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Wyatt Chase

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The Call of the Wild

by Jack London

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Wyatt Chase said: " A well written book is meant to drag the audience into the text, bring the story alive, and show these scenes to the audience by creating these images with abstract details and characters. The Call of The Wild by Jack London, I was pleased to notice A well written book is meant to drag the audience into the text, bring the story alive, and show these scenes to the audience by creating these images with abstract details and characters. The Call of The Wild by Jack London, I was pleased to notice did satisfy those requirements.

John Griffith Chaney, also known as Jack London, was born on January 12, 1876. London was born and raised in San Francisco, California before he left to work on the Klondike. He began writing just after his time on the Klondike, in 1893, when his mom gave him the idea to submit a story from his time gold mining to a writing contest in the local paper. Since then London exploded as an author publishing many world renowned novels like the Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Martin Eden.

Buck, a powerful dog, a St. Bernard, lives on the Miller’s estate in the California Santa Clara Valley. He lived a simple and peaceful life while on the Miller’s estate, but all of that changed when Buck was kidnapped by an employee of the Miller’s and sold to dog traders, who trained and taught him to become a sled dog in the Klondike. Once he was sent north, Buck was exposed to an entire new environment: a vicious, cruel, and dangerous one. After some time he adjusts himself to his new home, he begins to scavenge for food and sleep under the snow on cold winter nights. It does not take long until Buck asserts his dominance and becomes the leader of his pack, by fighting and killing Spitz. Once he became the leader of his pack, he and his entire team were sold to a group of American gold hunters - Hal Charles and Mercedes. Due to the inexperience of Buck’s new owners, he and many of his other fellow sled dogs begin to starve. Once Buck realized that his fate would be death if he stuck with the other dogs and his owners, he separated himself from his pack and later witnessed the death of his two owners and other four fellow sled dogs. At this point, now Buck’s third owner, he was brought into the life of John Thornton. Unlike the rest of his owners, Buck respects and cares for his new owner. As time passes by Buck and Thornton further strengthen their relationship, but at this point Buck had already heard the call of the wild. For sometime Buck thought about leaving Thornton, but it wasn’t until one particular day when he returned to his camp to find his owner slaughtered by Yeehat Indians. After seeing that the Indians had killed his owner, Buck went onto fight and kill several Yeehat’s. Since Thornton had now been killed, Buck was able to follow the call from nature and live like his natural ancestors. Every year, Buck the leader of his pack, comes back to that same spot John Thornton was killed: always keeping him close to his heart.

Often times in books and or novels the main character of the plot is a person, yet in London’s piece ‘The Call of the Wild’, Buck, a dog holds the role of the main character. While originally I found the choice to have a K-9 play the main role of a story was foolish, after reading the book I have come to sympathize and support that choice made by London. At the beginning of the novel we are introduced to Buck as just an average house dog, but as the plot of the story evolves he, Buck, is put into harsh and cruel environments which gives the audience the opportunity of having sympathy and sorrow for him. During his time as a domesticated dog we see Buck overcome challenges, fight obstacles, and take control of his own life. Because London uses a K-9 as his main character he is able to create a sentimental attachment between Buck and the audience. A dog is said by many to be “a man’s best friend”, given that information London before writing his story has created a theoretical relationship between his characters and audience. After dissecting and analyzing the text of this story, I would consider the idea of London’s to have Buck hold that position of the main character the best thing he could have done. If he were to have wrote this piece in a different manner, I believe London’s story would have been both read and written in a significantly different manner.

Life-and-death battles highlight The Call of the Wild’s narrative, serving as recurring reminders of the dangers of life in the Klondike, but most importantly as markers of Buck’s transformation into his new environment. When Buck first sets foot in the north, he is exposed to the gruesome scene of a friendly dog named Curly being attacked and killed by a pack of Huskies. Shortly after, Buck found himself in a rivalry of his own with Spits which ended with the two of them engaged in a single combat; a struggle which the author offers great detail to create and show this sense of ferocity. An example of the vicious detail used by the author can be seen when he says “It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buck wanted it. He wanted it because it was his nature, because he had been gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the trail and trace--that pride which holds dogs in the toil to the last gasp, which lures them to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their hearts if they are cut out of the harness. This was the pride of Dave as wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with all his strength; the pride that laid hold of them at break of camp, transforming them from sour and sullen brutes into straining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on all day and dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall back into gloomy unrest and uncontent. This was the pride that bore up Spitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who blundered and shirked in the traces or hid away at harness-up time in the morning. Likewise it was this pride that made him fear Buck as a possible lead-dog. And this was Buck's pride, too.” London uses this particular incident to introduce this as a part of Buck’s reformation; in one sense, he is also fighting against his old persona by giving in to his competitive and wild nature. Having established his dominance with this victory, Buck must continue to prove himself in battles with not only other dogs but from humans, bears, and moose. When Buck kills the Yeehat Indians who had killed John Thornton, he is fighting for the first time against mankind, a sure sign of his final assimilation into the wild. While being able to identify a motif like such which London uses in his piece was not made possible until the end of the piece, but these hidden messages and themes in his writing are what make London’s tools and applications unique to his own writing style.

Throughout the piece London was able to maintain my focus by using an array of underlying themes and motifs along with his ability to create a relationship between Buck and his audience with the help of personification and other literary devices. After both reading and reflecting on this piece, while I would not consider this story my favorite piece of literature, I would most definitely both recommend and praise the work done by London in his thrilling piece ‘The Call of the Wild’. ...more "

Nov 06, 2017 12:11PM · see review