[e-mail] (Gudrun Haug)

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Jack London

1

1. Poet and his life

Jack London was born on Jan. 12, 1876 in San Francisco, California, USA. Jack London was
only a pseudonym, adopting the surname of his stepfather, London for it. His real name was
John Griffith Chaney.

Because of his parent’s lack of money, London had to drop out of school after the eighth
grade in the age of 15. He shortly worked in a fish cannery. Being sixteen he became an
”oyster pirate” in San Francisco Bay and later changed to the other side of law, joining the
fish patrol. In 1893, in the age of 17, he set off on a seven-month voyage on a sealing ship to
Japan. This experience led to his first story, and later influenced one of his best known
novels, The Sea-Wolf (1904). Returning to the USA, he became a hobo travelling trough
America. He experienced economic depression, unemployment and poverty. After being
jailed for vagrancy near Niagara Falls, he realised the need of an education. He finished High
School and studied at Berkley University. Before that he had educated himself at public
libraries with the writings of Charles Darwin, Marx and Nietzsche and developed an own
blended philosophy of socialism and white superiority. After a year at Berkley, London left
University to seek a fortune in the Klondike gold rush of 1897. What he did find was scurvy
and London got back to California after a year and a two-thousand-mile voyage down the
Yukon River.

Returning, still poor and unable to find work, he decided to earn a living as a writer. As he
had educated himself about biology, sociology and philosophy before his travels, he now
taught himself writing. Some harsh years followed during which he unceasingly wrote and
steadily raised his output. This time is best conveyed in his autobiographical novel Martin
Eden (1909). Soon people began to be interested in his Klondike adventure stories. His first
book, Son of the Wolf (1900) gained a wide audience. The God of His Fathers (1901) and
Children of the Frost (1902) completed the first collection of publications, making him famous
throughout the USA. Then in 1903 he wrote his masterpiece The Call of the Wild, a short
novel that gave him international recognition. The reverse novel or also the companion piece,
White Fang (1906) turned out to be his greatest success after Sea Wolf. Maybe a most
original contribution of his ideas is conveyed in The Iron Heel (1908), a chilling prophecy of a
Fascist period to come.

In 1900 he married Elizabeth Maddern, who bore him two daughters. But the marriage only
lasted for two years, and in 1905 after his divorce London married Charmian Kittredge.
During the remainder of his life he produced steadily, completing 50 books of fiction and non-
fiction, partly autobiographical in 17 years. Although he became the highest-paid writer in the
United States, his earnings never matched his expenditures, and he was never freed of the
urgency of writing for money. He sailed a ketch to the South Pacific on his self-made ship,
telling of his adventures in The Cruise of the Snark (1911). In 1910 he settled on a ranch
near Glen Ellen, California, where he built his grandiose Wolf House. During his trip in the
South Pacific London ruined his health and received a damaging arsenic treatment in
Australia. It was the first public defeat of a man who had created the image of a superman
and now was trapped within. He continued to travel but never recovered. His health state
was even steadily weakened and while the quality of his work deteriorated with his health, his
style and professionalism kept him popular and respected. His wife miscarried a male child, a
wish that always had been elementary to him. As another misfortune, Wolf House burnt
down and London started drinking.

[e-mail] (Gudrun Haug)

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Jack London

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Jack London died in 1916 at the age of only forty from an overdose of the drugs he took for
his kidney and bladder problems.

A legend in his own life time, London represented the

archetypal American hero who tried to live the life he wrote about.

2. Summary

”The Call of the Wild” is one of Jack London’s most famous novels. Some even call it his
masterpiece, representing all of London’s ideals and values. The novel tells the story of
Buck, a domesticated dog, who feels the invitation of his savage roots as he approaches
wilderness. This emotion is at first peculiar to him because he always lived save and satisfied
at the home of his patron Judge Miller in the sunny Santa Clara Valley. But as time goes by,
he quickly learns to survive and at last follows the Call of the Wild.

Buck is part St. Bernard and part Scotch shepherd dog, which makes him a big, strong dog
with quiet long and warm hair. In that days, gold is found in the Klondike area, Alaska. The
largest gold rush ever starts. To carry their belongings in the snowy regions, the men used
dog sleds. Several dogs were needed to pull a sledge and while the most frequently used
dogs were Huskies, Buck was also well qualified, by his dispositions. Buck lives like a regent
on the farm of his master. He is ruling over the other animals and is always treated well by
the people. One night, Buck is sold by a gardener’s helper, who needs money to equal his
gambling dept. Buck follows at first voluntarily because he trusts the men. But as he realises
that they are bringing him away, he fights fiercely. He is being locked into a cage and is
determined to attack everyone who dares open his prison. But when he is freed from
imprisonment his attacks to the man are answered brutally by battings of a club. He learns
the first part of the essential lesson of the wild: the law of club and fang. He realises that his
life is going to change and he is willing to face the new challenges with all his braveness and
intelligence.

He stays in that place for several weeks and watches dogs come and all breaking under the
man with the club. He also watches men arriving and leaving with dogs. One day a small
man with a strange accent, which is French, chooses him and his journey continues on a
steamship north. On that ship Buck gets to know new mates, dogs of varying characters.
Now he is the belonging of Perrault a French-Canadian and Francois also a French-
Canadian but half-breed. These two serve the Canadian government as couriers. At their
arrival in Dyea Beach Buck sees snow for the first time in his life and he is strongly puzzled
about this uncommon stuff.

But the much more affecting impression on him is done by the inhabitants of the town. The
men and the dogs there are no town wesen and different to any he had seen before. They
are savages, dogs as well as men and they follow no law except the law of club and fang. It
was there where he learns the second chapter of the law. He watches two dogs fight and it is
in a way he had never seen before: it is the way wolves fight. But not only the style of the
fight is wolfish but also the reaction of the other dogs. They surround the combatants in an
intent and silent circle. At the point one of the dogs tumbles of his feet, the crowd closes in
and almost literally tear him to pieces. He would never forget these lessons: a man with a
club in his hand is major; never loose a fight. To Buck it is like being suddenly ripped from
the heart of civilisation and flung into the heart of things primordial. There is the imperative
need to be constantly alert.

What also follows out of this experience is that the dog, whose name is Spitz, that caused
and won the battle from then on is his personal enemy. The unfair way Spitz attacked that

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THE CALL OF THE WILD

Jack London

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other, good-natured dog wakened pure hatred in Buck. But before he is able to recover from
this shock, again uncommon things await him: Francois takes him and the other dogs to the
forest collecting wood. Though his dignity is hurt, Buck is too wise to rebel. Francois expects
and receives instant obedience with the support of his wipe. Buck learns fast and when the
day is over he knows well how to behave on the trail.



The first night out it is too cold for Buck to sleep. But soon he understands the trick of digging
oneself into the snow. His two masters are fascinated how fast he learns and how adaptable
he turns out to be.

On their trail north, Buck has to find out a lot, but masters all challenges extraordinarily well.
He even acquires the art of stealing, what would never had come to his mind in his former
life. This development shows his adaptability to adjust to changing conditions whose lack
would have meant certain death. It marks further the decay or going to pieces of his moral
nature, a handicap or useless ballast in this ruthless life. His development is rapid. His
muscles become hard as iron, he can eat anything and he becomes callous to ordinary pain.
And not only does he learn by experience, but instincts long dead become alive again. The
characteristics of his ancestors become his.

During their trail while the primordial beast in Buck grows stronger, the hatred between him
and Spitz increases steadily because Spitz has recognised a possible rival to his leadership
in him. Their conflict can only be finished by the death of one combatant. There are several
incidents when their final fight almost starts but it is always stopped by the outside. At last the
moment has come to end rivalry. Buck and Spitz fight desperately, and while Spitz uses all
his experience of uncounted struggles, Buck gains out of his intelligence and imagination. He
kills Spitz and takes over the leadership of the pack. Buck even turns out to be a better
leader than Spitz and his two masters are glad that the trouble under the dogs has come to
an end. When they reach their destination they have made, thank Buck, a record run.
Then his leaders change and he has to carry ordinary mail which means heavier toil and
slower run. This passage is boredom and monotony. As they have to run fast, the dogs are
all dead tired in the end.

The dogs need and expect a long stay to recover but what happens is they are sold to two
men, Charles and Hal. These two, together with Mercedes the wife of Charles, want to make
a fortune, like so many others in the Klondike. They are unskilled, totally inexperienced and
badly prepared concerning facing the life in the north, and guiding a dog sled. As the dogs
are all tired of the long trail behind them and the carriage being too heavy, they advance very
slowly while the weariness of the dogs increases more and more. The men treat them very
bad: At first they increase the dog’s food rations to cope with their tiredness which could only
be cured by a long rest. Later they have not enough dog food left and the dogs have to
starve. Combined with heavy load and brutal treatment this leads to the deaths of more and
more dogs. The situation is too much for the people from the south and they react wrongly.
The journey is a nightmare to Buck who stumbles at the head of the team.

When they arrive at a lone house where John Thornton lives, only five out of formerly twelve
dogs are alive. As spring approaches, the ice of the river on which they travel gets thinner
and thinner every day. At that very moment maybe because of exhaustion or because he
sensed the danger of the thin ice, Buck does consciously not stand up again after the break
at John Thornton’s house. Hal hits him increasingly hard but before he can kill Buck, John
Thornton interferes violently and saves Buck. The trio continues his journey but breaks into
the ice right after the stay.

[e-mail] (Gudrun Haug)

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Jack London

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A new chapter in Buck’s life begins. Thornton cares about him, heals his wounds and helps
him recover. In Buck awakes an extraordinarily strong love to that man. It is not the simple
admiration or submission but equal, shared love to each other. During the first time Buck
never leaves Thornton out of his sight. Buck even achieves to save the life of the man, who
saved his life, twice. Once when Thornton is foolish enough to take a bet that Buck could tear
1000 pounds, he wins his master 1000 dollars in gold and achieves a sensational record,
which enlarges his fame so that he is well-known throughout the north.



The men enriched by Buck’s deed, start on a trail west in search of a famous, secret gold-
mine. They travel many months still do not find the mine but discover a gold field. They stay
there and collect a huge amount of nuggets and gold-dust.

During that period, there is nothing to do for Buck. The call inside him which had been
silenced by the love to John Thornton, reawakens and tears him into the forest. It fills him
with a great unrest and strange desires. He does not know what the call exactly is, but
follows him more and more. He sneaks through the wood and lives from what he kills. Buck
is at the top of his condition. Never before has he been in such a good state and like John
says sometimes there has probably never before been such a dog. One day he hears a
certain note of the call which is familiar to him and as he follows it, he encounters a timber
wolf howling on an open place. When he wants to get closer to the wolf it flees into the forest.
Buck follows him easily and always tracks it down. Finally the wolf realises that there is no
harm and sniffs nose with Buck. They run together through level country and Buck feels old
memories coming upon him and that they come closer to where the call came from. But then
he remembers John Thornton and is unable to proceed. He returns to the spot where he
came from and stays for several days always at the side of John Thornton. It is like saying
goodbye. Then he leaves again, looking for his mate the timber wolf. But he cannot find him
again and faces a new challenge. Yet no animal was a real opponent to him but he discovers
a pack of moose. The moose bull is a giant animal but Buck is able to prevail.

He has already during the hunt detected a new stir in the land and now returns as fast as he
can to the camp. There he discovers all are dead, killed by a tribe of Yeeha Indians. The kill
of his beloved master John Thornton transforms Buck into a raging Devil. He whirls through
the Indians and kills most of them. This has lead under the Yeeha tribe to the tale of how the
Evil Spirit came to select that valley for an abiding place and they never again set foot to it.

The kill of John Thornton marks the final decision to return to savagery. The last tie is
broken. Buck stays in the valley and mourns over John Thornton. But then a large pack of
wolves comes into it. They try to kill him but instead many of them are dead afterwards. Then
his friend arrives and as they sniff noses he is accommodated in the wolf pack. A little later
the Indians tell each other about a Ghost Dog larger than every wolf, running in front of the
pack.

3. Interpretation

Through the story, Buck matures from a domesticated, content dog living peacefully at the
safe home in warm Santa Clara valley to a primordial beast, that knows how to kill and to
survive in wilderness. The formerly slothful dog becomes an active, blood thirsty brute that

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THE CALL OF THE WILD

Jack London

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knows and obeys the laws of the wild. Buck carries all abilities inside him. They have been
inherited by his ancestors, the wolves. In every domesticated creature, somewhere deep
inside is the knowledge left how to behave in the wilderness. If we come close to the wild, we
can feel it and profit of concealed cunnings which have only been suppressed. Buck
uncovers all lost cunnings of the wolf in him and even becomes better than they are and in
the end their leader.

The other theme in the book is the love between man and his dog. This love grows
extraordinarily strong in the case of Buck and John Thornton. London expresses the belief
that a dog is capable of real love to his master. London avoids the interesting question if the
love to his saviour or the call of the wild would finally be stronger, by introducing the Indian
tribe. I assume that the decision would have been in favour of the call.


To London it is clear that if the animal had the choice (and conscience to decide) between
safe life in a civilised area or the free, dangerous, primordial life of the wild it would choose
the last one.

Jack London comprises in this novel most of the values and virtues he believed in. He partly
used autobiographical material but also a lot of imagination or fiction. He often called his
work primeval which truly meets the character of the novel quite well. Like in most of his
arctic tales the figure of the wolf is pervasive in this novel too. This animal fascinated London
throughout his life. London has always been pride through his life on his ”animality” and
chose as a totem the wolf. His friends sometimes called him wolf and his wife had to bear the
title mate wolf. London called his house in the Sonoma Valley Wolf house, and created his
maybe most memorable human character Wolf Larson in the The Sea Wolf. The wolf of
London is a fictional figure, an animal that lives in shadowy and dangerous grounds and
could be described as the ultimate wild creature, supreme in savagery, mystery and beauty.
This idea was, although London had been to the north, completely wrong. Wolves are very
shy, sensitive even coward especially in relation to men. It has a strong aversion to fighting
and is rather playful and friendly among its fellows.

Before his travel to the Klondike, London had educated himself about the theories of Darwin.
The landscape he faced in the Arctic regions, the endless, frozen and merciless northland
wild was to London a kind of metaphysical arena in which natural selection and the survival
of the fittest were enacted unendingly.

What made this book such a success was that he used all the important topics of that days.
The people were fascinated by the idea of making a fortune in the Klondike. He referred to
the strong belief of every American in the American Dream and used aspects of it like
surviving in unfriendly conditions, and the exploration of unconquered lands. With his theme
London hit the nerve of the time. Besides were old like young fascinated by his person, by
the knowledge that he wrote about what he had experienced. With The Call of the Wild
received international recognition. It was his literal breakthrough, and was the basis to his
fame.

The book transports London’s primordial convictions of the ultimate characteristics of man,
and that one can only find his satisfaction by returning to his roots in a primeval, wild world.
Nevertheless the novel has kept it’s fascination on generations of readers, until today.

ACHIM HAUG

[e-mail] (Gudrun Haug)

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Jack London

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LK English, Reyhl
27/09/2000
JS 13.1