American Literature - Analysis of The Call of the Wild

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[1]

The Call of the Wild is the story of the strong and well-raised dog – Buck, whom has to discover his beast-side of his personality when kidnapped and sold to vicious men to take and carry them through the frozen Klondike up-north during the second gold rush of the 19th century, yet preserving loyalty and trustworthiness as well as ensuring the bond between dog and man.

[2]

The book is about Buck and the journey he is forced in to. He is a mighty dog (half St. Bernard and half sheepdog) and the books starts off in Bucks original home, at Judge Miller’s place in California’s Santa Clara valley. During this time, the second gold rush was a pressing issue throughout the country and this was the time where dogs were obliged by men to pull sleds in order to travel through the aimed destination – the Klondike. The gardener of Judge Miller decides to kidnap Buck and sells him to dog traders, and these traders teach Buck to obey by beating him with a club and later on, they transport him to his way for Klondike.
Buck is very shocked by all the fierce and cruelty around him, as he was not used to such a surrounding. He was raised in peace and loyalty back in California with Judge Miller. He finds himself a companion called Curly, whom gets attacked by other dogs right after the departure of their boat. Having no choice but watching among several dogs, from this period on Buck learns how to defend himself and tries his best to avoid violence and fierce. Perrault and Francois come in to the picture as the two mail carrier-characters that own Buck as well as other dogs. Among these dogs, more precisely – beasts, Spitz is the leader of the crew and the rivalry between Buck and Spitz grows stronger everyday. They eventually get involved with a tremendous fight, where Buck defeats Spitz by killing him and becoming the new leader dog.

After the exhaustion of not yet achieving their goal to arriving to the gold mines, the two men sell their dogs to American gold hunters which are Mercedes, Charles and Hal – all three very sloppy and inexperienced. They run out of food and some of the dogs begin to die. When they bump into John Thornton, the crewmembers have reduced from fourteen to only five. After Hal disagrees with Thornton about the ice cover being too thin and ready to break, Hal insists to continue the journey along with the dogs, except for Buck who refuses. He gets beaten up by Hal, as Thornton jumps in, grabs Hal’s knife and cuts Buck loose. Hal, too busy to continue, leaves Buck and Thornton behind and after less than a quarter of a mile, the ice cover breaks open, being the end of Hal, the rest of his companions and the dogs.

Bucks new master Thornton and Buck get a long very well. Buck saves him several times and the love between the two grows stronger for every day that passes by. However, after going out searching for gold and Buck out in the wild, Buck suddenly finds Thornton dead, killed by the Yeehat Indians. He attacks and kills many of them as well as feeling the loss of his beloved master. At the end, he becomes the leader of the wolf pack in the wild, yet every year he makes a visit to the death place of Thornton.

[3]

“The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under the fierce conditions of tail life it grew and grew. (1986, pg. 25)” This is yet another pattern in the book which is repeated frequently. The literary device in the book is about a dog’s (Buck’s) recognition of the call from his ancestors – the call of the wild. As the beast-side of Buck belongs to his primordial past, Buck is trying to adapt himself when he is out in the wild and try to get used to his beast-side. He also changes the way he views others – while he viewed man as master, he has suddenly been switching his feelings towards man, of a primordial, fury, rebel and distrustful creature. He visualizes himself as a wild creature and hunting prey in the wild forests. He comes to his intuition by going back to his ancestors’ way of life and becomes a wild animal himself.

[4]

“Dat one dam bully dog! Eh? How moch?” (1986, pg. 11)
- “That damn tough dog, huh? How much?”

 Dialect. This type of language is written in the way of its sounding. In this way, the reader can distinguish between the dialects and perhaps decide on where the character comes from, alternatively decide on if the person is from a different region in comparison to the main characters. In this type of language, there isn’t a lot of emphasis put on correct usage of grammar and words, as there is in academic English. This type of language connects the context of the meaning from the character’s personality, rather than standard and/or academic English. In this way, it is also possible to determine what status this character has in society – whether he has low-, middle- or high status. In this specific example, it can be said that this character has a rather low status.

“By convulsive efforts he got on his feet, staggered, and fell.” (1986, pg. 51)
- “After intense efforts he got on his feet and managed to stagger, but then he fell.”

 Archaic. This type of language suggests that this book was written before World War I, because of its grammatical usage that is different from the current grammatical usage. In current-day English language, we tend to include a more descriptive writing technique to paint a specific picture to an incident and avoid many of the short and indescribable writings. This sentence is an example of a short writing. Today, this sentence would be rephrased and include a more colorful picture and a longer sentence.

“Here a yellow stream flows from rooted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mould overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.” (1986, pg. 105)
- “Here, a yellow stream flows from rooted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mould overrunning it, and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once, long and sorrowfully; here he departs.”

 Archaic. In this type of language, there are expressions used, that are rarely used today. They might exist, but they are not usual expressions that are familiar to everyone. This type of language is long and descriptive, the structure is very neat and the descriptions are colorful. The description on nature is done very well, as it describes nature in a chronological order – it starts by the moose-hide sacks on the ground and continues through the grasses growing through it, and the mould covering it, and finally hiding its colors – from the sun. This is also a description of nature in general. The word “ere” in today’s academic English is replaced with “here” and the comma sign right before the same word is today replaced with a semicolon.

[5]

I liked reading this book very much because there were tensions very frequently and even though the language of the book contained some archaic language, the actual context of the book was easily understood which made it even more interesting as a whole. The description of the transportation from the Santa Clara valley (where the story originally begins) to the frozen region of Klondike is precisely portrayed and described very thoroughly, as well as the way to Klondike, which describes the characters’ eagerness to obtain active in order to get to Klondike in time and be a part of the gold digger-crew.
“The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied the frost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that the ice held at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required to cover those thirty terrible miles. And terrible they were for every foot of them was accomplished at the risk of life to dog and man. A dozen times, Perrault, nosing the way, broke through the ice bridges, being saved by the long pole he carried, which he so held that it fell each time across the hole made by his body.” (1986, pg. 29) The book mentions several times and points out the risk involved through this journey, and for every chapter in the book, some issues arise which makes it hard for the reader to stop reading. I find this positive as it makes it difficult for the reader to get bored by the book, with curiosity of what is to happen next.

I do not feel that these books are viewed in a negative sense, because The Call of the Wild does not contain very archaic and difficult language. However, during the time of the times of the early 20th century and older times, books such as these were considered as too violent and vicious; some books were even abandoned or were not published at all just because it was intimidating, scaring and influencing the public in negative ways. Today however, these books are of more favour to the public than ever before, because the public enjoys reading extreme books, especially if they are (which they most likely are) written for a purpose – either by presenting naked facts, hidden truth or trying to prevent prejudice.

[6]

Jack London was born on 12 January 1876 in San Francisco to Flora Wellman and John London. He was raised in poverty and he worked as a newspaper boy and on an ice wagon. He married to his first wife, Bess Madern in 1900, which lasted for three years. He then had an affair with author Anna Strunsky. In 1905 he had his second marriage with Charmian Kittredge and they traveled a lot. Jack London deceased on 22 November 1916.





1903 – The People of the Abyss
1903 – The Call of the Wild
1904 – The Sea-Wolf
1905 – The Game
1905 – White Fang
1906 – Before Adam
1907 – The Iron Heel
1908 – War of the Classes
1909 – Martin Eden
1910 – Burning Daylight
1912 – Smoke Bellew
1913 – The Valley of the Moon
1914 The Strength of the Strong
1914 The Mutiny of the Elsinore
1915 – The Scarl...