Call Of The Wild As A Zeitgeist Analysis

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.

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.

“ From far away drifted a faint, sharp yelp, followed by a chorus of a similar sharp yelps (London 105).” In the book, Call of the Wild by Jack London the main character Buck faces a retrogression. Buck goes from being king like to a wild rebellious dog. Buck goes through this change because men found gold. The men needed dogs like Buck. Buck was half saint Bernard and half scotch-shephard, so he was a gigantic dog and had a thick coat to survive in harsh weather like in the Klondike. So Buck is sold and beat he learns to obey the law of club and fang to be formed into a sled dog, but ends up forming a bond with a man his name was John Thornton . Thornton died and Buck answers the call and runs in the wild becoming alpha of the wolf pack. As Buck was

London’s novella Call of the Wild tells the story of Buck’s transformation from a domesticated pet on a vast Santa Clara Valley estate to the primal beast he becomes in the bitter regions of the Klondike wilderness. London delivers Buck’s journey in several key plot events and uses various settings and narration styles to tell the story in a way that allows a reader to easily become invested in Buck’s character and well-being from the viewpoint of a loyal and lovable pet, as well as, that of a creature returning to its primal roots and ancestry. Settings in Call of the Wild consist of generally harsh and vicious locations, situations previously unknown to Buck, and various hostile persons and dogs. As well as a variety of settings, London

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.

This year’s summer reading options were marvelous. It was a hard choice to choose what book to read, but in the end, I chose The Call of the Wild by Jack London. The Call of the Wild was an adventurous tale about a dog named Buck and his adventures as he was sold into a harsh life of relentless labor in the cold and brutal North. The author of this classic novel, Jack London, was a short-story writer and a prolific American novelist. He was born in San Francisco, California. He was known for his other novels, The Sea Wolf and White Fang. I chose this particular novel because I love reading classic novels and it seemed to be an interesting and exciting story. Finally, this was the novel of my choice because it was recommended to me by my grandma.

The Call of the Wild follows the story of a dog named Buck. When Buck is plucked from his domesticated life and home, and then later forced to become a sled dog, he begins to face the harsh wilderness of Alaska. The Call of the Wild is a story of survival, of doing whatever it takes to make it to tomorrow. Its a story of doing what must be done. The overall theme of The Call of the Wild, is perseverance.

ESSAY Jack London’s novel the Call Of The Wild is a story of resilience and strength, to overcome the problems faced you need to have these traits. The text follows Buck, a large St Bernard cross Scotch Shepherd dog, as his skills are constantly tested throughout this novella. The text shows the reader the importance of gaining resilience and strength throughout ones short lifetime. This is gained by Jack London’s explicit detail of buck’s character with the use of short sentences and rhetorical questions.

The will and perseverance of a person can get the through the hardest and most difficult of times. The Call of the Wild is an adventure fiction novel by Jack London. The novel gives and insight into human nature. Set during the Yukon gold rush the Call of the wild tells the story of Buck. Buck ,a dog from Southern California, who is kidnaped and sold on the blackmarket to a sled team in Alaska. Perseverance play a big part in buck’s journey throughout the novel.

This discusses the effect the story has on the reader. While the Call of the Wild was first published in four parts in the Saturday Evening Post in 1903, it was printed in book form shortly after. The novel sold all ten thousand copies in a short space of time which indicates that it was very popular, and it received many reviews shortly after its publication. One such review, published in the August 2nd issue of the San Francisco Chronicle read “His books are strong meat for the anaemic generation that worships at the shrine of Henry James. " This review led to greater criticism and the lead to Jack London being compared to other authors of the period such as Henry James by

As we read Jack London’s The Call of The Wild and To Build A Fire, we interpreted that the books have a few comparisons, but differ at the same time. Both of the books are based on the Yukon during the gold rush, and they both persevere with the situations they are given. The second similarity between the two is that in both novels, they involve the sled dogs. In To Build A Fire, we saw that the man was on an adventure and he needed to build fires to survive, but he did not succeed. In The Call of The Wild, we got to see the growth in Buck as he eventually became a strong sled dog. The differences in these examples is that in The Call of The Wild, Buck has a good ending to life, but the man does not.

No matter how hard the human race tried to domesticate dogs, they will always end up back in the wild if they have a chance. Published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division in 1999 with illustrations by Wendell Minor, The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, implicates irony through Buck's upbringing, Spitz's death, and losses and gains. Buck's upbringing is one of the major ironies in this classic. As his owners in San Diego pampered him and never let him starve, it is not the nature of dogs to let themselves be pampered and accept food that were not killed by themselves.

In today’s society, people treat more dogs as human instead of blurs. In “The Call Of The Wild” by Jack London, the story is about how a shotland dog becomes a powerful wolf that is kidnapped. In “The Call Of The Wild” by Jack London, readers learn, experience is the greatest teacher, a dog named Buck is kidnapped and becomes a powerful wolf and has to accept and defeat his journey.

Call of the Wild is a novella written by Jack London that is ironic about life and the way we look at it. We look at life as humans and other things are just living in our world, that nothing else has a say in the world because we do not speak the same languages. Example of this is how we “own” dogs, cats, horses, etc; we do not “own” them, they are their own being with goals of their own. We may not be able to understand what they are saying or what they are thinking, but as London explains throughout his novella, one dog in particular has such high aspirations for himself that he will not quit for anything and his name is Buck. Never giving up on what you want in your life is the real message in this story that is being portrayed through the life of 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.