Story summary
アダム以前のあらすじ
- 読了8分
- 8 parts
- 音声は近日公開
A city boy dreams every night of forests, snakes and a friend named Lop-Ear in a world before humans.
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アダム以前の概要
要約：読むのに8 minかかります
- 読書時間
- 約2 h 35 min2 h fast, 3 h slow
- 所要時間
- 36,500語
- ライブラリ内の難易度
- やさしいです short sentences, plain words
- 初版刊行年
- 1906by ジャック・ロンドン
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). 古典を読むのにかかる時間 · 更新日
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アダム以前 in short
Before Adam follows one thread from start to finish. A modern man explains that his dreams hold the memories of a distant ancestor, and then he tells that ancestor's life. Big-Tooth grows from a frightened child in a tree nest to a young hunter.
What アダム以前 is about
What if every night you woke from a world you had never seen? A city boy falls asleep and wanders endless forests. At five years old he goes to a circus, looks into a lion's cage, and knows the beast at once.
Before Adam is a short novel by Jack London, the American writer who died in 1916. A man explains his dreams and then tells the life they hold. It belongs to a distant ancestor he calls Big-Tooth, who lives among the Folk and fears something new in the northeast. You get a story of friendship, mischief, love and danger, and the ideas about heredity that shaped the author's age.
対象読者. You will love this if you enjoy adventure with a big idea behind it, tales of friendship and survival, or any picture of how people might have lived before cities, language and fire.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A city boy dreams a world he never saw
The book opens with a child who cannot explain his nights. He grows up in a city, yet he never dreams of houses or streets. He dreams of huge forests, and he knows every tree in them by its leaf and twig. The first time he sees a real oak, he feels the jolt of meeting an old acquaintance.
Fear is the heart of these dreams. In them he is small and hunted, always ready to bolt. Snakes strike from the grass and chase him higher into the branches. A tawny lion leaps on a bull in tall grass and a horse at the waterhole, and the dreamer hears the crunch of bones.
The proof comes at a circus when he is five. A roar shakes the animal tent, and he tears his hand from his father and runs. Yet at the lion's cage he bares his teeth, dances up and down, and screams taunts, and the caged lion roars back. At eight he tells a friend about Lop-Ear and the Fire People, and the playmates stare at him. He learns to keep silent. What kind of mind holds memories it never lived?
A boy who knows what he has never seen is carrying a memory older than himself.
- 2無料で読書を始めます
Racial memory explains the dreamer and his freakish gift
In college the narrator finds a key.
- 3無料で読書を始めます
A baby in a nest meets a boar
The narrator warns that his dreams come in a jumble.
- 4無料で読書を始めます
Thrown from the tree, the boy finds the horde
The Folk have no names, so the narrator gives some.
- 5無料で読書を始めます
Laughter and cunning keep the Folk alive
The Folk are weak, yet they survive.
- 6無料で読書を始めます
Small inventions arrive by play and chance
The Folk do not plan.
- 7無料で読書を始めます
Red-Eye is the throwback the horde cannot control
Red-Eye is what the narrator calls an atavism, a throwback to the older, tree-living type.
- 8無料で読書を始めます
Two friends cross a river and meet the Fire People
The greatest adventure begins by accident.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Big-Tooth The ancestor who lives in the narrator's dreams, named for his large canine teeth. He wants safety, friendship and, in time, the Swift One.
- Lop-Ear His friend and cave-mate, who can prick up only one ear. He is cautious, playful, inventive, and stays by Big-Tooth when it counts.
- Red-Eye A giant, hairy, red-eyed throwback who beats his wives and bullies the whole horde. He is Big-Tooth's lifelong enemy.
- The Swift One A gentle, wise, remarkably quick young female who gathers acorns alone and guards the secret of her tree shelter.
- The Chatterer Big-Tooth's monkeyish stepfather, a coward who torments him and finally throws him out of the family tree.
- Marrow-Bone The oldest figure in the horde, who first thinks of carrying water in gourds and clings to life.
- The Fire People A neighbouring people with bows, fire and speech. They stand for the future, and the Folk fear them.
How it ends (spoiler)
The Fire People raid the carrot patch, and later they smoke and shoot the Folk out of their caves. Big-Tooth and the Swift One escape with Lop-Ear through a vast swamp. The survivors settle by the sea, where Lop-Ear drowns. The couple flee again, find a high hidden cave, and raise a family there. The narrator ends with one last dream: Red-Eye, alive, sits among the Tree People.
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『アダム以前』についての質問
What is Before Adam about?
It is about a modern man whose dreams hold the life of a distant ancestor, Big-Tooth. He tells of his friend Lop-Ear, the bully Red-Eye, the Swift One, and the dangerous Fire People in a world before modern humans.
Who is Big-Tooth in Before Adam?
Big-Tooth is the name the narrator gives his ancestor. The Folk have no names, so the narrator invents them. The modern man sees through Big-Tooth's eyes in his dreams and tells his story in the first person.
What does racial memory mean in Before Adam?
It is the idea that experiences are stamped into heredity and passed down, so descendants dream of what ancestors lived. The narrator uses it to explain falling dreams and his own unusually vivid memories of a far-off life.
Is Before Adam a true story?
No, it is a novel by Jack London, who died in 1916. It mixes adventure with the evolutionary ideas of its time, and it imagines early human ancestors rather than reporting facts.
Who are the Fire People and the Folk?
The Folk are Big-Tooth's hairy, tree-and-cave dwelling kin with a few dozen sounds. The Fire People are a neighbouring, more advanced people with bows, speech, and fire. The Tree People are the hairier apes beyond.
この版を引用します
London, Jack. Before Adam. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/before-adam.
London, J. (2026). Before Adam. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/before-adam (Original work published 1906)
London, Jack. Before Adam. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/before-adam.
@book{london2026before,
author = {London, Jack},
title = {Before Adam},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/before-adam},
note = {First published 1906}
}
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