Analysis Of Jack London 's ' The Call Of The Wild '

In schools and counties all over, the book The Call of the Wild is being banned from 8th grade curriculum. For reasons such as that the book is based on true events, that the book describes actions of animal abuse that still occur today, and that banning books causes illiteracy and it caused by illiteracy, I do not believe that The Call of the Wild should be taken out of 8th grade curriculum.

The Call of the Wild, on the surface, is a story about Buck, a four- year old dog that is part Shepherd and part St. Bernard. More importantly, it is a naturalistic tale about the survival of the fittest in nature. Throughout the novel, Buck proves that he is fit and can endure the law of the club, the law of the fang, and the laws of nature.

The call of the wild is about a dog named buck hat goes through many owners and then goes to the wild and joins a wolf pack. The central idea in The Call of The Wild is the way you treat animals can tell about you and your personality.

     The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, is a classic piece of American literature. The novel follows the life of a dog named Buck as his world changes and in turn forces him to become an entirely new dog. Cruel circumstances require Buck to lose his carefree attitude and somewhat peaceful outlook on life. Love then enters his life and causes him to see life through new eyes. In the end, however, he must choose between the master he loves or the wildness he belongs in.

He began again to daze off staring at the fire and imagining the hairy man crouched down in the summer sun. The Call of the Wild written by Jack London is an adventure book that follows the life of a once tamed dog known as Buck to a dog that has retrogressed to a more primitive state during the Yukon Gold Rush. Buck who eventually answered the call of the wild had to go through many difficulties to get there.The theme power of the primitive is reinforced by the retrogression of a dog despite the love of mankind.

In his novel, The Call of the Wild, Jack London wants us to see the step beyond the survival of the fittest to the complete adaptation to and domination of a once unfamiliar and unforgiving environment. Using a third-person, limited omniscient narrator, the cold, icy Yukon wilderness, and a journey from lazy farm life to the deadly work of a sled dog, we see Buck, a Saint Bernard/Scotch Shepherd mix slowly return to his ancestral roots. As Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin states in her book The Call of the Wild: A Naturalistic Romance, “The book deals less with the concept of evolution than with that of devolution” (Courbin pg 57). London asks us to believe that happily domesticated farm dog, Buck, can not only survive life as a sled dog in the Yukon, but can become completely in tune with his primitive inner self, and ultimately thrive as a leader of a wolf pack.

Jack London was born in 1876 in San Francisco, California. When his father abandoned the family his mother remarried and he took his stepfather’s last name. London discovered early on that it was a struggle to make a living and he worked various jobs like a sailor, oyster pirate and fish patroller. Troubles began in 1893 during the national economic crisis and London joined a march of unemployed workers. After he was put in jail for vagrancy for a whole month he decided

The book I selected to read during this semester is the literary classic The Call of the Wild, a 1903 novel by award-winning author Jack London. I chose to read this story because it is a classic novel and the heroic tone of the novel appealed to me. The novel tells of an initially pampered dog, Buck, and the progression of his tendency to revert to the inner instincts of fierce violence and extreme competition instilled in him. In the process, Buck goes through several different masters before finally landing with the right one. The Call of the Wild is made interesting by the literary devices used in the novel, the simple and robust tone used by London, and the process that the protagonist Buck undergoes in reverting back to his

Hearing and Responding to the Call of the Wild At the beginning of The Call of the Wild, Jack London presents a quotation from "Atavism," a 1902 poem by John Myers O'Hara that encapsulates one of the main motifs of the novel: “Old longings nomadic leap, Chafing at custom's chain; Again from its brumal sleep..[brumal: winter] Wakens the ferine strain.”. [ferine: savage, fierce, wild] One characteristics of naturalism is Determinism theory of Heredity. In the novel heredity is mainly represented in “atavism”.

Over the course of The Call of the Wild written by Jack London, Buck’s several owners help shape the dog that he turns out to be. Although the owners are only mentioned for a short period of time each (excluding Thornton), each of them made a huge and immediate impact on the story and Buck himself. There were five main owners who contributed to Buck’s evolution, including the Judge, the man in the red sweater, Perrault and Francois, the trio (Mercedes, Hal, and Charles), and of course John Thornton. Overall, these five people had a profound influence on Buck and his new way of life. Buck’s owners frequently change, yet their differences shape the two personalities that he ended up being having: the feisty, wild, and hunting dog and the warm

Jack London was born in San Francisco in 1876, and won a large audience for many of his novels. He was a writer who lived a tough life, he marched cross-country in Coxey’s Army, took part in the Klondike gold rush, covered the Russo-Japanese War and the Mexican Revolution as a reporter. He was raised by a single mother because his father denied his paternity. London was poor growing up and at the age of fourteen he began working. He held hard jobs, working in a canning factory, jute-mill, serving as a deckhand and pirating oysters in the Bay. His experiences persuaded him to join the Socialist Labor Party, he had endowed with immense physical energy but managed to write fifty volumes, one of them was entitled, “To Build a fire”.

Jack London, an American author known for his thrilling adventure stories, showed the world that even an exciting story that takes place in exotic settings can include all the intricacies of great literature. This is seen in many of his stories with the implementation of symbolism, many times a recurring theme in his work. Also, London used many ideas of the day such as Darwinism and Spencerism in his writings in order to better portray his views. However, perhaps one of the most telling signs that London wrote good literature was through London's mastery of a rising literary movement known as naturalism.

* Dave- a hardworking dog who runs behind Buck in the team and ‘teaches’ Buck by nipping him to correct his mistake. Dave is

Jack London’s attitude in the text made it very apparent how he felt about life. In retrospect, he said that you do what you have to do to survive. One of the very first examples of why he believed this is in the novella, when Buck was taken from his castle in the Santa Clara Valley. Buck had no idea where he was, where he was going to, or why. He soon found out that he was going to be a sled dog and was auctioned off; Buck did not like that. He fought with the man in the red sweater and he finally surrendered so that he did not get beaten to death. London expresses that Buck just did what he had to do by saying, “He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken” (Call of the Wild, London) Another example of when Buck

The author of The Call of the Wild, Jack London, heavily influenced the literary world with his inspirational works, specifically surrounding the theme of Naturalism. London followed the same theme, among others, in many of his works, focusing on how the environment affects its inhabitants and the details of the environment itself. The descriptions of nature London took the time to include in his books and the way they affect the story is what makes his works truly remarkable. He strongly committed himself to his works and put a great deal of effort into researching them to ensure accuracy. In The Call of the Wild, there are three main themes that are made evident: naturalism, coming of age, and loss of innocence. Naturalism is what London is most known for, and is shown through his attention to the surroundings of his characters. Coming of age was displayed through specific life changing events that altered Buck’s perspective. And finally, loss of innocence can be seen in the gradual, but sure decline of Buck’s morals.