Understanding of the Call of the Wild

Why did you choose this particular book? Typical reasons might be:

1. It is a masterpiece by the famous author Jack London who I like very much.

2. I’ve heard of the name of the masterpiece even when I was in primary school.

3. As well as being both a nature story and an exploration of the human condition, The call of the Wild also operates on the level of myth, and it attracts me a lot.

4. The story of Buck touched me a lot. Buck’s story of defeating his bitter rival, replacing Spitz’s leadership, conquering the harsh living environment by his perseverance gives me lots of inspirations

5. I am fond of the subjects and this kind of book

                 Understanding of the Call of the wild

Abstract：

    In August 1896, a group of prospectors in the Yukon Territory hit what would prove to be the richest lode of gold in the world. This discovery soon drew hundreds of thousands of people to a gold rush in the frozen north. Eleven months later, in July 1897, Jack London, then a poor twenty-year-old with literary ambitions,, left his home in Oakland, California,, to join the hordes seeking fortune and adventure on the Klondike River. The Yukon in those days was filled out not only with fortune hunters, but with dogs., for dogs were the only means for transportation over the ice and snow. London and his party camped nearby, and frequently visited with the Bond brothers, friends form California who had also come to mine for gold. London took a special liking to a big dog, Jack, across between a St.Bernard and a shepherd. Five years after his return and launching his career as a writer, he published his most popular book The Call of the Wild, about a dog named Buck inspired by his friend’s dog, Jack. This thesis focuses on analyzing Buck’s adventurous life from which we can see the human condition at that time. This thesis will help us form more profound ideas on Jack London.

 Key word:  Jack London; gold rush; hardship; human; hero; wild

Understanding of the Call of the wild

1. Brief Introduction of Jack London

Jack London, an illegitimate child born in San Francisco in 1876 and reared in poverty across the bay in Oakland, California, had become the highest-paid, most widely read, and best-known writer in America by the time he was thirty-seven years old. In part, Jack London achieved such tremendous popularity because he was the quintessential American adventurer, a westerner living in a country that culturally thrived on and was identified with exploration of unknown territory. He lived an adventurous life and then used events from his own life as fodder for his profession as a writer.

2. Plot

In nineteenth century, the gold discovered in Alaska causes waves of people come to Alaska. These people need a lot of sled dogs to help them pull sleds. Therefore many dogs are sold to the north to take to the hard work of pulling sleds。

Buck, a Saint Bernard-Shepherd dog, lives a comfortable life in the Santa Clara Valley with his owner, Judge Miller. One day, Manuel, the Judge's gardener's assistant, steals Buck and sells him in order to pay a gambling debt. Buck’s life totally changed.  Buck is then shipped to the "man in the red sweater" to be broken. Then Buck is shipped to Alaska and sold to a pair of French Canadians named Fran?ois and Perrault (for $300), who were impressed with his physique. They train him as a sled dog, and he quickly learns how to survive the cold winter nights and the pack society by observing his teammates. He and the vicious, quarrelsome lead dog, Spitz, develop a rivalry. Buck eventually bests Spitz in a major fight, and after Spitz is defeated, the other dogs close in, killing him. Buck then becomes the leader of the team.

Eventually, Buck is sold to a man named Charles, his wife, Mercedes, and her brother, Hal, who know nothing about sledding nor surviving in the Alaskan wilderness. They struggle to control the sled and ignore warnings not to travel during the spring melt. They first overfeed the dogs, then when their food supply starts running out, they do not feed them at all. As they journey on, they run into John Thornton, an experienced outdoorsman who notices that all of the sled dogs are in terrible shape from the ill treatment of their handlers. Thornton warns the trio against crossing the river, but they refuse to listen and order Buck to mush or move on. Exhausted, starving, and sensing the danger ahead, Buck refuses and continues to lay in the snow not moving except for breathing and blinking. After being beaten by Hal, Thornton recognizes him as a remarkable dog and is disgusted by the driver's beating of the dog. Thornton cuts him free from his traces and tells the trio he's keeping him, much to Hal's displeasure. After some argument, the trio leaves and tries to cross the river, but as Thornton warned, the ice gives way and the three fall into the river along with the neglected dogs and sled.

As Thornton nurses Buck back to health, Buck comes to love him and grows devoted to him. Buck saves Thornton when the man falls into a river. Thornton then takes him on trips to pan for gold. During one such trip, a man makes a wager with Thornton over Buck's strength and devotion. Buck wins the bet by breaking a half-ton sled out of the frozen ground, then pulling it 100 yards by himself, winning over a thousand dollars in gold dust. Thornton and his friends return to their camp and continue their search for gold, while Buck begins exploring the wilderness around them and begins socializing with a wolf from a local pack. One night, he returns from a short hunt to find his beloved master and the others in the camp have been killed by a group of Yeehat Indians. Buck eventually kills the Indians to avenge Thornton. After realizing his old life is a thing of the past, Buck follows the wolf into the forest and answers the call of the wild.

3. Character Analysis

In order to make a better character analysis of Frederic Henry, I want to first briefly analyze other main characters that helped the development of the story and foiled the man in the novel.

Buck：The protagonist of our story, Buck is part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd. At the beginning of the story, Buck is a domesticated, but atypical dog who lives in the home of Judge Miller in California.

He is a massive, strong, regal dog with rich coat of fur. He is intelligent, courageous, self-confident, and even-tempered except when pushed too far. After being kidnapped and taken to Alaska to become a sled-dog, Buck's wild nature is reawakened, and he slowly returns to the ways of his ancestors. He is as fierce as any wolf in the wild. He is sparing with his affection, but protective of his weaker team members and capable of great loyalty. The chief theme of the novel is his growth through adversity. Not only is Buck the central character of the novel, but the story is primarily from his point of view.

Spitz: An experienced and clever Husky, Spitz is the original lead dog of Buck's dogsled team. He fears and hates Buck, whom he sees as a rival. He is eventually killed by Buck in a fight for leadership.

Curly: A sweet Newfoundland dog, one of Buck's first companions after he has been kidnapped. She is unexpected killed for trying to make friendly advances toward another dog.

Dave: Another one of Buck's first companions, he is one of the most knowledgeable dogs on the team. Mostly aloof, new life springs into him the moment he is placed in a harness. Not only does he help teach Buck the procedures, he also embodies pride in his work.

Sol-leks: Another member of the team. Like Dave, he is aloof until attached to a sled. At first only wary of being approached on his blind-side, poor treatment makes Sol-Leks more and more unfriendly.

Billie: Another member of the team. He is good-natured and sweet, and he shows Buck how to make a bed in the snow. He is killed by Hal.

Joe: Another member of the team, Billie's brother. Unlike Billie, Joe is always snarling and defensive.

Pike: Another member of the team, often referred to as "the malingerer." He rarely gets up on time, and he will steal food and generally undermine the expedition. When Buck becomes leader, he forces Pike to shape up and become a helpful member of the team.

Dub: Another member of the team. He is an awkward blunderer who gets blamed for Buck's thievery.

Dolly: Another member of the team, Dolly goes mad after being bitten by wild huskies, tries to attack Buck, and is killed by Francois.

Skeet: A motherly Irish setter who belongs to John Thornton. She nurses Buck through his recovery and engages him in play.

Nig: A huge black dog who belongs to John Thornton. He has laughing eyes and a good nature.

Lone wolf: The "wild brother" that Buck meets in the forest. He understands Buck's wild nature.

Judge Miller: Buck's original owner. He is presumably a sedate and prosperous man with a large family.

Manuel: The gardener's helper on Judge Miller's estate. He kidnaps and sells Buck to fund his gambling habit.

Red sweater: Also known as the man with the club. He metes out discipline to all dogs that will be sold for sledding. Ruthless in his repeated beatings of unruly creatures such as Buck, he maintains composure and control. He does not beat out of cruelty, it seems. Rather, he looks to teach these dogs the lessons that will allow them to survive in this harsh environment. Buck never forgets the law of the club.

Francois: A Canadian Frenchman, the original dogsled driver. He is knowledgeable and understanding of his dogs, but still very strict.

Perrault: Francois's superior and an agent of the Canadian government. He is admired by Buck for his fearlessness in blazing their trail, disregarding the threat of ice that might break.

Hal: A young man of nineteen or twenty who purchases Buck and his team once they have used up their usefulness to the government. He has ambitions to find gold, but his incompetence and laziness are out of place in the harsh environment. He has no understanding of the dogs, and mistreats them terribly.

Charles: Hal's brother-in-law, a weak figure who does not say much. He basically follows Hal around and does what he is told.

Mercedes: Sister of Hal, wife of Charles. She is exceedingly self-centered, and spends most of her time crying and complaining.

John Thornton: The man who rescues Buck from Hal's cruelty. He is by far the most admirable human character in the story, kind but full of the uncompromising strength that is necessary to survive on the trail. John is the ideal master because his nature is so dog-like.

    Pete: One of John Thornton's partners.

Hans: One of John Thornton's partners.

"Black" Burton:A notorious troublemaker, he picks a fight in a bar and John Thornton steps in.

Matthewson: The man who bets John that Buck cannot pull a ton of weight.

Jim O'Brien: The man who loans John the money to make the bet against Matthewson.

Yeehats: The group of Valley Indians that raids the camp of John Thornton and his companions and kills them. They are terrorized when Buck returns and kills most of them. From then on they speak of a dog inhabited by the devil that roams the forest.

4. Comment:

On an individual level, Buck seems to parallel Jack himself. Like Buck, London was born and grow up in north California. After leaving home, he travelled deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness, as Buck does,, observing the depth to which the human beings can sink in their treatment of each other and the savagery of nature itself. As a young man, London began to experience the violence and hardship caused by nature Jogos Dora and man in the jobs he took on for survival: working on ranches, farms and canneries in California, where living and working conditions were abominable. He got his glimpse of hardship in the sweatshops operating around San Francisco. His search for adventure brought him into contact with the violence of nature during a seal-hunting in Hawaii, where he was also shocked by what man had done to man. He also got glimps of human degradation during his march across the country in what was known as “Kelly’s Army” to protest economic conditions and the plight of the poor. For the portrait of Buck, who was caged and chained after his kidnapping,     London seemed to draw on his own experience during the march: his imprisonment for vagrancy in Erie County, Ohio. Like Buck, he was aghast at seeing nature in the raw in the Klondike during the gold rush. Even this, however, was appealing as what he witnessed in London, England, shortly after he returned from the Klondike and while he was composing The Call of the Wild. His letters reveal that he could scarcely take in the extent of human suffering among the lower classes in a country so wealthy and “civilized”. This experience strengthened his commitment to socialism, for he saw what civilization, specially capitalism and governmental incompetence, had done to those on the bottom of the economic ladder.

The number of dog characters in the dog characters in the novel equals the number of human characters. At the beginning of the story, we meet two small house dogs and miscellaneous hunting dogs on Judge Miller’s ranch; and at the end, among John Thornton’s dogs are two favored pets, killed by a group of Indians called Yeehats. In between, eleven dogs with distinct personalities are introduced: the naive and friendly Newfoundland, Curly, who is slaughtered by a pack of dogs in the port city of Dyea upon their arrival in Alaska; Spitz, the lead dog and Buck’s bitter rival; Dave, the old dog who want to be left alone and who tries to insist on working even while he is dying; Billee, the friendly appeaser; bad-tempered Joe; old, one-eyed, angry Sol-leks; Dolly, who goes mad; Pile, the shriker; Dub, the thief; and Koona and Teek, the two dogs who join the team just in time to perish the ice.

Moreover, the story is not only a story of dog’s adventurous transformation, it is also a story in which a dog’s life reflects the truth about the human condition. In this case, the story dora games bears some resemblance to the literary from known as the beast fable, which gives human characteristics to an animal in order to illustrate or satirize human society or human nature.

As well as being both a nature story and an exploration of the human condition, The call of the nature also operates on the level of myth. When Buck defeats Spitz, he insists on the lead and performs his job in rare fashion. His legendary staus grows when he breaks the sled out of the ice. At the end, he has become the Ghost Dog. He is no longer just a dog, but a supernatural being.

The ending was neither tragic nor comedic. It was significant and thoughtful. He kills human (savages), the noblest creatures on earth, and he knew what it means. Buck answers the call of the wild finally and joins the pack. The ending was kind of legendary: Buck is successful in passing his excellent genes to future generations. In legends Yeehat’s folk tell about a Ghost Dog who leads a pack of wolves through mysterious forests.

5. Conclusion:

This book is an all-time classic. It's told from the viewpoint of a dog, something that instantly appeals to an animal lover like me. It has a lot of graphic violent imagery, especially toward the end, so it might offend some of the more squeamish readers. Also, it was written a very long time ago, so if we're not familiar with old literature, some of the language may sound a bit archaic. But it's worth the read; it starts slow, but it becomes really fascinating as the climax draws near.

We can read London’s adventure tale The call of the Wild from the aspects following: adventure and myth, the Alaskan Panhandle and the Yukon Territory, the Yukon gold rush, the sled dog, cooking games online and the most important and human’s relationship with animals. The most vivid and touching aspect the story shows us is the complex relationships between man and nature, and animals’ struggle with their own nature in man’s world. So The Call of the Wild is really a masterpiece worth our in-depth reading and researching.