Jack London
...famous work. The novel is about Buck, a St. Bernard-Scotch Shepard cross, who is kidnapped from his home and taken up North to be a sled dog (Bloom 20). White Fang is a classic tale London wrote about a violent, morose, and suspicious wolf-dog who is ‘tamed’ by the love and kindness of this gentle master. Superficially, the theme of all three of these stories is that “It’s a dog’s world” (Koster 165). London liked to be identified with the wolf. He signed his intimate letters “Wolf,” named his mansion “Wolf House,” and had a wolf’s head as a bookplate. Wolves frequently appear as characters in his novels and short stories and the word “wolf” itself often appears in the titles of many (Koster 109). Trans sent London clearly portrays naturalism in all of his writings. “In general, the specific naturalistic qualities found in much of London’s fiction contains—both the short stories and the novels—including sociological determinism and biological determinism; the survival of the fittest thesis; belief in the materialistic, primitivistic nature of man; and accent on some revolutionary themes” (Tavernier-Courbin 107). Generally, naturalism refers to those who viewed life strictly from a scientific approach; in this case that translates to the view that man and other creatures were victims of their heredity and environment (Napierkowski 48). The environment theme is signaled at the onset of White Fang as London vividly describes the landscape. White Fang’s heredity is defined, “one-fourth dog, three-fourths wolf”, leading up to the struggle within him between his civilized impulses and his wild ones (Tavernier-Courbin 119). In “To build a Fire”, London repeatedly shows how a man does not have free will and how nature has already mapped out his fate. The environment does nothing to help its inhabitants; in fact, it is coldly indifferent to their existence and struggle. He shows the power that nature has over an individual (Milne 339). Thought or conduct based on natural instincts is also a characteristic of naturalistic writing. Jack London portrays the natural desires and instincts in The Call of the Wild as he writes: “Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose at the moon, and broke out the long wolf howl” (Collected London 214). Buck’s heredity is carefully presented as a powerful influence. “For...