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.
In The Call of the Wild London uses Buck, a half-wolf-half-dog hybrid, as an example of how if we become comfortable with certain aspects of our more natural, primitive mindset, we will truly be able to be free. We will be without a doubt, independent from the restrictions and barriers established by society. This can be shown when Buck has owners who are so encased in modern society and comfort they have no idea how to survive in the wilderness without all of their luxurious belongings. (London 2) Buck was not truly free until he was released from the bonds of human civilization and social norms, ideals, and restrictions. Once his last ties to the human world were severed with his master, John Thorton’s, death, Buck could fully begin to revert back to his true nature.( London 82-84) This is the way he is supposed to be from the beginning. He is not meant to be controlled, manipulate...
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...ghout the novella is that even though we are humans and not animals, if we continue to repress each and every aspect of our own primitive needs and instincts, we will completely lose them. We will not be able to function in any world except the one we live in, making us extremely and very dangerously vulnerable. We need to, instead, embrace these instincts as our ancestors did to help them survive in their own unique, yet brutal environments. We can never revert fully back to Primitivity as Buck did, that would cause absolute chaos. We do however, need to utilize certain aspects of these natures, the ones that can help us survive, give us special intuition, and allow us to come closer to ourselves and understand what it means to be a truly free and independent human being in a world that is entirely too dependent on altering everything that humans need to embrace.
The point of view of Call of the Wild is a combination of Buck’s perspective and a human’s perspective on Buck’s situation in the human world. Most often, the perspective of the story is third-person in Buck’s point of view. This perspective enables the reader to feel what it's like to be a dog and to experience that point of view. I understand how it feels for a dog like Buck. Here London shows Buck’s experience with the new vicious dogs:
“Civilization and Its Discontents” is a book written by Sigmund Freud in 1929 (originally titled “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur” or The Uneasiness in Culture.) This is considered to be one of Freud’s most important and widely read works. In this book, Freud explains his perspective by enumerating what he sees as fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. He asserts that this tension stems from the individual’s quest for freedom and non-conformity and civilization’s quest for uniformity and instinctual repression. Most of humankind’s primitive instincts are clearly destructive to the health and well-being of a human community (such as the desire to kill.) As a direct result, civilization creates laws designed to prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and has severe consequences for those that break these laws. Freud argues that this process is an inherent quality of civilization that instills perpetual feelings of discontent in its citizens. This theory is based on the idea that humans have characteristic instincts that are immutable. The most notable of these are the desires for sex, and the predisposition to violent aggression towards authoritative figures as well as sexual competitors. Both of these obstruct the gratification of a person’s instincts. Freud also believes that humans are governed by the pleasure principle, and that they will do whatever satisfies or pleasures them. He also believes that fulfilling these instincts satisfies the pleasure principle.
In the intriguing classic, The Call of the Wild, Jack London writes in anthropomorphism, telling the bare truth that survivors are those who adapt to changing circumstances during the Klondike Gold Rush. As the book evolves, Buck matures and does have to adapt from his old ways so that he can survive. In the beginning, Buck was a pampered half St. Bernard and half Scottish mix from Santa Clara Valley and quickly learns that sled dogs have to fight to survive. When Buck watches his fellow companion Curly die because another husky rips her to pieces, he learns the “law of the club.” Also, Buck starts developing his dog instincts as he sacrifices his life for his owner, John Thornton.
Famed American literature scholar Donald Pizer once wrote " the strong, the shrewd and the cunning shall prevail when life is bestial " in reference to Jack London's novel The Call of the Wild. In 1903 Jack London's novel based in the vastness of the Yukon captured the imagination of his readers by not only describing a wild unexplored land but also introducing human characteristics to an animal, in this case a half St.Bernard half Scotch Shepherd named Buck. Buck not only displayed the characteristics as described by Pizer but Buck also showed that determination and perseverance goes hand in hand with
“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles”~Christopher Reeve (actor). In a 1912 review that angered writer Jack London, the author of The Call of the Wild, the critic Philo M. Blake, Jr. complained of the apparent barbarism that characterizes many of London’s heroes. Barbarism means an absence of culture or civilization which often includes extreme cruelty or brutality. The statement made by Philo M. Blake, Jr. is truly false about the protagonist Buck in The Call of the Wild. To make clear, Buck is the main character who is stolen and sold north for the Klondike gold rush. Buck has to adapt to the North, and he has to learn how to survive in the gruesome Canadian wild.
Jack London’s “The Call of The Wild” is about the life of a dog named Buck, during the Alaskan Gold Rush, and the trials he faces. Buck has no choice but to adapt and survive in his new surroundings in Alaska, compared to his life in California. Since Buck is in the time period of the Alaskan Gold Rush, he must learn to cooperate with each owner that acquires him. Buck learns to survive with his sled team and become a leader. One must adapt to one’s surroundings or one will perish.
Human nature is something many can make different cases for. Some believe that deep down we are kind and compassionate, that, if stuck on an island where social constructs have become irrelevant, we would persevere, and functionality would eventually find it's place without someone to enforce it. Others believe, like William Golding, that deep down we are not nearly as civilized as our society conditions us to be. That savagery and chaos reign over civility and peace. Literature can put into reality events that would force human nature to the forefront, making the reader consider the most extreme situation. Lord of the Flies being a prime example, as it has taught me things like, how if you don't speak up for what you believe is right, it might be too late. How the power of fear can shape a society entirely, and how rules only work when the person giving them is respected.
In The Call of the Wild, Buck finds comfort in his relationships with man. When he is initially removed from Judge Miller's house in Santa Clara Valley, he is given his first exposure to the wild where, "every moment life and limb were in peril" (London 31). But soon he finds himself not entirely ready to leave civilization and answer the call of the wild, because he must first experience love. Buck establishes a relationship with John Thornton, and "love, genuine passionate love, was his for the fir...
In the final pages in The Call of the Wild, Buck is faced with the choice to answer the call or stay with John Thornton. Through every challenge, Buck has had, it was easy to answer the call, but love for a man only grew stronger. It was hard for Buck to disentangle his thoughts. It states "But in spite of his great love he bore for John Thornton, which seemed to bespeak the soft civilizing influence, the strain of the primitive, which the Northland had aroused in him, remained alive and active" (59). The only thing holding back Buck from answering the call was John Thornton. His primitive ways were still with him even if he was with John Thornton. Fate played a huge rule in assuring Buck what to choose because it was fate that John Thornton
n the Call of the Wild a major theme was the idea of "survival of the fittest". This theme really describes what the book, Call of the Wild is about because dogs are being sold to be sled dogs, so people can use them as transportation for the gold rush in the Klondike. Buck was one of these dogs and he experienced many things on this journey with meeting new dogs and having new owners, all the while being pushed to be a sled dog even in the harshest of conditions. The dogs were not the only ones that has the idea of "survival of the fittest," it was also the humans and people in this book experiencing it. In this essay you will see the meaning of the idea "survival of the fittest," and the people it affects, along with who succeeded, and who didn't.
“He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive” (Jack London). In Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” Buck was an average domesticated dog from a loving family, until he was kidnapped and forced to become a sled dog during the Alaska Gold Rush. There he was obligated to adapt to the harsh conditions of the wild if he wished to survive. Buck was a very intelligent dog and was able to learn by watching the native dogs, if he hadn’t then he would not have been able to survive.
This is a hook, please read this. In the realistic fiction short novel, Call of the Wild, written by Jack London, we trace the main character’s, transformation from a pampered house dog in California, to a wild animal in the Yukon. a dog named buck has a good life until he is taken into the wild to become a sled dog, he has a variety of masters and loses all of them and he meets many new dogs and has many fights along with many adventures. at the end he learns how to survive in the wild on his own.
A Major theme in jack london's classic book , The Call of the Wild is that adaptability is essential for survival. You need to be able to adapt to new things to survive,that is what buck has to do he has to adapt to become wild.
The roots of human nature are sunk deep into our history and experiences. When in our own lives we are to find the basis of our human nature, we must look to our early years, the formative years. Now take for example if we placed a newborn in the wild or in a high-class, well-mannered, wealthy family. The human nature of the newborn in the wild will be exactly that, wild and chaotic. While on the other hand the newborn in the well-mannered society will be well mannered and moralistic. Human nature is defined by the values that are taught and the values that society defines, if there are no societal values, human nature is doomed and lessened to that of wolves. Society defines the values and morals for its people to live by, common values. These values affect human nature and affect the way an even slightly self-conscious person behaves. An example of one of these societal values is table manners. Society has defined over hundreds of years of history to eat accompanied by utensils. Society also has set the value and that eating with your bare hands is “un-civilized.” Another example of a moralistic standard is not to steal. This value is taught by our parents and members of the society, the human society. So human nature has a conscience because of social morals and values. The formation and situation of human nature is dependent on these “guidelines.” Some people’s human nature may be to steal, maybe to survive but most humans have this as a wrong...
First, for instance, on Judge Miller’s Buck adapts to his role as King by accompanying the Judge’s sons on their hunts, his daughters on the walks, and the Judge’s grandsons in their play to perform his role as King and lord protector of his realm. Next, Buck adapts on the trail by quickly learning how to pull the dogsled so that he earns the respect of the other sled dogs and his masters so that he can survive on the trail. Lastly, in the wild Buck adapts to the rules of the wolf pack when he must use his physical prowess to earn his way into the wolf pack where one must prove himself by fighting and