My understanding of The Call o
“To this day,Jack London is the most widely read American writer in the world.”E.L.Doctorow put it.The book The Call of The Wild is Jack London’s most famous novel which was set in gold rush.The book is about a dog and he’s unique perspective vividly depicted the life in the north during the gold rush.
The protagonist is a dog named Buck who owned a good living and universal respect in California but got stolen and was sold to Alaska as a dog slave. Buck was forced to pull heavy sled for a long distance enduring starvation and cold.Gradually,Buck adapted to the unfamiliar surrounding by learning from other dogs.After fighting with Spitz who was the leader of the dog team,Buck became the new header of dogs.He made them run faster and work efficiently.These drivers were evil,greedy and selfish and Buck was saved by a kind-hearted man named Thornton.He set off on a pleasant journey with his new master.At the end of the Call of the Wild,Thornton was killed by the Yeehats and Buck came back to the nature and lived with wolves.
In this novel, Jack London depicted Buck as if he was a man and the dog and those persons were in stark contrast.Buck is brave,virtuous,loyal and graceful but humans are evil,selfish and greedy.People beat the dog from time to time because they regarded themselves as the master of the life and they thought they were the truth.It is people’s action that caused the tragic life of the poor dogs which indicated people would be hoisted by their own petard in the end.
The dog Buck in the novel had its own thoughts and Jack London emphasized self-respect many times when it comes to Buck.Buck felt he was affronted and sad when he found himself was sold.It is not difficult to discover Buck was with dignity and pride,he has the power of life,he was not a slave any more,he had his noble soul.”He was sounding the deeps of his nature,and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he,going back into the womb of time.He was mastered by the sheer surging of life,the tidal wave of being,the perfect joy of each separate muscle,joint,and sinew in that it was everything that was not death,that it was aglow and rampant,expressing itself in movement,flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move.”
We would find that Jack London did not get rid of anthropocentrism in some aspects,however,he can not help admiring and respecting Buck,which was a great respect for animals and the nature.The whole novel was set in the wild,which tells us the nature is people’s home and we should not invade it.In the end,Buck broke the restricts of modern culture to return to the wild,which is the resistance to mankind.”He walked to the centre of the open space and listened.It was the call,the many-noted call,sounding more luringly and compellingly than ever before.And as never before,he was ready to obey.John Thornton was dead.The last tie was broken.Man and the claims of man no longer bound him.”This resistance reflects that people are used to be human self-centered and always deprive the equal status of other creatures,breaking the peace of the whole nature.
Just as Carl Sandburg put it” The Call of The Wild is the greatest dog story ever written and is at the same time a study of one of the most curious and profound motives that play hide-and-seek in the human soul”Jack London’s novels are easy to read but difficult to understand and in this book,he wanted us to respect nature and admire nature,return to our own wild.
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