Style Of Writing In Jack London's Call Of The Wild

A major theme in Jack London’s classic book The Call of The Wild is that life is kill or be killed.

“Many of the prospectors headed to the Klondike were ill prepared for the wilderness where they found themselves, and two-thirds of those who set out never made it to their goal.” This is how the stampeaders of the Klondike gold rush lived their lives in order to strike it rich including Jack London who wrote Call of the Wild. This novel, written in the time of the Klondike gold rush displays the experiences of prospectors outdoors in the new frontier and the hardships they face throughout the Klondike gold rush.

     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.

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.

A major theme in Jack London’s Call Of The Wild, is kill or be killed.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

Jack London and Stephen Crane obsessively fixated on the theme of death in their writing. The two writers were both similar and dissimilar. Both died young: it is unsure whether or not Crane committed suicide. Both wrote about contemporary and realistic topics and both dwelt heavily on existentialist themes. Both too were very realist. In 'Buck', London has the character live in the real world not escape it, whilst Crane has his character thoroughly absorbed in the vicissitudes and realities of war. Both also use mediums to convey their message: with London it seems to be the dog (for instance in To Build a Fire who connotes superior friendship and loyalty to that of the man) and in Crane it is the extent of human fear in the human when faced by war.

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.