A Piece of Steak
Encyclopedia
"A Piece of Steak" was a short story written by Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...

 which first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in November of 1909. It took him about half a month to write it and earned him five hundred dollars.

Plot summary

The story deals with a boxer
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

who knows he is too old to continue in his line of work. He fights one last night against a younger man with more stamina, and loses for what he knows to be the lack of nutrients from a piece of steak in his belly, which he could not buy because he was too poor.

Analysis

The story shows the sickening nature of poverty. It also deals with the issue of ageing and the inevitability of decline toward an eventual death. Additionally, it illustrates the old archetypical story of the mature, experienced fighter struggling against an ambitious, powerful contender.
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