Call Of The Wild Conflict Analysis

Into The Wild written by Jon Krakauer is a biography Into the Wild begins when a young boy just out of college named Chris McCandless decides to disown the rules of society and chooses to live in the wild. After flooding to Alaska he fought with many conflicts that caused him to die. This book traces his steps and trail from living in the wild all the way until his death on August 1992. There are many conflicts that led Chris McCandless to death but the most important was his conflict with his father Walt, conflict with food in the wild, and the conflict within himself.

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.

     After all that he had been through, one would hardly suppose that Buck could love a person. However, love he can and love he does. He loves John almost more than is possible; once, as a joke, John commanded Buck to “Jump!” over a cliff. A second later, he was struggling with Buck at the very edge of the precipice. They could happily live together for the rest of their lives...if it weren’t for “the call”.

Throughout the story of The Call of the Wild, Buck had many relationships with many different individuals. Some were loving owners while others were terrible. The four most important that had the most influence of Buck were his original owner, Judge Miller, François and Perrault, and John Thornton. Eventually Buck took control of his own life and became his own master. In this essay, I am going to describe the relationships of Buck and his owners and what each of them taught him.

Human traits and characteristics like imagination, love, anger and revenge are projected by London into Buck’s character, a trait called anthropomorphosis, by using these human feelings and thoughts allowing the reader to better relate to Buck’s understanding and handling of certain situations. “At various points in the narrative, Buck is said to “imagine”, “decide”, “realize”, “know”, “divine”, “wonder”, and so on” (Auerbach 53). Further analysis of London’s narration by Auerbach of Buck is critical, claiming that while London is writing an animal tale, he is doing so more from a human perspective, rather than that of an animal. Unlike other animal tales written during the same time-period, London’s narration helps the story work as an animal story partly due to the way “Buck is put into a situation not in his control, then invested with a human mentality and morality to evaluate the situation, and then represented as reacting to that situation by way of “instinct”,”

Buck was treated with no respect and was abused by the man in the red sweater . In chapter 1 it states ‘’deliberately dealt him a frightful blow.’’ This shows the

Jack London brings a natural instinct into the spotlight by defining that everyone has that primal call to the wild, and often one feels this when in a difficult situation. Giving into this ‘call of the wild’ leads to a different kind of adaptation, it makes you become primal to survive in a primal situation. Further into the book it states, “The others sat down and howled. And now the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents. He, too, sad down and howled.” (London, 1990, p.62). This is the defining moment of Jack’s book when Buck lets go of all ties to humans and decides to carve his own path, adapting the way he needs to, not the way that humans encouraged him. Soon, Buck changes himself completely to fit snugly into the environment and to prevent further torturous struggles with humans. These quotes combine to paint a picture of total and complete change when it comes to a new and unfavorable environment.

Buck lost everything that he wants and everything that he loves. “The last tie was broken. Man and the claims of man no longer bound him.”(23). The quote explains he was free from the chains of man and love. The last of the domestic animal was gone and only there was the fierce wolf. Then came the blood lusting to kill whoever had murdered John Thornton, his handler and his lover. John Thornton had meant everything to him, Thornton was the reason he came back from the forest each time. He felt the grief of losing his loved one who he could not live without. The original Buck was gone he was replaced by the mighty wolf, the alpha of a wolf

Buck in the book “The Call of the Wild”, goes through many obstacles where he faced getting killed. He was just an ordinary house dog, but was kidnapped by his family’s gambling-addicted gardener. He later is beaten with a bat until he obeys and

Buck answered the call of the wild after Thornton’s death. He ran and howled with the wolves. The Indians called him a ghost dog because he was a powerful wolf who came to the place where Thornton died every year. This was because Buck felt the passionate love for him and Thornton. Buck saved Thornton, risking his life. “Love. Genuine, passionate love, was his first time.” (pg 73). What the influence of love Thornton had for Buck was unbreakable. Thornton’s influence allowed Buck to grow more

Buck was forced to persevere often in Call Of The Wild. In the book Call Of The Wild, Buck is torn from society and his everyday life, but he still finds a way to overcome the adversity and

“This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, and his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings; but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took such things into account was a fool, and in so far he observed them he would fail to prosper” (London 13). The tone transitions from a happy to serious and cruel tone through diction by changing the author's view of the

In “Denton’s Daughter,” Buck has a very peculiar yet interesting character. A character, in a simple explanation, is what defines us, what makes us authentic, and it is God’s way of differentiating each human being from another. As Buck once said, "Heck, if I sat around and cried over her, you couldn't drag it out of me." This quote perfectly describes the gist of his character, because it not only shows that he is a caring individual, which is good, as emotions express feelings, but it also shows that he is strong willed. Buck is what we call a round and a static character. Round character displays that he has both good and bad values, and static character shows in that he never changes in his values/beliefs. He said, "My first thought was,

The feelings shared between them were often based on inexplicable natural impulses, characteristic of the relationship between man and beast. "He went wild with happiness when Thornton touched him or spoke to him....the strength of Buck's gaze would draw John Thornton's head around, and he would return the gaze, without speech, his heart shining out of his eyes as Buck's heart shone out" (London 75). The connection that the two share is very important in Buck's transformation because it is the last thing he must surrender to complete his transformation and answer the call of the wild.

In conclusion the power of the primitive instincts were strong in Buck and it was one of the main themes in the novel. Buck didn't let the instincts get to him because he loved John Thornton. When Thornton died, Buck went in the wild because he had no master to take care of him because all of his masters either died or passed him on to the next master. Overall the power of the primitive was strong in Buck and in the