The Call of the Wild
Abstract: The Call of the Wild, Jack London’s work, through a shocking story of a special dog called Buck fighting for survival, and learned to conform to the law of nature and obey the master.Finally, he found a basic instinct hidden inside him, which enabled himself to survive the tough environment, revealing the life in rushing for gold and fortune, encouraging people keep fighting in the hard environment wherever you are.
Keywords:
Survival
wild
north
Buck, a half St.Bernard and half sheepdog with intelligence, strength and dignity, living a comfortable and civilized life on an estate, belongs to a kind judge who really took good care of it.Unfortunately, he was kidnapped and sold to North, in the hard days of pulling a snow-sled, he learns to adjust to life as a sled dog: he learns to fight, scavenge food, and sleep beneath the snow on winter nights, Eventually Buck kills Spitz and achieves mastery.With Buck at the head of the team, Francois and Perrault’s sled sets a record time.However, the men soon receive new orders and must bid the dogs goodbye.They turn the team over to a mail carrier who forces the dogs to carry much heavier loads.At the end of this journey, the dogs are exhausted, and the mail carrier sells them to a group of American gold hunters, Hal, Charles and Mercedes.Inexperienced and out of place in the wilderne, they overload the sled, beat the dogs, and plan poorly (SparkNotes).Half way through their journey, they begin to run out of food.Starving and overworked, one by one the dogs start to die.There are only five dogs alive when they pull into John Thornton’s camp.Buck refuses to rise when Hal orders to leave.So the cruel Hal beat Buck repeatedly.It’s Thornton who intervenes and saves Buck’s life.The rest of the team continues.However, the dogs and humans soon fall through the melting thin ice and perish together.Thornton becomes Buck’s master, and Buck’s devotion to him is total: he saves his master’s life twice and wins a bet that allows Thornton to pay off all his debts (GradeSaver).But this love is mixed with a growing attraction to the wild.So Buck always ranges far afield, and returns to Thornton in the end.Until, one day, he comes back to the camp to find his beloved master killed by the Yeehats, a Native American tribe.With rage, he kills many of them and then heads off into the wild, where he becomes the leader of a pack of wolves.But every year he returns to the place where Thornton died to mourn his dearest friend.Buck finally survives, and he really serves as a good example of the idea of “survival of the fittest”: his experience fits, his instinct fits, and his virtues fit the harsh environment.Someone is better suited to an environment will have a better chance for survival and lead a better life, The primitive law of the survival of the fittest also applies to the human world, like Buck who has just set a good example for human beings to learn.Therefore, it’s neceary, not only for Buck and other animals in the wild, but also for humans in the
civilization, to answer the call of the wild, which can be understood as certain required qualities, so as to be the fit one to survive in any environments, someone is not suited will inevitably lag behind or be killed, like Spitz, Hal, Mercedes and Charles.Experience is also
important for humans.Buck’s masters Hal, Charles, and Mercedes, extremely inexperienced in the wilderne, mistreat the dogs.They overload the sled, beat the dogs and plan poorly.Their ignorance finally results in their death.On the contrary, Buck’s former masters, Francois and Perrault, help the team set the highest record for their run due to their rich experience and knowledge about the wild and the dog Buck’s ability to listen to his instinct, which is handed down by his ancestors, enables him to be more and more powerful; and his natural knowledge, coming from instinct, makes him suited for the conditions of the environment.Besides, Buck’s virtues, such as loyalty, tolerance and persistence play an indispensable role in his fitne in the wilderne as well According to the novel, the wild is no longer a symbol of law of jungle but a headspring where streams out , besides loyalty tolerance and persistence, love, respect, friendship, bravery, diligence, and cooperation… all the virtues fit for survival.However, in human society, which is generally considered higher than wilderne, those virtues are disappearing.It’s humans that kidnap, beat, and even kill dogs; it’s humans that quarrel and fight instead of loving; it’s also humans that cheat and betray each other rather than keeping loyal.
