Theme 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.

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 is about a dog named buck hat goes through many owners and then goes to the wild and joins a wolf pack. The central idea in The Call of The Wild is the way you treat animals can tell about you and your personality.

     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.

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.

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

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.

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.

A major theme in Jack London’s classic book The Call of the Wild is that adaptability is essential for survival, which is what buck has to do to during most of the book. At the beginning of the book, Buck’s appearance changes, In the middle, his mental thinking changes, and At the end, his senses change so he can adapt to his new life in Alaska.

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.

I decided to read The Call of the Wild because it was a book that we were supposed to read in advanced literature, but we never got to it. This novel can be found in the list titled 101 Great Books Recommended for College-Bound Readers. In The Call of the Wild, Jack London revolves this story around the main character, a civilized dog named, Buck as if he was human. However, this civilized dog will change by adapting to the wild as he experiences the harsh reality of the world. By giving Buck the ability to tell us the story of his life in his voice or in other words anthropomorphized, it makes the book so relatable to the many experiences in life any human could go through. For example, we see how Buck

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.