 crowd. There was a long, narrow slit in the box, so that I could see perfectly without once being seen. My escort smuggled me into the little box by a pri­ vate staircase." From this vantage point, Black observes "a world into which women cannot enter" and concludes that men "have a being that women can­ not understand." Far from condemning men, however, Black accepts that they may wish to gather in places from which women are barred, for in such places they may appear "simply unrestrained ... simply natural." Her attention on the boxers produces at first excitement, then at the sight ofblood a "sick and dizzy feeling," and finally admiration for "two trained athletes" and "brave fellows." Tellingly, her female companion cannot bear to watch the fight, but Black, adhering to her professional obligations, pays close attention through­ out. In manyways, this real-life account models the experience ofGenevieve in The Game. Like Black, Genevieve experiences a combination of revulsion, ex­ citement, and admiration. Eventually, for example, she discerns Joe's strategy in seeking to clinch with Ponta to avoid taking the full effect of his punches. She is animated by a series ofpunches Joe delivers: "She, too, was out ofher­ self; softness and tenderness had vanished; she exulted with each crushing blow her lover delivered" (79-80). Here, London can depict Genevieve's excitement safel)', for it comes as a reaction to herfiance's protecting himselfagainst Ponta's animal attack. Genevieve is not a mere spectator, there to enjoy the violent action for its own sake. Instead, her reactions allow London to emphasize the fundamental differences his novel establishes between men and women, be­ tween visceral excitement and a deeper emotional involvement. Besides its dra­ matic effect, and ofcourse the way it clinches the theme ofdeterminism, Joe's death permanently divides his two protagonists and figuratively separates the essential "man" and "woman." When he is knocked down, Genevieve thinks ofJoe: "Her lover had been knocked out. In so far as disappointmentwas his, she shared it with him; but that was all. She even felt glad in a way. The Game had played him false, and he was more surely hers" (98-99). But ofcourse, in the end, Genevieve cannot possess her man. One importantway inwhich London's fiction does not follow Black's real­ life account is in the novel's openness about the sexual charge ofboxing. When Genevieve first sees Joe in his boxing trunks, her modesty conflicts with her natural desire: "She sat alone, with none to see, but her face was burning with shame at sight of the beautiful nakedness of her lover. But she looked again, guiltily, for the joy that was hers in beholding what she knew must be sinful to behold. The leap of something within her and the stir of her being towards him must be sinful. But it was delicious sin, and she did not deny her eyes" (61). London is quick, however, to provide an acceptable excuse for her lust: "The pagan in her, original sin, and all nature urged her on. The mothers of all the past were whispering through her, and there was a clamor of the children unborn. But ofthis she knew nothing. She knew only that it was sin, 142 Aethlon XXII:l / Fall 2004 and she lifted her head proudly, recklessly resolved, in one great surge of re­ volt, to sin to the uttermost" (62). London's depiction ofsexuality here is pur­ posefully heterosexual, for sex and gender are inseparable-we can always tell the women from the men. While The Game presents sex in absolute terms to enhance its naturalistic determinism, The Abysmal Brute depicts an essentialist view of gender to fur­ ther its reformist impulse. Oriard defines the novel's goal simply, calling it "a muckraking expose of corruption in the prize ring presented as a fairy tale" ("Introduction" Abysmal vii). To underscore the need for reform, London de­ picts two pure characters in danger ofbeing sullied by the sleaze surrounding prizefighting. Pat Glendon is a latter-day mountain man, uncorrupted by ur­ ban living and its alleged civilization, who emerges on the boxing scene like a force ofnature. With little effort he defeats every opponent and rises rapidly in the heavyweight ranks. When he discovers that his manager has been cheating by telling him to end bouts· in predetermined rounds and then by betting on when the fight will end, Pat revolts. In a dramatic speech he exposes "the ring [as] rotten-from top to bottom. It is run on business principles, and you all know what business principles are" (153). In addition to responding from an outraged moral purity, Pat objects to the "rotten" business ofboxing at the inspiration ofa woman, Maud Sangster. Based on , Maud is, as Oriard indicates, a New Woman ("In­ troduction" Abysmal xii), and London depicts her as a physical match for Pat. A partial list of her accomplishments includes the following: "She had gone in for outdoor sports, won the tennis championship ofthe state, kept the society weeklies agog with her unconventionalities, walked from San Mateo to Santa Cruz against time on a wager, and once caused a sensation by playing polo in a men's team at a private Burlingame practice game" (73). She is also the daugh­ ter of a wealthy man and an accomplished journalist. Yet, London places her securely within the bounds of accepted feminine demeanor and behavior: "Now it must not be imagined that Maud Sangster was a hard-bit­ ten Amazon. On the contrary, she was a gray-eyed, slender young woman, of three orfour and twenty, ofmedium stature, and possessing uncommonlysmall hands and feet for an outdoor woman or any other kind ofa woman. Also, far in excess ofmost outdoorwomen, she knew how to be daintily feminine" (74­ 75). Like Genevieve Pritchard in The Game, final proofthat Maud Sangster is all woman is that she does not understand boxing. She nonetheless secures an interview with Pat during which they are instantly attracted to one another. Out of journalistic curiosity and growing affection, Maud attends one ofPat's fights. Dressed as a man, she sits ringside, but no one in the crowd identifies her: On the night of the fight, Maud Sangster was guilty of a more daring unconventionality than any she had yet committed, Emmert / The Familiar Uncommon Spectator 143

though no whisper of it leaked out to shock society. Under the protection of the editor, she occupied a ring-side seat. Her hair and most ofher face were hidden under a slouch hat, while she wore a man's long overcoat that fell to her heels. Entering in the thick ofthe crowd, she was not noticed; nor did the newspaper men, in the press seats against the ring directly in front of her, recognize her. (107-108) Pat, however, does recognize Maud, and he is mortified when she wit­ nesses his opponent take a dive to satisfy the big gamblers. Earlier, Pat had reassured Maud that boxing was not crooked, but after the fight, "her eyes were bleak and hard, and there was neither recognition nor expression in them" (116). Pat feels Maud's scorn and decides to expose the corruption ofboxing in part to regain her trust. Although Maud is likely based on Charmian, she also bears a striking simi­ larity to a female journalist who wrote for The Examiner. Little is known about Alice Rix, but evidently she was an upper-class woman who, unusually enough for the time, wrote under her real name. Streible writes that Alice Rix's "name was not a pseudonym but belonged to a San Francisco society woman whose surname was known as one ofthe prominent families who had settled the Bay Area after the 1849 gold rush" (35).4 London's description ofMaud Sangster parallels what is established about Alice Rix: Maud was "a certain society girl gone adventuring into journalism" in the employ of a prominent San Fran­ cisco newspaper (70). A more significant parallel lies in Rix's having seen and reported on a boxing match, more specifically on the veriscope or film version of the 1897 Jim Corbett-Bob Fitzsimmons title fight. 5 In a feature story for the Sunday Examiner entitled "Alice Rix at the Veriscope," Rix reassures both male and female readers that women spectators were either revolted or bored byboxing. 6 Contrary to the opinion ofa man quoted in the feature that '"[t]urn women loose on the chance ofseeing a prize fight without getting herselftalked about and there'll be no holding them back;" Rix reports that at least one woman covered her eyes during the film. Most women found the exhibit dull, for it lacked, as certain men complained, the sounds and color (ofblood espe­ cially) of a live fight. Rix concludes her report simply: "The San Francisco woman sat calmly before the Veriscope. So did the San Francisco man." This lack ofenthusiasm is similar to the cold look that comes over Maud Sangster after she witnesses a fIXed fight. By showing women clearly unmoved or unimpressed by the spectacle of boxing, both Alice Rix and Jack London find another way to preserve definite notions ofacceptable feminine and mas­ culine behavior. A combination ofAbysmal Brute and principled gentleman, a masculine ideal, Pat Glendon must protect the purity of his sport as well as that ofhis woman. After Pat and Maud elope, spending an idyllic honeymoon in the Northern woods, Pat refuses to allow Maud to attend the fight at which he plans to expose the corruption ofthe game. "'I'd like to have • 144 Aethlon XXII:l / Fall 2004

you;" Pat says. '''But it's sure to be a rough time. There is no telling what may happen when I start my program. But I'll come straight to you as soon as it's over'" (139). As a married woman, Maud is no longer the active crusading journalist; she is, rather, an inspiration for reform and the supportive wife for Pat whom she cooingly refers to as her "Big Man" (135). To be sure, today's readers may object to Jack London's views of gender, which are as open to criticism as his beliefs about racial purity and hierarchy. Nevertheless, as the first American writer to explore the intersections ofgender and sports with meaningful purpose, London provides an excellent beginning point for further examination ofgender issues within American sports litera­ ture and culture. For one thing, the figure ofthe passive female spectator that reinforces normative gender roles certainly recurs in sports narrative. Further­ more, London's use ofthe familiar uncommon in his boxing novels provides a link between sports and serious reality, allowing readers to accept athletic spec­ tacle and achievement as relevant to adult interests andrelationships. The "fairy tale" aspects of The Abysmal Brute notwithstanding, London's boxing fiction may be analyzed as dramatizations ofabstractions, as since!e attempts to make ideas as exciting as 12 rounds in the ring.

Works Cited Beasley, Maurine H. and Sheila J. Gibbons. Taking Their Place: A Documentary History ofWomen and Journalism. Washington D. C.: The American UP, 1993.

Belford, Barbara. Brilliant Bylines: A Biographical Anthology ofNotable Newspaperwomen in America. : Columbia UP, 1986.

Binheim, Max, ed. Women ofthe West: A Series ofBiographical Sketches ofLiving Eminent Women in the Eleven Western States ofthe ofAmerica. : Publishers P, 1928.

"Defeated by a Woman." The Examiner [San Francisco] 3 Jan. 1892,5.

Kershaw, Alex. Jack London: A Life. New York: St. Martin's P, 1997.

Labor, Earle and Jeanne Campbell Reesman. Jack London. Rev. ed. New York: Twayne, 1994.

Laurie, Annie (Winifred Sweet Black Bonfils). "As Women Never Know Them." The Examiner [San Francisco] 5 June 1892, 13.

London, Jack. The Abysmal Brute. 1913. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2000.

_____. The Game. 1905. Lincoln: U ofNebraska P, 2001.

Lundquist, James. Jack London: Adventures, Ideas, and Fiction. New York: Continuum, 1987.

Mills, Kay. A Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Page. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1988. Emmert / The Familiar Uncommon Spectator 145

Norris, Frank. "A Plea for Romantic Fiction." The Literary Criticism of Frank Norris. Ed. Donald Pizer. Austin: U ofTexas P, 1964.71-2.

Oriard, Michael. Dreaming of Heroes: American Sports Fiction, 1868-1980. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1982.

______. "Introduction." The Abysmal Brute. Lincoln: U ofNebraska P, 2000. v-xiv.

______. "Introduction." The Game. Lincoln: U ofNebraska P, 2001. vii-xviii.

"Pugilists in Petticoats." The Examiner [San Francisco] 15 Feb. 1892,4.

Rix, Alice. "Alice Rix at the Veriscope." The Examiner [San Francisco] 18 July 1897, 22.

Ross, Ishbel. Ladies ofthe Press: The Story ofWomen in Journalism by an Insider. New York: Harper &1 Brothers, 1936.

Streible, Dan. "Female Spectators and the Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight Film." Out ofBounds: Sports, Media, and the Politics of Identity. Eds. Aaron Baker and Todd Boyd. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1997. 16-47.

Notes

1. London also wrote significant nonfiction accounts ofprizefights, the most famous being his coverage ofthe Jim Jeffries-Jack Johnson fight in 1910. He is also credited with introducing surfing to the American public by virtue ofhis description of"surf-riding" in chapter 6 ofThe Cruise ofthe Snark (1911) entitled "A Royal Sport." As Michael Oriard notes, however, despite London's putative place as the first serious writer ofAmerican sports fiction, his "boxing novels were not prominent among his bestsellers" (Dreaming 12).

2. Winifred Black was therefore both a pioneer in investigative journalism and in sports journal­ ism by women. A precursor to so-called "muckrakers" such as Ida Tarbell, Black is also impor­ tant in the history ofwomen's sports reporting both for covering sports herself (historian Kay Mills calls sports "forbidden turf" for female journalists) and for choosing her successor at Hearst's newspapers, Adela Rogers St. Johns (Belford 107), who has also been identified as a prominent early female sports reporter (Mills 219). Despite her status as the first American woman to cover a prizefight, and despite having covered other sporting events in her career, such as a prizefight in El Paso "that was supposed to be the last one in America" (Ross 66), in most accounts ofWinifred Black's career in journal­ ism her work as a sportswriter is given short shrift. A typical list of her achievements may be seen in the book Women ofThe West, a who's who meant to supply "the names ofthose women of the western states who have rendered special services and contributed in any way to the public welfare in their respective communities" (Binheim Preface n.p.). The entry for "Bonfils" elaborates on her accomplishments this way: "Entered journalism in 1890; has been reporter; telegraph editor, Sunday editor, assistant city editor, special writer; investigated leper settle­ ment, Molokai, Hawaii, 1892; raised funds for founding several charities; investigated public hospitals in San Francisco, inaugurating many reforms; helped found Junior Republic for Boys, New York; conducted California Children's Excursion to World's Fair, Chicago, Ill.; managed hospitals and relief work for Galveston flood victims ... . Organized and managed national and international fight on narcotic evil" (Binheim 25). Clearly, here Black's success is mea­ sured by the social good she fostered, something perhaps more expected of women than of men. 146 Aethlon XXII:1 / Fall 2004

3. Earlier in her career, Black did disguise herself as a lower-class woman to gain entry to a San Francisco hospital in order to expose its poor treatment ofindigent female patients (Mills 26). The tactic of disguise in the service of journalism and literature was common in the 1890s. Stephen Crane, for example, disguised himself as a "tramp" to acquire a firsthand account of Bowery life. See his sketch "An Experiment in Misery" (1894).

4. Apparently, Rix also had a career in journalism ofsome duration and importance. One early history mentions her as having traveled in 1899 to Hawaii to cover the annexation ofthe new U.S. territory (Ross 578), and StreibIe places her among other, better-known, female report­ ers-sa-called "sob sisters"-who specialized in expose journalism (36). Significantly, histo­ ries ofearly female journalists tend to emphasize their subjects' appearance. Typical is an ac­ count of Winifred Black that identifies her as "a handsome girl with reddish hair and finely modeled features" (Ross 61). As has been shown, London is also careful to describe Maud Sangster's physical attractiveness.

5. The fight originally took place on March 17, 1897, in Carson City, Nevada. Fitzsimmons beat the favored Corbett to become heavy-weight champion.

6. Jack London could have read Rix's story, for he did not leave San Francisco for theYukon until later in that month ofJuly 1897.