Naturalism is the philosophical point of view in which any living thing can adapt and change to survive. Survival is the goal in life so organisms will most likely do anything to live another day. The Call of the Wild by Jack London is an adventure fiction book about the journey of a dog named Buck as he is kidnapped and thrown into the rough primordial life. Although some may think naturalism is simply a subject referred to in this book, naturalism is a main idea that appears frequently throughout the whole book and is shown through Bucks relationships with Spitz, the man in the red sweater, and Buck becoming the uber dog.
Spitz is the first obstacle in Bucks path; he is the reason Buck learns to fight for what he wants. After killing Spitz, Buck proves his worthiness of why he is the leader of the team, “Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgement was required, and quick thinking and quick acting, he showed himself superior even of Spitz,” (London 72). Buck has built his way up to the top and now he is showing why he is there. He is changing his life to meet the requirements of a skillful sled dog. Bucks constant changing to meet the needs of not only survival but the need to be the best is the effect naturalism has on the story.
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This shows him how to know when to start or stop a fight, “He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death,” (London 123). Buck now knows when he should put another animal in their place and come out on top. If he didn't know his boundaries he would be killed in an instant. These laws Buck has come to know is another form of
Do you ever hear of nature fakers? Well, if not, a nature faker is an author that gives animals, from the wild, human characteristics and personifies them. In Jack London’s novel, The Call of the Wild, he writes about an extremely tough and confident dog, named Buck, who thrives in nature. For his writing in The Call of the Wild, many people accuse Jack London of being a nature faker. Nonetheless, Jack London is a magnificent, talented writer who carries a significant amount of knowledge about the wild and therefore isn’t a nature faker.
The wild is a place to push yourself to the limit and take a look at who you truly are inside. “Wilderness areas have value as symbols of unselfishness” (Nash). Roderick Nash’s philosophy states that the wilderness gives people an opportunity to learn humility but they fight this because they do not have a true desire to be humble. Human-kind wants to give out the illusion that they are nature lovers when in reality, they are far from it. “When we go to designated wilderness we are, as the 1964 act says, "visitors" in someone else's home” (Nash). People do not like what they cannot control and nature is uncontrollable. Ecocentrism, the belief that nature is the most important element of life, is not widely accepted. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts a young boy who goes on an exploration to teach himself the true concept of humility. Chris McCandless, the protagonist, does not place confidence in the universal ideology that human beings are the most significant species on the planet, anthropocentrism.
the idea of the wild and its importance and necessity of human interaction with the wild.
Crooks, the black stable buck, is isolated from the community of migrant workers because of his racial status. When Lennie goes into the barn to see his puppy, he and Crooks have a conversation. “'Why ain't you wanted?' Lennie asked. 'Cause I'm black. They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black'” (68). Lennie is too kind-hearted and intellectually slow to visualize the apparent racial boundary that sets Crooks aside from Lennie and the rest of the workers. Crooks is so isolated from the rest of the workers that he says he “can't” play cards, not that he isn't allowed to, which means that the racial boundary is like a wall Crooks cannot cross. Because he is black, Crooks believes that he cannot play cards with the white men. He can't get over the racial boundary, and believes he will be forever separated from the white men. In the beginning of chapter 4, Steinbeck describes Crooks' living space. “Crooks, the Negro stable buck, had his bunk in the harness room; a little shed that leaned off the...
choosing between a master or a wolf pack (love of John Thornton and the call of the wild)
The novel Call of The Wild by Jack London is about the dog Buck who is half St. Bernard and half sheepdog. Buck enjoys a relaxed lifestyle at his home in California until he is stolen and shipped to the Klondike region in Canada. Here he is put to work as a sled dog where he must battle the bad conditions, other dogs, and the cruelty of the wild to stay alive. One theme that can be seen over the course of the book is the difference between civilization and the wilderness. For example in civilization there are set rules that people must abide and these set rules makes everyone equal. However, Buck quickly learns that in the law of club and fang govern the wild. These means that the strongest people/dogs controls the weaker ones. In order for Buck to survive he must adapt to the ways of the wild in order to survive.
Christopher J. McCandless, the hero of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, is an example of an individualist attempting to escape society. Whether he succeeded depends on how we classify his actions in relation to individualist and collectivist philosophies.
When we think of civilization, what comes to mind? Some might think of etiquette, compassion, and many other concepts of that nature. These are the things that people have come to accept as proper human behaviors. However, what of our more primitive instincts? Things that are often frowned upon such as pride, gut-instincts, and looking out for ourselves first are some of our most basic human needs. People in the modern world would like to rely more on teamwork and recognition that pride and independence. They prefer to trust logic and scientific reasoning in place of trusting what we believe to be right. They also seem to want us to help everyone around us before we do anything to help ourselves. In London’s The Call of the Wild, primitive nature is not something to be feared and overcome, but rather something to be utilized and fulfilled.
Buck had been raised in California, on the ranch of Judge Miller. There he had the run of the place and was loved and pampered by all. Unfortunately, one of the judge's workers had a gambling problem and stole Buck to sell him for fifty dollars. Buck fights being tied, caged, and beaten, but his efforts only frustrate him. He is put on a train and a boat, being shipped to Alaska to be used as a sled dog. Although he is miserable on the journey, Buck learns an important lesson - the law of the club. If he does not obey, he will be beaten.
The novella The Call of the Wild is a story of Buck overcoming challenges while being thrown into the real world and learning new traits like persistence and resilience. Protagonist Buck is a colossal St Bernards cross Scotch shepherd dog, transforms from a humble house dog and then eventually returns to a primordial state as a best of the wild. Along the way he is faced with an endless array of challenges. London achieves this by portraying Buck’s change in character in a manner that explores and incorporates diverse motifs.
The main driving element in William Morris’s life has been the nature around him and the houses he lived in. The most prominent influence was the Kelmscott Manor. Therefore, I chose to go with Kelmscott Manor’s layout plan that exhibits the “inspirational garden “ that led to most of his design decisions, a map that depicts the pockets in the manor and how Morris was inspired by it. In addition to this, an original drawing of the Kelmscott Manor’s exterior that depicts how the manor amalgamated within the garden. To reinforce this, I picked a watercolor of the Kelmscott Manor and a photo that captivates the various perspectives of the garden in the manor. Moving on to his designs that interprets his love for nature I picked up the very first of his wallpaper design of the trellis that has a very naturalistic touch to it with the vines which seemed to be an extension of the “inspiration garden” on to the paper. Also chose one of the wallpapers he designed during the middle of his lifetime and one of his last designs as well. The underlying concept behind picking those was to outline the consistency in his design concept throughout his life. William Morris was a poet , whose poetry and compositions were also inspired by nature, and to depict his poetry in form of naturalism concept I picked a stance from one of his compositions that talks about forest, flora and fauna which directly ties to his underlying concept. Also the compositions he wrote always had engraved borders which was ...
...t when he began to panic as the second fire extinguished. He seemed as though he had lost all knowledge of his survival skills. He thought about killing the dog and wallowing in its steaming insides for refuge from the cold. "The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. He remembered the tale of a man, caught in a blizzard, who killed a steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved."(1752). When the man realized that the dog would not let him come near he was forced to concoct another plan. His idea was that if he ran all the way to the camp, he would be able to survive. Unfortunately, that plan failed as well and the man perished in the cold, numbing snow of the Yukon. Overall, naturalism is the most realistic literary movement. It parallels life more than any other movement because it reveals the fact that nature has not heart and no emotions. Nature feels no compassion for human struggles and will continue on it's path of destruction and harm regardless of the circumstances.
survive was to listen, watch and learn. Buck wanted to be the leader and fought for what
Naturalism is about bringing humans into the “natural world”. We, as humans, are seen as aspects of nature collectively not separate like they once were. “Naturalism holds that everything we are and do is connected to the rest of the world and derived from conditions that precede us and surround us. Each of us is an unfolding natural process, and every aspect of that process is caused, and is a cause itself ” (“A Guide for Naturalism”). Humans are like “animals” they contain the same drives that animals have. They are just plain “natural”. Many authors express naturalism in their writings such as Kate Chopin. She expresses a naturalistic view on sexual drives which classify her as a naturalistic writer.
Naturalism in this book means that people and other creatures that become victims of their heredity and environment. White Fang is a victim to his heredity because he is one-fourth dog and three-fourths wolf, which causes him to be more aggressive, have more strength than other dogs, and be a better hunter. The environment played a big part because he grew up where a famine was occurring a great majority of the time, there was snow, it was cold, other dogs were abusive towards him, and his masters didn’t make anything good for him (All except Scott)