Survival in Jack London's The Call of The Wild and White Fang

Abstract

Man’s anthropocentric perspective towards nature, which paves way to the destruction of species and natural resoruces in the last instance, stands out as a great drawback for the correction such of contemporary environmental situations. Authored by Jack London during his Klondike Gold Rush adventure, The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906), for example, can be counted among the works of eco-criticism that mirrors and criticizes man’s egocentric attitude towards nature and puts the usage of dogs as sled dogs and transitioning their nature by force during the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899) into the focal point of the criticism. In his The Call of the Wild (1903), London tries to show us, through the story of the central character Buck, how heartless and disrespectful can man become towards nature when he acts self centeredly. By reflecting the role of environmental factors in easing or aggravating the survival of Buck, and portraying how Buck is forcibly transitioned to a primitive beast from a domestic pet by men, London both criticizes this kind of a touch of men to nature, and implies his inclination towards naturalism in the works mentioned above. In his White Fang (1906), London tells the story of a wild dog, White Fang that has to adapt to the domestic environment to survive. This study aims to analyse Jack London’s The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906) in terms of survival examples.