White Fang Symbolism

Meat = Life

One of the earliest lessons White Fang learned during his time in the Wild was the law of meat. He draws his conclusion, “the law was: EAT OR BE EATEN,” from his understanding that “the aim of life was meat. Life itself was meat. Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten.” This shift in his thought process is what allows him to kill so mercilessly--if he wanted to live, he need to eat. Meat is his lifeblood. Without it, as he realized after the several famines he suffered as a pup, he would die. Animals are more than just his prey, they sustain his life. As such, he has no qualms with taking food wherever he can get it, and even aspires to grow strong enough to catch large prey like hawks and moose. Clubs = Order

The first time this symbol appears is when Kiche and the One-Eyed wolf separate from their pack to live on their own--and it is during their journey together that Kiche becomes pregnant and settles down in a cave to have her pups. From this litter, White Fang is born, and becomes the story’s central protagonist. Later on, after White Fang is separated from Kiche by the tribespeople, they begin to forget one another. Upon stumbling into Kiche, he is reminded of their ties--she is not. She has a new litter of puppies with her, indicating that she has moved on and begun a new life in the tribe without her first son. Following the climax of the story, as White Fang settles into his role as a farm dog in California, he comes to grow closer to a sheepdog named Collie. At the end of the novel, as he proves himself as a loyal and protective farmdog, Collie gives birth to their puppies--demonstrating that he has truly embraced his new life in

Similarly, the Wild proves through White Fang and his encounters with other animals that, for the weak to survive, they must become as cruel and malicious as their environment demands. Their will to survive is what keeps them from breaking underneath the pressure of these Wild laws, where the strong survive and the weak perish to feed them.

Jim Hall especially demonstrates someone who has turned to the Wild to survive in man’s cruel civilization. As the novel states, “the hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sample of its handiwork. He was a beast--a human beast, it is true, but nevertheless so terrible a beast that he can best be described as carnivorous.” Even in the jail, upon meeting a guard who was as great a beast as he, Jim was tormented and bullied in a way similar to how White Fang was by Lip-Lip. Jim’s wildness is what allows him to escape, however, as he uses his teeth to rip open a man’s throat--just as White Fang does when he attacks. His furious hatred for his treatment and his strategies mimic the wolf-dogs, as they both do whatever is necessary to survive in their harsh