Examples Of Naturalism In 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.

John Steinbeck 's novel Of Mice and Men is a famous Naturalist work in American literature. Various elements of Naturalism is exhibited in this novel through its character types and story plot. Charles Darwin, an English Naturalist proposed a theory called natural selection, meaning that nature selects the best adapted varieties to survive and reproduce. Darwin also identified this theory as survival of the fittest. Steinbeck incorporated this belief of natural selection in many instances throughout Of Mice and Men using characters and their circumstances. One character named Candy has an injury and is old in age. They were leading factors in his fear of being unemployed. His dog’s old age and uselessness also resulted in its death.

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, 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.

As Charles Darwin once said. “It is not the strongest of species that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change”. Darwin’s quote strongly relates to “The Call of the Wild” in many circumstances where the stronger species was not able to thrive, but the one that was most able to adapt to change. In Jack London’s novel, “The Call of the Wild” it is conveyed that in order to survive in any environment one must be able to become accustomed to their surroundings. To survive by adaption one must drop old habits, be able to thrive in poor treatment environments, and love when given the chance. The main character in “The Call of the Wild” Buck, proves this idea on a multitude of occasions throughout his journey in the hostile Canadian Yukon Territory. The first adaptation that is made in “The Call of the Wild” is conveyed when one must drop their old habits to survive.

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

Jack London’s novel, The Call of the Wild, is about the transformation of Buck. As a dog who was raised as a domestic animal, he must learn to adapt to his new wild surroundings after he is snatched away from civilization. The author's message of this novel is “survival of the fittest.” Buck’s only chance of staying alive is to display his strength and fight. This quote displays Buck’s thoughts on the rules of the wild; the only way to survive. It is clearly shown that having superior power is the only route to not being killed. Each dog, no matter which breed or age, learns these rules almost instantly and gets put into their place; their journey to proving themselves and rising to the top begins. This citation is significant to the theme, because it depicts the valuable law of the wilderness, which is “survival of the fittest.” This quote describes the “eat or be eaten” world that Buck is now adapting to in order to live. The theme, “survival of the of the fittest,” is shown in this quote, and seems quite gruesome. However, “...master or be mastered...Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten…” is exactly how the animals in the wild sustain their places in their “communities.”

Beaten, neglected, and loved Buck dealt with all those things. In the story ‘’ The Call of the Wild ‘’, the central theme is how one treats animals can reflect on what kind of person they are.

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.

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.

Do you ever hear of nature fakers? A nature faker is a writer or author that gives animals or living things, from the wild, human characteristics and personifies them. In Jack London’s novel, “The Call of the Wild”, he writes about a really tough and confident dog who thrives in nature. For his writing in “The Call of the Wild”, many people accuse Jack London of being a nature faker. Jack London is a magnificent and amazing writer who knows a lot about the wild, therefore he isn’t a nature faker.

Chris McCandless and Buck serve as examples of the archetype of the wild through their experiences of leaving where they feel most comfortable and answering the call of the wild. They show that each experience is inimitable because the wild is unique to every individual. For Buck, the wild is a place outside of civilization and his dependence on man, where the external threats of nature exist and he must prove himself as a true animal with instincts for survival. In McCandless' case, the place outside of civilization is actually an escape from his fears because the wild for him is in relationships, where the threat of intimacy exists and he must learn to trust others for happiness. This is because for each of us, the wild is what we

Another important component of The Call of the Wild is the distinct tone London uses in the story. He primarily uses a simple and robust tone, such as on page 56 when Buck is physically drained from pulling the sleds. On page 56 London writes: “All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden bullets, the blood lust, the joy to kill-all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with how own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood." This blatant and robust tone compliments the untamed setting and violence in the plot of the story.

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.

Naturalism is a philosophy which emphasizes “the effect of heredity and environment on human nature and action” (Zhang) and incorporates realism to “suggest that social conditions… and environment [have] inescapable force in shaping human character” (Zhang). Furthermore, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Natural Philosophy explains that to Naturalists, “reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality” (Papineau). Naturalism (in literature) is an idea that suggests everything about humanity is measurable, detectable, manipulatable, and traceable to a cause, and therefore the characters of Naturalist literature would be illustrated as simply the products of their environments; vessels devoid of spiritual guidance or fate that are subject only to their environments. An example of a Naturalistic novel is The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton; a novel set in late 19th century New York that follows Lily Bart: a young woman who was born rich but is slowly losing both her societal status and her money whilst she repeatedly avoids marriage, her only option to escape her fate: a life of poverty. With this in mind, The House of Mirth is an exemplary example of a Naturalistic novel because of its portrayal of characters as the product of their environments.