As Charles Darwin once said. “It is not the strongest of species that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change”. Darwin’s quote strongly relates to “The Call of the Wild” in many circumstances where the stronger species was not able to thrive, but the one that was most able to adapt to change. In Jack London’s novel, “The Call of the Wild” it is conveyed that in order to survive in any environment one must be able to become accustomed to their surroundings. To survive by adaption one must drop old habits, be able to thrive in poor treatment environments, and love when given the chance. The main character in “The Call of the Wild” Buck, proves this idea on a multitude of occasions throughout his journey in the hostile Canadian Yukon Territory. The first adaptation that is made in “The Call of the Wild” is conveyed when one must drop their old habits to survive. To become accustomed to new surroundings, it is essential to drop old habits. During his experience with Francois and Perrault, Buck quickly learns to adapt by dropping old habits. Buck drops many of his old habits and the first was eating daintily. Buck ate with great fastidiousness and …show more content…
After John Thornton dies and Buck’s only tie to humanity and civilization is severed, Buck proceeds to live out his days in a local wolf pack where he becomes the alpha. Here he becomes a legend to the locals and is forevermore known as the Ghost Dog because of ferocious actions presiding Thornton’s death. Throughout the novel, “The Call of the Wild” it is proven that adaptability is key to one’s survival in any harsh environment. Over the many years in Buck’s time after being kidnapped by Manuel, Buck demonstrated time and time again that being able to adapt to one’s surroundings is and essential to life. In the novel, it is conveyed through many different events and lessons that being able to become accustomed to a setting is key to
“The suck of the water as it took the beginning of the last steep pitch was frightful, and Thornton knew that the shore was impossible. He scraped furiously over a rock, bruised across a second, and struck the third with a crushing force (London 81). This quote was written by Jack London, the author of The Call of The Wild that he had written a novel about a St. Bernard and a Scotch half breed dog named Buck coming into the Yukon transferring from a master to another. He Becomes loyal and loving to his new master John Thornton they look for gold in the Yukon together, the wild is calling to buck and he has to chose John Thornton or the wild.For the theme Survival of the fittest there are several samples of how Buck has adjusted to his
The theme in the novel The Call of The Wild Survival of the Fittest is shown even more with this quote later on in the story. Buck said this later in the novel when he finally learned all the rules and mandates of how to survive in the Yukon. “Kill or be killed,eat or be eaten; and this was the mandate,down out of the depths of time,he obeyed”. (London 77) This quote supports the theme Survival of the Fittest it states that you have to be able to obey rules and learn the rules in order to survive the harsh wilderness. In conclusion the theme Survival of the Fittest was portrayed many times throughout this novel, and in Buck’s many endeavors in the Yukon whether it was pulling a dog sled or saving John Thornton from many different deaths. The theme Survival of the Fittest was a strong theme in this
“ From far away drifted a faint, sharp yelp, followed by a chorus of a similar sharp yelps (London 105).” In the book, Call of the Wild by Jack London the main character Buck faces a retrogression. Buck goes from being king like to a wild rebellious dog. Buck goes through this change because men found gold. The men needed dogs like Buck. Buck was half saint Bernard and half scotch-shephard, so he was a gigantic dog and had a thick coat to survive in harsh weather like in the Klondike. So Buck is sold and beat he learns to obey the law of club and fang to be formed into a sled dog, but ends up forming a bond with a man his name was John Thornton . Thornton died and Buck answers the call and runs in the wild becoming alpha of the wolf pack. As Buck was
Throughout the story of The Call of the Wild, Buck had many relationships with many different individuals. Some were loving owners while others were terrible. The four most important that had the most influence of Buck were his original owner, Judge Miller, François and Perrault, and John Thornton. Eventually Buck took control of his own life and became his own master. In this essay, I am going to describe the relationships of Buck and his owners and what each of them taught him.
Beaten, neglected, and loved Buck dealt with all those things. In the story ‘’ The Call of the Wild ‘’, the central theme is how one treats animals can reflect on what kind of person they are.
Jack London brings a natural instinct into the spotlight by defining that everyone has that primal call to the wild, and often one feels this when in a difficult situation. Giving into this ‘call of the wild’ leads to a different kind of adaptation, it makes you become primal to survive in a primal situation. Further into the book it states, “The others sat down and howled. And now the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents. He, too, sad down and howled.” (London, 1990, p.62). This is the defining moment of Jack’s book when Buck lets go of all ties to humans and decides to carve his own path, adapting the way he needs to, not the way that humans encouraged him. Soon, Buck changes himself completely to fit snugly into the environment and to prevent further torturous struggles with humans. These quotes combine to paint a picture of total and complete change when it comes to a new and unfavorable environment.
In his novel, The Call of the Wild, Jack London wants us to see the step beyond the survival of the fittest to the complete adaptation to and domination of a once unfamiliar and unforgiving environment. Using a third-person, limited omniscient narrator, the cold, icy Yukon wilderness, and a journey from lazy farm life to the deadly work of a sled dog, we see Buck, a Saint Bernard/Scotch Shepherd mix slowly return to his ancestral roots. As Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin states in her book The Call of the Wild: A Naturalistic Romance, “The book deals less with the concept of evolution than with that of devolution” (Courbin pg 57). London asks us to believe that happily domesticated farm dog, Buck, can not only survive life as a sled dog in the Yukon, but can become completely in tune with his primitive inner self, and ultimately thrive as a leader of a wolf pack.
Buck answered the call of the wild after Thornton’s death. He ran and howled with the wolves. The Indians called him a ghost dog because he was a powerful wolf who came to the place where Thornton died every year. This was because Buck felt the passionate love for him and Thornton. Buck saved Thornton, risking his life. “Love. Genuine, passionate love, was his first time.” (pg 73). What the influence of love Thornton had for Buck was unbreakable. Thornton’s influence allowed Buck to grow more
In the beginning of the book, Buck must adapt to the cold and cruelness of his new life in order to survive with very little food and recognition. First, Buck has to adapt to being transported to the North and learn to be a sled dog. For example, when he lived with the judge he slept wherever and whenever he wanted, but now that he is in the North he can only sleep under the snow and for few hours. Since, Buck learns that to live and carry on through his journey he has to make some changes from his old lifestyle. Second, Buck finds food for himself in order to survive and pull the sled longer. For instance, Buck steals food off of the man‘s plate because he is starving. Since, Buck can put his instincts into action, adapt and can be a good sled dog and stay alive. Last, Buck gets little recognition and learns to use his instincts and care for himself. For example, Buck gains confidence in himself to
Chris McCandless and Buck serve as examples of the archetype of the wild through their experiences of leaving where they feel most comfortable and answering the call of the wild. They show that each experience is inimitable because the wild is unique to every individual. For Buck, the wild is a place outside of civilization and his dependence on man, where the external threats of nature exist and he must prove himself as a true animal with instincts for survival. In McCandless' case, the place outside of civilization is actually an escape from his fears because the wild for him is in relationships, where the threat of intimacy exists and he must learn to trust others for happiness. This is because for each of us, the wild is what we
Perhaps the most important aspect of the novel was the progressive shift back to instinctive qualities of Buck. When the story begins, Buck is living as a pampered housedog at a large estate,
In The Call of the Wild, one theme could be that only the strongest survive, Buck goes through significant changes in his life and has to learn very quickly how to adapt in order to survive. The connection between this theme and natural selection is that if you are not able to adapt or suited for a certain task, you will fail. If Buck had not adapted and learned how to a sled dog, he would have most likely of died. When it says "only the strongest survive" it means that if you are not prepared or are weak, you will die first. In natural selection, when disasters happen or things in the world change, only the strongest, smartest, and quickest to adapt will survive. Bucks life changed very rapidly, but he was able to adapt very quickly to his
In the Call of the Wild, by Jack London, a young Newfoundland mix embarks on a journey through the Alpine. Battling both the elements, and the pull of civilization, Buck must fight his way to the top in the quest for alpha dog. Not only battling civilization, but his comrades as well, Buck must be the strongest and the smartest to prevail. In the harsh world of the frozen North Buck gains ingenuity, lost through years of domestication.
In the story call of the wild there were a lot of dogs and people not right
Call of the Wild is a novella written by Jack London that is ironic about life and the way we look at it. We look at life as humans and other things are just living in our world, that nothing else has a say in the world because we do not speak the same languages. Example of this is how we “own” dogs, cats, horses, etc; we do not “own” them, they are their own being with goals of their own. We may not be able to understand what they are saying or what they are thinking, but as London explains throughout his novella, one dog in particular has such high aspirations for himself that he will not quit for anything and his name is Buck. Never giving up on what you want in your life is the real message in this story that is being portrayed through the life of Buck.