Jack London The Call of The Wild -- Uncovering the Mystery of Men and Dogs
投稿類別:英文寫作
篇名:
Jack London The Call of The Wild -- Uncovering the Mystery of Men and Dogs
作者:
曾韻庭。國立師大附中。三年 1264 班
指導老師:
林敏靜老師
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Jack London The Call of The Wild -- Uncovering the Mystery of Men and Dogs
I. Introduction
I’ve always been an animal lover, especially the wild ones. I like the way they
hunt, the way they live, the way their not being trapped in cages, and the way of living
in totally freedom. Not being “civilized”, which we human are very much proud of,
those animals somehow possess a kind of pure innocence. No schemes and no
plannings, for them, life is such a natural matter just like the sun rising in the east.
“The Call of The Wild” is a book I’m really fond of. Unlike those flooding fairytales
of personified animals standing up with their hind legs and talking with each other,
“The Call of The Wild” provides us a rather realistic viewpoint of animal behaviors,
experiencing the brutality and cruelness of true wildness. There are seldom
conversations, for animals actually don’t talk, but one can always strongly feel the
struggle and agitation between civilization and wilderness through the author’s
exquisite writings: cruel but real.
The essay is divided into two parts. The first section describes the main storyline
of the whole book, helping readers fully understand the plots and main ideas. The
second part analyzes relationships between men and dogs; through the eyes of our
main character, Buck, we can easily see the different interactions in humans and
animals. And now I’m going to introduce this masterpiece of the century, “The Call of
The Wild”.
II. Thesis
1. Summary
In the book “The Call of The Wild” by Jack London, Buck is a dog who has
lived in the beautiful sun-kissed southland for half of his life until one day. He is
sold to the primitive south because of the betraying, money-thirsty gardener of the
house and because people searching for gold mines in the Arctic are desperate for
sled dogs. Buck has his first lesson from the dog seller, the man in a red sweater,
who teaches him the absolute control of men and the cunning and patience a dog
needs in the harsh wild. Then, he is bought by Parrault and Francois, mailmen both,
and starts the life of a sled dog. Together with Spitz, Dave, Sol-leks and many
other dogs, Buck learns to survive under the law of club and fang, and gradually,
he overthrows Spitz, the leader of the dogs, taking charge of the team.
After that, they are sold to another group of men. Unlike their former owners,
these guys are totally inexperienced, knowing nothing about sleds and the severity
of the pole. This nearly causes Buck's death, but fortunately, he meets John
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Jack London The Call of The Wild -- Uncovering the Mystery of Men and Dogs
Thornton, who saves Buck and keeps him as a companion when waiting for his
folks to come back. The relationship is intimate. They somehow share a connection
between each other and Thornton is definitely the only man Buck has ever loved.
Happiness doesn’t last long, though, for Thornton is then killed by the natives. Full
of sorrow, Buck leaves the camp and runs away with one of his wolf friends,
finally responding to the call of the wild.
2. Analysis
“The Call of The Wild” presents a story of a dog, Buck, transforming from a
pampered pet to a fierce, masterful wild beast. Actually, the title “Buck” is aptly
named, for “buck” as a verb means to throw off, oust, reject, expel, or remove,
indicating his throwing off the old way of life as a pet dog in civilized society and
becomes an imposing and redoubtable wild animal that accedes to leadership of a
wolf pack. The change basically means the gradual separation from humanity and
the final independence he achieves. Mankind plays an important role in the charge,
for they’re the one who virtually flips Buck’s life all around. However, the book
offers a vague, rather than totally negative, portrait of the human-dog relationship.
It suggests that while some masters can be disastrous to a dog’s welfare, others
might be mutually beneficial, and still others develop pure adoration with each
other. Below is the analysis of the relationships in the sequence of the book’s plot :
A. First master: Judge Miller – Household Pet and Shelter Provider
The main conflict of the book is the struggle between the civilized and the
primitive. The first part of the story talks about the relationship between men
and dogs in the civilized world, much of the kind of our surroundings right now.
The profession “judge” actually represents the civilized Southland, for it is a job
requiring rationality and justice, elements of the enlightened world, which later
become a contrast to the ferocity of the wild. Buck begins as a spoiled regent,
strutting proudly over his warm, sun-kissed domain, “for he was king--king
over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's place, humans
included.”
Like most of the house dogs in the modern world, he acts as a companion
of human beings and in return, gets shelter from them. For example, it’s
described in the book that “he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's
daughters, on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he
lay at the Judge's feet before the roaring library fire. “As for Buck, he is
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Jack London The Call of The Wild -- Uncovering the Mystery of Men and Dogs
content at the stage, leading a care-free and leisurely life, but if he looks back in
the future, he’ll learn that his past really stinks.
B. Second master: The man in a red sweater – Untamed Beast and Harsh Trainer
This part is a transitional period – this is Buck’s first contact with the
primitive world, where the law of club and fang rules it all. Though Buck
receives hundreds and thousands of hard blows from the man in a red sweater,
that’s where he learns the power of violence and the need to give in when
threatened by a superior force.“He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not
broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a
club. He had learned the lesson, and in all his afterlife he never forgot it.
That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive
law.” makes a clear confession of how important those blows can be.
Actually, associated with flesh and blood, the color “red” symbolizes the
harshness and cruelty our protagonist is destined to encounter later. “Human
dominates all” is the main men-and-dog relationship at this stage. This often
occurs when people are trying to train animals into obeying their masters so that
those beasts will be capable of toiling for human beings. However, instead of
mere blind obedience like other tamed animals, Buck realizes how the game is
played and that’s how he gets the sovereignty on his way to independence.
C. Third masters: Perrault and Francois – Subordinates and Bosses
The whole book reveals a strong consciousness of “the survival of the fittest,”
and this is the point when Buck shows his supreme adaptation to the new life,
which ultimately triggers a long struggle for mastery. We can see the mass
conversion in the original writing: “His muscles became hard as iron, and he
grew callous to all ordinary pain. Sight and scent became remarkably keen,
while his hearing developed such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the
faintest sound and whether it heralded peace or peril.” Thus, when Buck
goes from being a moral, civilized pet to a fierce, bloodthirsty, violent wolf-dog,
we are glad rather than shocked, because we know that he is fulfilling his
highest esteemed destiny.
This part states one of the typical relationships of mutually benefiting.
Instead of mere companionship or absolute controlling, dogs and men are more
like bosses and subordinates, devoting to the same goal—the trail. Buck is
indeed great help to his masters’ work, for “He was in giving the law and
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Jack London The Call of The Wild -- Uncovering the Mystery of Men and Dogs
making his mates live up to it. The general tone of the team picked up
immediately. It recovered its old-time solitary, and once more the dogs
leaped as one dog in the traces. It was a record run. Perrault and Francois
threw chests up and down the main street, while the team was a constant
center of a worshipful crowd of dog mushers.” Though it sounds like a
win-win condition, never have they developed any affection for each other.
Buck respects his masters for their impartial, good reasoning, as well as
experience in the Arctic. As for the men, they just consider the dogs as working
machines. They do care for the animals and look after them carefully, not out of
love though, but out of the dependence on their toil.
D. Fourth masters: Hal, Charles, and Mercedes – Tortured Labors and
Inexperienced Employers
As a group of three, Hal, Charles, and Mercedes are woefully out of place
in the severe North. Serious mistakes, such as over-packing the sled, riding
instead of walking, and miscalculating the demand for food, have totally
revealed their sheer and unutterable callowness. “There was a great deal of
effort about their manner, but no business like method. The tent was rolled
into an awkward bundle three times as large as it should have been. The tin
dishes were packed unwashed.” The above description shows not only
ultimate ignorant of the outlands, but the author’s attack of the debilitating
effects of human civilization and warns of how little use such civilization is in
the wild. Here is a little example of the woman’s foolishness: “Mercedes cried
when her clothes bags were dumped on the ground and article after article
was thrown out. She cried in general, and she cried in particular over each
discarded thing. She clasped hands about knees, rocking back and forth
brokenheartedly. She averred she would not go an inch.”Mercedes’
insistence on having all of her possessions with her highlights the difference
between the wild and civilization.
For the former one, the value of an object lies in its immediate usefulness
while the latter uses an object to symbolize the wealth and social status of its
possessor. As for the dogs, having masters like these is as good as a huge
tragedy. Those humans know absolutely nothing about the trails and traces, and
the worst is that they refuse to take any suggestions from others. In fact, what
really matters is the understanding of and abiding by the rules the world has set
up, and it is only when those rules are broken that we see true savagery and
disrespect for life, leading to the death of the innocent dogs.
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Jack London The Call of The Wild -- Uncovering the Mystery of Men and Dogs
E. Last Master: John Thornton – Loving Friends
John Thornton is the one who cuts Buck off the traces, saving him from the
torture of those three pathetic idiots, which symbolizes the freedom from the
world in which he serves humans. The two then become loving and loyal
friends. Their relationship is like the man-dog connections in ancient times,
when dogs run alongside men to protect them from the terrors of night. It is
primitive, rather than civilized. The interaction between them is rather
primordial as well. For instance, “He had a way of taking Buck's head
roughly between his hands, and resting his own head upon Buck's, of
shaking him back and forth……Buck had a trick of love expression that
was akin to hurt. He would often seize Thornton's hand in his mouth and
close so fiercely that the flesh bore the impress of his teeth for some time
afterward.”
So strong is the connection that even as Buck is increasingly drawn to a life
away from humanity, it keeps him from making the final break and here’s the
evidence seen in the context: “Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as
often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt
compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it,
and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why;
nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the
forest. But as often as he gained the soft unbroken earth and the green
shade, the love for John Thornton drew him back to the fire again.” It is
only when Thornton is killed by the Indians that the tie is thoroughly broken.
Buck’s last tie to human world is out and he becomes free to attack the Indians.
Attacking a human being would once have been unthinkable for Buck, and his
willingness to do so now represents the fact that his transformation is
complete—that he has truly embraced his wild nature.
III. Conclusion
On the pilgrimage searching for selfhood, one will always get tumbled or even
lose the way; however, no matter how rugged and rough the roads might be, we are
bound to stand up from where we fall and by endless courage accumulated, finally
find the place we truly belong.
As in the book, it was not until numerous torturing and agony that Buck found
his orientation in the wild, howling to the moon with his ancestors so long ago.
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Jack London The Call of The Wild -- Uncovering the Mystery of Men and Dogs
Bragging ourselves as the highest class of all creatures, a human, I believe, is mostly
responsible for finding out his own meaning of living, no matter how hard and tough
the task will be. Life is indeed a process of groping unstopped.
IV. References
Jack London. (2005). The Call of the Wild. Sterling Pub Co Inc.
http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/CallOfTheWild/ (May 15th 2011)
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/call / (May 15th 2011)
http://www.bookrags.com/The_Call_of_the_Wild/ (May 15th 2011)
http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/The_Call_of_the_Wild (May 15th 2011)
http://www.online-literature.com/london/callwild/ (May 15th 2011)
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/The_Call_of_the_Wild (May 15th 2011)
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