The Call Of The Wild

Only the strong can survive in the brutal environment of cold. This is a slight expression of the theme of a classic novel I recently read. The Call of The Wild by Jack London captured only my attention to London's talented writing and theme of natural selection throughout the plot. Though difficult at first to keep my attention held to, the book soon cought me up in the story of Buck and made me wish he and all his alliances and enemies could overcome the brutality of the north as well as that of their relationships, which were based cruelly on natural selection alone.

Buck is the protagonist of the book. As the novel opens, we are introduced to the Buck that lives in a civilized manner in a happy time in his life though not with complete love in his heart and passion for what he does and how he lives. The story progresses as Buck does through it, though his progression sadly is not one that encompasses his spirituality or the virtues of altruism as progression should include but his change is simply physically for the better and mentally for the worse, seeing as how altruism is a higher virtue than the quality of cunning to topple enemies.

Natural selection obviously more than interested London because every aspect of his story of Buck seems to revolve around it. After Buck learns the human species to be dominant to his, he cunningly appears to obey just enough to best his situation. Buck kills in the name of himself and for the benefit of his position, and this is displayed as an action of greatness by London, whose human emotions of insecurities about enemies I think were permitted by him to be expressed through fantasy via Buck's story. For Buck does not fail with his kill as he seemed to fail at first when having to learn the dominancy of man; as though London had felt such failure before and wanted to express it with a situation where Buck is the victim and then redeem himself by showing Buck to succeed in all his future encounters with enemies.

Buck's story takes place in an environment suitable to the taste of London, who desired to show his audience brutality and the defeat of brutality-brutality existing as the snow and ice that caused Buck and his enemies (for I think all the other characters were enemies except for Thornton, whom Buck felt the only noble emotion in the entire novel for) to suffer so greatly. Not to mention Buck's lack of food at one point and the couple times he was beaten, etc. Buck's life is anyone's life with the suffering always present and because Buck is not a human he simply could not defeat his desire to harm for his own benefit and to protect himself and whether because of Buck being an animal or his circumstances Buck could not spiritually develop his love further to exist on behalf of more characters than Thornton alone. I think, personally, that London himself had perhaps not considered such a parallel barrier to exist within his own mentality but his story seems to portray the possibility of such a mentality within himself as his words seem to obsess over the need to win and defeat something.

On a different note, London's writing style, as in his sentence formations and word choice, was obviously highly skilled and his words stroke my emotions as they sounded so beautiful. Beauty is quite apparent in his writing, yes, although expressed as harshness to make the story so entertaining and cause readers sympathy for Buck if no one else.

The Call Of The Wild may not possess a positive or enlightening theme, but it does capture our emotions and entertain. I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to write.