Research Paper On The Call Of The Wild

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.

Buck was a king at his home and would lay in the sun all day. A greedy gardener sneaks buck out and sells him to a sled dog “middle man”. Then buck gets sold to a man in a red sweater and takes a club to the jaw. Then Perrout and Frances buy him and they talk about bucks great worth. Buck is a natural alpha dog due to his large size and great strength. Buck is only opposed by Spitz who is the current alpha dog.

His name was John Thornton. Buck followed Thornton around everywhere. He would never leave him. Although one day there was a call from the wild and Buck answered it. “But in spite of this great love he bore John Thornton, which seemed to bespeak the soft, civilizing influences; the strain of the primitive, which the Northland had aroused in him, remained alive and active” (London 76). Buck went off and discovered a wolf pack that would take him in. This quote proves that Buck became wild. When John Thornton died, Buck was his own owner and he no longer had to follow Thornton around. He joined a wolf pack and was happy and

They isolate him from domestication and take him on a journey full of learning, development, and hardship. Along the way to discovering who he is, Buck’s hidden instincts, once belonging to his ancestors, help him through the many life threatening situations he encounters. In The Call of the Wild, Jack London utilizes a dog as the main

They are putting together a team of dogs to reach the gold rush. After countless days of toil, the dogs are malnourished and weak. They reached John Thornton's camp, and Buck incapable to continue, is beaten and whipped by Hal to get up. John Thornton, unable to witness Bucks agony, stood over Buck, “If you strike that dog again, I’ll kill you,”(41). With intimidation and anger, he claimed buck as his own. Buck grew affection to John Thornton and hardly leaves his side. While staying at camp, Buck is hearing a call in the forest and wanders out and embraces his instincts and wild tendencies, watching out for himself and killing for his own food. Buck meets a wolf and they befriend each other, but he has John awaiting at camp and returns. Buck still goes out and seeks for the wolf from time to

The story The call of the wild is a story about a dog named Buck and he is a mix of two other dogs and Buck is a very popular dog and then Buck has to pull sleds and is kidnapped by a garderner and is sold to a dog trader who beats buck to try and teach him to obey the rules. And he ships buck to Klondike and is amazed. Buck sees this

“Trouble was brewing for every tidewater dog. Men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted heavy dogs, with strong muscle by which to toil and furry coats to protect them from the frost.” Many of these men were aggressive and beat Buck with a club to show him who the bosses were. This brought Buck to realize that not every man could be trusted, especially men with clubs.

Dogs weren’t always domesticated; they were once like the wild wolves that roam forests at night. In the book, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, a St. Bernard/Scotch Shepherd dog named Buck struggles with the calling of ancient primitive ways. The adventurous novel takes place in the cold Northland of Alaska, up by the Yukon and Klondike. Buck is taken from his easy life in California to become part of a sled dog team that travels through Alaska during the time of the Klondike Gold Rush. During his adventures with four separate masters in Alaska, he is able to find genuine love for one of them. But the call is too strong and eventually he answers. The theme power of the primitive is shown through the book from the moment Buck steps into the forest, all the way to the end of the book, when he finally answers the call.

Buck, a dog from california, is stolen away to the cold and unforgiving wilds of the Klondike. Buck moves from owner to owner throughout the book as he serves as a sled dog shuttling people from place to place. Buck learns the lessons of growing up and being able to take charge of one’s destiny. Cummulating in him joining up with a wolfpack and finally answering the call of the wild.

The dogs are exhausted, poorly fed, and beaten regularly. Some of the dogs die when the food runs out. Eventually they wake it to a John Thornton's camp. He warns the travelers about the ice and how it is thin. They do not heed the warning and try to force the dogs onward, but Buck will not move. Buck is beaten and is nearly killed by one of his masters unil Thornton saves him and cuts him free. They force the remaining dog’s onward until the ice breaks less than a quarter mile from Thornton’s camp, and they all fall in. Thornton becomes Buck’s new master and he follows him loyally. Buck saves his life multiple times. Even winning a bet for his master when he pulled a heavy sled.

I think the theme in this book is about Bucks transformation. I think his transformation starts when Manuel takes Buck. I think that during this moment is probably one of the first times Buck has snarled and threatened to bite Manuel and the other guy. I think Buck’s transformation is how Buck went from being a calm house dog to being a wild, untamable, creature; a wolf. Also I think that theme is important to the book the Call of The

Naturalism, expressed through the submission of living beings to nature in the novella, shows the dominant power of heredity and the social environment against a creature’s will, a major concept in the 19th century realism movement. Buck, the protagonist that metamorphosed from a companion to a pack dog serves as a metaphor for the impermanence of previous discipline. Also, the violent mood provoked by Buck’s brutal instinctive behavior towards Spitz and other characters in the novel represents the power of the social and physical environment even against centuries of evolution and domestication. In the novel, Buck is a domestic dog who is stolen and shipped north during the Klondike Gold Rush to drag sleds for the prospectors heading to and from Dawson.

Although he learns quickly and pulls the sled well, Buck has a problem when he eats his food. Not only is the portion of fish he is given is too small, he eats too daintily which leads to other dogs stealing his food. Buck starts eating more quickly but the amount of fish he gets is still too scanty. He was so hungry that he started to steal food from the men when they were not looking, a skill he picked up by watching one of the other dogs. In fact one day he steals an entire chunk of bacon and watches as another dog get punished for his crime. “This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment. . . . 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. . . would fail to prosper.” (P. 22) In other words, this is where Buck starts to make his change from a domesticated dog to a wild dog, as his primitive instincts

«In getting ready for the wild, the pooch experiences a socialization procedure of three phases, each spoke to by Buck's managing an alternate kind of family, His fourth and last, perfect family takes after the trade off amongst development and crude man . » The Narrator give a moving story of how Buck goes from a spoiled presence, to a slave, to a contender, a victor and afterward turning into an altogether new «Buck», and at one with his precursors and alike. Buck's life begun as the family's prized pet. «

The final part of the theme the idea of riches to rags. In the beginning of the book Buck is a rich and well respected Judges’ dog. He was brought up to be regal, respectful, polite, and kind of a high class man’s dog. But as the book continues, he is thrown into the unforgiving wilderness and is forced to reject all his old mannerisms and sense of right and wrong, and learn the harsh ways of the wild, under the law of the club and fang. The author even throws in a blatant homage, to the riches to rags ideal, with the part of the story where Francois makes Buck his own little booties from his moccasins.