Buck's Transformation In The Call Of The Wild

“The Dominant Primordial Beast”

“Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself” (Chinese Proverb). In The Call of the Wild, others give Buck the knowledge of how to survive in the wild, but Buck learns to master the wild on his own. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, is a story about a dog named Buck who goes from a pampered house dog to a primitive wolflike beast who belongs and thrives in the wild. Buck starts out at Santa Cruz, living a luxurious and aristocratic life. The gardener kidnaps him and sells him to people looking for sled dogs to bring men to the north so they can dig for gold. Buck learns and adapts to this new and harsh environment, and eventually masters and excels in the wild. London portrays this transformation through vivid description of the events that take place during Buck’s journey. Buck starts out learning to survive and

Curly is attacked by one dog, and as soon as she goes down, a group of other huskies pounce on her and kill her. Buck, who has never had experience with such brutality, is shocked by this behavior, and “the scene often came back to Buck to haunt him in his sleep” (London, 5). When no one else is bothered by the unfairness of death, Buck realizes “that was the way. No fair play. Once down, that was the end of you” (London, 5). Instead of intimidating Buck, this makes Buck determined to “see to it that he never went down” (London, 5). This lesson of how there is no fairness in the wild, is called the law of club and fang, and it helps Buck immensely in the future when he gets into fights with other dogs. It is very possible that Buck would have died if he had not learnt this lesson. No one else teaches Buck this lesson, he comes to this conclusion on his own. As a result, Buck masters the law of club and fang individually, without the help of