Omar Gonzalez A01196042

A Piece of Steak

What is the purpose of this book?

A Piece of Steak by Jack London tells the story of Tom Kings, a box fighter who struggles to get income for his family. I feel that the purpose of this book is to put our lifestyle into perspective with that of a professional athlete and to get the reader more emphatic about the struggles Tom goes through. Ultimately I believe that this was a way in which the author showed that we should never take anything for granted.

In this story, the author is trying to portray the hard life of a box fighter. He develops the story around the fact that Tom used to be one of the best in the business but then due to aging and new up-and-comers he's having a hard time getting enough income to provide for his family and how he may not have as much matches left as he thinks.

Some issues raised are not only his aging and losing dominance in the ring but also how Tom had come from battling the old aging guys to him becoming one of those old aging guys, in the story they called him “the grizzled old chopping-block that guarded the highway to fame and fortune”

They sure give out a lot of experiences from Tom's past, the portray him as a hero that can't go on forever, he used to be the World Heavyweight champion and now he's the unsung hero. Some evidences of this is how they show how Tom has changed his perspective about everything and he cares more about it now that he is old in comparison from when he was young. They've organized this in such a manner that really makes you feel bad that Tom can't go on for much longer and that he probably won't be able to fight too many more matches.

The author thinks about the world in a way that needs years of experience to look at it from that point of view. He goes on about how experience is payed with youth and when you finally have experience you have no youth left. I do think this thinking is justified because no one can be born good, everyone needs experience to get better. And you have to get older while you get this experience, its the way life is supposed to be.

We can be empathic about what he says by trying to think what it must feel like to be a boxer in your last years and how he portrays Tom to be a intelligent man who wants to fight more matches.