The Call of the Wild by Jack London - Essay Example

Assignment (Narrative essay, etc Themes in Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. The Call of the Wild was written by Jack London in 1903. It is presented as a story on Social Darwinism, showing Buck’s evolution of biological traits by natural selection being applied when he is placed into the environment where the physical struggle of the fittest to survive is superseded with the internal struggle for power, leadership and respect. This essay explores the themes in The Call of The Wild. Buck transforms from a soft, domesticated pet into a tough worker schooled in the ways of the law of the club and fang. He suffered the shock of witnessing a vicious dog fight. Curly was the victim who was set upon by the rest of the pack when she could not get up on her feet. Buck learned one of the most valuable lessons in his life which the narrator records as; ‘The scene often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the way. No fair play. Once down, that was the end of you. Well, he would see to it that he never went down.’ (London 13). This is an allegory on Social Darwinism. Buck’s survival depends on himself as his environment practices a system of laissez faire. He transforms to survive. Buck learns to steal food to compensate for his meager rations. The narration says; ‘ It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. 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.’(London 16). Buck steals food from his species and man alike. It is his competition for survival. When Buck steals food from his fellow compatriots, he is competing within his society of dogs. Buck competes with the different society of man too. This illustrates Social Darwinism. Buck retains his inherent genes which are unchanged with the passage of timeless generations. This is evidence that London supports neo-Darwinism. The narration says; ‘They (the ancestors) quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks.’ (London 17). However, London contradicts himself when he writes that; ‘His (Buck’s) newborn cunning gave him poise and control.’(London 17). Buck’s newborn cunning has evolved by the process of Social Darwinism in responses to his social environment. Buck shows his hereditary traits in the hunt for the snowshoe rabbit. The narration says; ‘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 pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill--all this was Bucks, only it was infinitely more intimate.’ (London 24). This supports neo-Darwinism because it says that the hereditary genes remain unchanged and the trait presents itself when the opportunity arises. When Buck and Spitz become engaged in a final fight, Buck ‘seemed to remember it all,--the white woods, and earth, and moonlight, and the thrill of battle. Over the whiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm.’(London 25). It is like a feeling of déjà vu for Buck. The memory flashback came from Curly’s death. Buck is determined to overcome his arch enemy and he does. Buck’s ancestor was a wolf-like creature. Neo-Lamarckism would suggest that the dog’s wild ancestor experienced changes after rehabilitation with humans and this dog then passed down its changes by natural selection. Buck is accustomed to his work and takes pride working with man and dogs. When Spitz is eliminated, the men choose Sol-leks to be the leader but Buck refuses to let the sled run. The narrative says; ‘But Buck was in open revolt. He wanted, not to escape a clubbing, but to have the leadership. It was his by right. He had earned it, and he would not be content with less.’ (London 27). This shows that Buck’s civilized pride encourages him to serve man. Spitz is Buck’s antagonist who teaches Buck the invaluable lessons about competition, leadership and pride in work. Buck has to thank Spitz for the bitter lessons learnt that have transformed him back into the quasi-wild dog. Buck assimilates change but when the stress reaches a breaking point, he decides to get his own way. When Buck gets new owners; Hal, Charles and Mercedes, he is exhausted and starved under their mismanagement but he perseveres. The narration says; ‘It was heartbreaking, only Bucks heart was unbreakable. The man in the red sweater had proved that.’(London 38). One day, Buck decided that he would not force himself to rise no matter how much Hal beat him. John Thornton rescued him and changed Buck’s life. The narrative says; ‘Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.’(London 41). Buck has a good convalescence. He experiences conflicting desires because of his cultured love for Thornton and his primitive wildness. Buck assimilates change again and adapts well to his new environment. He observes the law of the club and fang with shrewd cunning. Spitz taught him his greatest lesson that there is no middle ground, mercy or fear. The narrator says; ‘Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.’ (London 43). Buck has assimilated change but he also reacts with intelligence according to the prevailing circumstances. Buck acts in the interest of his life, health and conditions of the environment he lives in. In short, he lives for his present. He embodies Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophies of simplicity to reduce wastage of life’s resources. Buck is brought to the rural regions to change, retrogress and return to his primordial nature. London shows how the excessive lifestyle of the pampered is exchanged successfully for a basic lifestyle that gives greater freedom and health. London contrasts the privileged and the underprivileged in his narration; ‘The Outside dogs, whose digestions had not been trained by chronic famine to make the most of little, had voracious appetites.’ (London 36). London favors the economy of Nietzsche’s principles that advocate the challenge of all activities that drain life’s resources. The Outside dogs challenged the work that drained them of life and they died as their way of challenge. London wrote that the Outside dogs could not live on Nietzsche’s principle of economies of food; ‘It is a saying of the country that an Outside dog starves to death on the ration of the husky, so the six Outside dogs under Buck could do no less than die on half the ration of the husky.’ (London 36). Buck adapts to his circumstances and lives because he practices affirmation of life in his struggle for survival. Buck decides not to get up and move with Hal because he knew that the ice was breaking. The narrative says; ‘Like his mates, he barely able to get up, but, unlike them, he had made up his mind not to get up. He had a vague feeling of impending doom. This had been strong upon him when he pulled in to the bank, and it had not departed from him. What of the thin and rotten ice he had felt under his feet all day, it seemed that he sensed disaster close at hand, out there ahead on the ice where his master was trying to drive him.’ (London 39). Buck does not warn the other dogs because his Social Darwinism is only good enough to save himself. Buck has evolved from being a good leader who takes care of his team of dogs, into an existentialist who takes care of himself. The Call of the Wild is often mistaken as children’s literature because the protagonist is a dog. It is an allegorical tale that encompasses the philosophies of Darwin, Social Darwinism, neo-Lamarckism and Nietzsche. There are explicit scenes of violence, bloodshed, cruelty that show the theories of Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. The end. Works Cited. The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Call of the Wild. The Call of the Wild by Jack London. 1995. The Project Gutenberg. 3 May 2007. < http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext95/callw10.txt >. Read More