Analysis Of Jack London's Call Of The Wild

Jack London’s classic novel, Call of the Wild, published in 1903, has been subject to censorship attempts. The most notable attempts of censorship are centered in Nazi Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. The banning of Call of the Wild in these places has been for varying reasons but the predominant reason behind all the attempts is because of “[Jack London’s] socialist sympathies.”1 However, “violent portrayals [have also] led to the book’s banning”2 in different places other than Nazi Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. Jack London, “The Boy Socialist of Oakland,”3 came to be socialist through the different places life took him. London’s journey to socialism starts with a harsh lifestyle. This harsh lifestyle continues

Suddenly, everything that had happened to him made sense. He joined Oakland 's Socialist Labor Party but, noting its middle-class composition, gravitated to the trade union movement. Later, along with the majority of the Oakland SLP, he joined the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs.

Although he had written a few pieces - one, inspired by his few months at sea, won a prize - during these years, it is clear that life itself made him a socialist before it made him a writer.4

London implements his new view of life—“human beings are one and the same despite their class, creed, nationality or social status or colour of the skin and they differ only by their deeds”5—in his writings. “[London shows] his [view] in his novel 'Call of the Wild '. The protagonist of the novel is a dog-named Buck. The dog serves the master throughout its life and when there is no space among men, it goes back to its ancestors, wolfs.”6 Buck represents humanity in the novel. Buck’s deed is serving his master, but at the end of the day, Buck returns to his fellow beings, wolfs. These socialist undertones of uniformity in The Call of the Wild are the direct cause for its censorship in Nazi Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet

Carrying torches, they marched toward large bonfires, where they burned about 25,000 volumes of "un-German" books.”13 Contrary to the common misconception, these burnings “were not limited to works by Jewish writers; … social critics Eric Kastner, Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Mann and Jack London”14 were also victim to these burnings. The Nazi and German students targeted Jack London’s novel in the 1930’s because London was seen as a “social critic”15 by the Nazis. London has the idea of uniformity or that everyone is equal, and “he showed his [idea] in his novel 'Call of the Wild '”16 London’s personal ideology of uniformity goes directly against the Nazi’s