Comparing Jack London's The Call Of The Wild And White Fang

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Jack London is one of the well-known writers of the naturalism movement. His most infamous novels are The Call of the Wild and White Fang. London was born in 1876 in San Francisco; he was named John Griffith Chaney at birth. It is unknown whether his mother, Flora Wellman was ever legally married to William Chaney, who abandoned her when she was pregnant. Flora was very ill after John’s birth, so she turned the boy over to Virginia Prentiss, an ex-slave, who took care of the boy. Flora married John London, a partially disabled Civil War veteran, later that year. After that they started to call John Jack in order to distinguish his from step-father. As Jack graduated from grammar school, he went to work because his family couldn’t afford to send him to high school. Working at canning factory was tough, he started pirating oysters, and also he worked at the open sea for some time. When the Klondike Golden Rush happened, he jumped at the …show more content…

Naturalism is an outgrowth of the realism movement; unlike realism it not only tries to portray the world and human beings exactly as they and in details are but also is interested in the way how human beings are governed by their instincts and how the environment and heredity shape one’s character. Also, another very important feature of this movement is determinism – the belief that character’s fate is predetermined, usually by environment. Emile Zola was the most well-known practitioner of naturalism, he was also the first to use the term ‘naturalism’ regarding his works. The short story To Build a Fire is an example of naturalism. It is very detailed and this makes the story look realistic. London wrote it in a very remarkable manner – short, quite simple sentences which are very descriptive and it makes the reader imagine all actions very