Two men are out in the wild of the north.

Their dogs disappear as they are lured

by a she-wolf and eaten by the pack. They only have three bullets left and Bill,
one of the men, uses them to try to save one of their dogs; he misses and is
eaten with the dog. Only Henry and two dogs are left; he makes a fire, trying to
drive away the wolves. They draw in close, and he is almost eaten, saved only
by a company of men who were traveling nearby.

The wolves are in the midst of a famine. They continue on, lead by several
wolves alongside the she-wolf, and when they finally find food the pack starts
to split up. The she-wolf mates with one of the wolves and has a litter of pups.
Only one survives after several more famines, and he grows strong and is a
feisty pup.

They come to an Indian village where the she-wolf's (who is actually half-wolf,
half-dog) master is. He catches her again and White Fang, her pup, stays
nearby. Soon, she is sold to another Indian, while White Fang stays with Gray
Beaver, her master. The other dogs of the village terrorize White Fang,
especially one named Lip-lip.

White Fang becomes more and more vicious, encouraged by his master. He kills
other dogs. Gray Beaver goes to Fort Yukon to trade and discovers whiskey.
White Fang is passed into the hands of Beauty Smith, a monster of a man. He
fights other dogs until he meets his match in a bulldog and is saved only by a
man named Scott.

Scott tames White Fang and takes him back to California with him. There White
Fang learns to love his master and his master's family and even saves Scott's
father from a criminal that escaped from the nearby prison. White Fang has
puppies with Collie, one of the master's dogs, and lives a happy life.

Characters

White Fang - White Fang is the main character of the book. His mother was half
wolf, half dog. His father was full wolf. He starts his life in the wild, but becomes
more and more of a dog after he and Kiche, his mother, go to the Indian camp.
He is naturally quite strong and agile, but other dogs and humans are mean to
him so he turns these skills into fighting skills, becoming fierce and unloved. It
is only when he meets Scott, the first human to ever show kindness to him that
his character changes and he becomes a loving dog.

Henry - Henry appears only in the first section of White Fang. He is mushing
with Bill and is the more thoughtful and less impulsive of the two. He tries to
use his wit to escape the wolves, but is saved only by luck.
Bill - Bill also is only in the first section of White Fang. He is much more morose
than Henry, and his impulsiveness with the gun causes him to be eaten by the
wolves.

Kiche - Kiche is White Fang's mother, also known as the "she-wolf." She is half
wolf, half dog, and escaped from an Indian camp during a famine.

One Eye - One Eye is White Fang's father. He is full wolf and kills his rivals to
mate with Kiche.

Gray Beaver - A harsh man, Gray Beaver is White Fang's first master. Although
he shows no affection for his dog, White Fang bonds to him out of a certain
mutual respect. It is only when he becomes addicted to alcohol that he is
willing to sell White Fang.

Lip-lip - The bane of White Fang's existence, Lip-lip is another pup in the Indian
village who robs White Fang of any puppyhood by turning all the dogs against
him.

Mit-sah - Gray Beaver's son, who runs White Fang and the other dogs on a
sled.

Beauty Smith - An ugly man, both inside and out, Beauty Smith trains White
Fang to become a fighting dog.

Weedon Scott - Scott is White Fang's first loving master. He saves White Fang
from the bulldog and slowly gain's White Fang's trust, and finally his love.

Matt - Matt is Scott's musher. He feeds White Fang and works him on the sled
during the day.

Collie - Collie does not trust White Fang at first because she is a sheep dog, but
he works his way into her confidence, and they become mates.

Judge Scott - Weedon Scott's father, Judge Scott does not believe in White
Fang until after White Fang saves his life, he then calls the dog the "Blessed
Wolf."

Jim Hall - A criminal, Jim Hall escapes from the prison after he is unjustly
sentenced by Judge Scott. He tries to take vengeance on Judge Scott, but is
attacked by White Fang.

Themes

Men and the natural word

More than anything, White Fang is about nature. London talks about it in the
first two paragraphs, shows us what it can do to a pair of hapless mushers,
then picks up one of its creatures and demonstrates how he is shaped by, and
eventually escapes it. Through White Fang, we also see how humans deal with
nature. We try to tame it, rule it, escape it or overthrow it, but in the end, we're
still beholden to it in a lot of ways. Scott and his family rise above it, but they're
still at the mercy of its laws especially when Jim Hall comes to visit.

Death

From the moment he's born, White Fang faces death. It waits around every
corner for him and could claim him at any moment. Seriously stressful
business, right? It's just as bad for everybody else who, as London quietly
points out, is going to die sooner or later anyway. In White Fang, the goal is to
avoid dying for as long as possible, kind of like a cosmic game of dodge ball.
You got to keep ducking and diving, even though you know you're going to lose.

Competition

In White Fang, competition appears in its most old-school, biological sense.

Here it means fighting over food, resources, and in many cases, the ability to
go on living. When you're fighting for your life, you're usually fighting against
something specific: wolves, lynxes that jerk with the chain and the club, or a
murderous murderer. White Fang starts competing when he's just a puppy and
doesn't stop until the very end of the book. It's pretty much who he is, and the
fact that he's good at it is really the only reason he's still alive.

Suffering

It takes guts to make things happen in life. A little puppy pushing out of his
cave into the great big world needs a big sack of courage to does it right? On
another level, you need some brass to step into a lethal dog fight, insult the
patrons, and pry the jaws of one of the animals loose. Without courage, White
Fang would still be in that cave (and likely dead), and Scott wouldn't have been
able to save the wolf from getting chomped to death by a bulldog. London puts
a lot of stock in courage, and it reflects the best that his White Fang characters
can do.

Freedom and confinement

Freedom is a tricky thing in White Fang. It means you can go where you want
and do what you want, but it also means that you're on your own as far as that
whole "getting food and shelter" thing goes. When he's with Grey Beaver,
White Fang ultimately decides that confinement is better than freedom, since it
gets him a steady meal. That turns around and bites him in the bum when
Beauty Smith takes over. Scott, however, gives him the best sort of
confinementthe kind based on trust that allows White Fang to roam free,
knowing that he'll eventually come home. Like the balance between nature and
civilization, the story could be seen as the search of a soft spot between
freedom and confinement.

Innocence

In White Fang, innocence is more than the typical navet of childhood (or
puppyhood in this case). It also indicates a total lack of experience with the
world, in which White Fang always finds himself stumbling smack dab against
something that's nothing he's ever seen before. White Fang, as an animal, is
always innocent in some ways, and that innocence shows up in both physical
experiences and emotional feelings. Bet you never thought you'd be asking
yourself why wolves can't cry when you started this book.