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Zach Jaggi

Aughenbaugh

Honors English 12

10 November 2016

The Call of Social Darwinism

...The weak were diminished and their cultures delimited, while the strong grew in

power and in cultural influence over the weak. Social Darwinists held that the life of humans in

society was a struggle for existence ruled by survival of the fittest (The Editors of

Encyclopdia Britannica) Jack London relates his life to The Call of the Wild by showing a

literary naturalism of the Klondike Gold Rush through the eyes of a dog that also shows

Londons view on evolution and social Darwinism. Buck, the main character, is a pet in

California that is then sold as a sled dog in Alaska. He slowly becomes a vicious king of the

wild which is shown by him first killing the lead sled dog, then killing an Indian tribe called the

Yeehats. The main theme and focus of The Call of the Wild is social Darwinism and survival of

the fittest, which is illustrated through symbols such as Bucks first beating with the club, Curlys

death, and Bucks attack on the Yeehats.

In Londons early life, he enjoyed sailing and was actually a bit of a businessman. He

bought his first boat for two dollars and taught himself how to sail. He then began oyster

pirating, which is illegal, and selling them. To get around being arrested for it, he gave his best

oysters to the police. At age seventeen he became a seaman and sailed to Japan and Siberia to

cover the Russo-Japanese War. While he was there he got arrested for intruding. Then when he

came back and was making a trip to Canada he was arrested for vagrancy near Niagara Falls

(Loveday). London started his writing career by writing a 4,000-word essay he wrote for a
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contest which he took first place. After this, he wrote 1,000 words per day no matter what. He

mainly wrote with terror and tragic (Dirda). He wrote The Sea Wolf which became the material

creating Americas first full-length film (Loveday). Then he wrote his first success which was

The Call of the Wild. The Call of the Wild shows Darwinism and literary naturalism. London

was very smart about his audience because in this time period the theory of evolution was

politically incorrect; so he used a dog who undergoes evolution from a house pet to a king of the

wild. London was born in San Francisco, California on January 12, 1876 (Feast 4:1519-1526).

When he was twenty-one, he went from his house in California and journeyed to Alaska for the

1897 Klondike Gold Rush. He came home broke after making it about halfway (Dirda). They

were all too soft, dying under the toil, the frost, and starvation. (London 35). During Klondike,

100,000 gold seekers picked everything up and started their journey just like London. However,

70,000 of them either died or turned back never making it to Alaska. This is mainly due to the

conditions of Northern British Columbia and the Yukon were normally twenty and fifty degrees

Fahrenheit below zero and the warmest shelter was a tent. That is if you had one at least. There

were two trails you could take: The White Pass Trail and the Chilkoot Trail. Neither of which

were safe by any means. The White Pass Trail Jefferson Smith took over and scammed the

people who went through; or the other option, the Chilkoot trail, had so many mountains and

hills and swamps that no one could take any supplies with them if they wanted to take that way

(The Klondike Gold Rush). London wrote eighty Klondike stories that he sold to magazines;

this began his worldwide fame (Dirda). On November 22, 1916, London killed himself by

injecting himself with morphine (Feast 4:1519-1526). Whatever the cause, it is clear that

London, who played the various roles of journalist, novelist, Prospector, sailor, pirate, husband,

and father, lived life to the fullest. (SparkNotes Editors)

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The Call of the Wild starts out at Judge Millers House in Santa Clara, California. Buck

has lived here for four years and runs the house (London 2). Manuel the gardener stole buck and

sold Buck to a stranger for the Klondike Gold Rush. The stranger choked him and threw him in

a baggage car of a train (London 5). This creates distrust in humans and becomes a lot more

aggressive since he now feels he needs to defend himself. He was glad for one thing: the rope

was off his neck. That had given them an unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would

show them. (London 8). This is the beginning of him starting to show disobedience. His best

friend Curly died by a team of attack dogs. They tackled him to the ground and tore him to

shreds him to bits. Buck learns that once youre down, you are killed which is showing him

starting to evolve (London 16). Buck now watches all around him and his blind side as to not get

killed (London 19). He wants to be alone as opposed to the beginning of the book when he was

in a family (London 24). Buck had his food stolen by another dog (London 26), so he himself

starts stealing food adapting to new life losing his moral nature. Buck is reaching his peak in

adapting and challenges the lead dog, Spitz (The Call of the Wild 8:46-49), and wins by killing

him (London 44). Buck then realizes his own team was against him at times, which just helped

to strengthen Buck:

A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed him of his unfinished ration.

There was no defending it. While he was fighting off two or three, it was disappearing

down the throats of the others. To remedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did

hunger compel him, he was not above taking what did not belong to him, He watched and

learned. When he saw Pike, One of the new dogs - a clever malingerer and thief - slyly

steal a slice of bacon when Perraults back was turned, he duplicated the performance the

following day, getting away with the whole chunk. A great uproar was raised, but he was
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unsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always getting caught, was

punished for Bucks misdeed. (London 24)

Soon after this uproar Buck involuntarily gains his ancestors strength as well:

It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this

manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old

trick which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks. They came to

him with our effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. (London 26)

After seeing how Bucks team treats each one another and realizing the strength of Buck, John

Thorton Takes buck from the team. Shortly after, Thorton and Buck watch the team fall into the

ice and sink; drowning (London 74-76). Bucks consistent development stops when Thorton

becomes his master because Buck starts to discover love (The Call of the Wild 8:46-49). Buck

wins a bet for Thorton by hauling a sled with twenty 50 pound sacks of flour 100 yards. (London

92-93) This shows just how far Buck has come since being a pet in California. At the end of the

book, Buck risks his life for Thorton going against new morals and showing that he does still

have that sense of caring for his masters (The Call of the Wild 8:46-49).

Civilization versus the wild used to be believed that the process of natural selection

acting on variation in the population would result in the survival of the best competitors and in

continuing improvement in the population. But is now explained as ...the weak were

diminished and their cultures delimited, while the strong grew in in power and in cultural

influence over the weak. Social Darwinists held that the life of humans in society was a struggle

for existence ruled by survival of the fittest... (The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica) In the

book, He must give up his life of leisure and his trusting nature. He learns the law of the club

and fang, meaning that those who have the greatest physical strength are the rulers. Throughout
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the book, Buck is matched against men with clubs who beat him; he then gains into a stronger

animal by challenging lead dogs, again being beaten, then evolving into a raging beast who kills

Spitz, his lead dog, and more importantly killing an Indian tribe known as the Yeehats (The Call

of the Wild 8:46-49).

Certainly a dog is already an animal, but in The Call of the Wild, through a series of

misadventures, a pampered domestic dog is transformed into an arctic wolf. Not only did he

learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive. [h]e remembered back to...the time

the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest. As shown by these two quotes, Buck

is a symbol of evolution. The novel is a Bildungsroman; or a novel concerned with the

education of the protagonist to the ways of the world. (Feast 4:1519-1526) Another symbol

would be Bucks attacks on the Yeehats. In the beginning of the novel, Buck would have never

done this so this shows he is now the exact opposite of a pet; a warrior of the wild. This quote

towards the end of the book shows it greatly, The only thing that prevents him from going, that

keeps him tied to the world of men, is his love for John Thornton. When the Yeehat Indians kill

Thornton, Bucks last tie to humanity is cut, and he becomes free to attack the Yeehats, Killing a

number of them. (SparkNotes Editors) The optimistic but logically consistent presentation of

how the law of the jungle could turn the protagonist from a civilized pet into a legend of the

wilderness won readers who could not stomach the representation of similar themes in a human

milieu (Feast 4:1519-1526) Yet it was a secret growth Showing that evolution is not

something you think about He was too busy adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease

(London 27) Which is demonstrating that Americans are too busy to notice our own evolution.

So through the main theme of The Call of the Wild, social Darwinism and survival of the

fittest, is demonstrated by the symbols such as Bucks first beating, Curlys death, and Bucks
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attacks on the Yeehats. The Call of the Wild is an example of social Darwinism, survival of the

fittest, and literary naturalism. Buck started out as a house pet but by the end of the book

evolved into a king of the forest gaining strength through all the events that happened in his life.

Jack London wrote this book in relation to a big part of his life, the 1987 Klondike Gold Rush.

He himself was Buck in the book, as far as the journey goes at least.
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Works Cited

Dirda, Michael. Jack London: Beyond The Call of the Wild. Virginia Quarterly Review 89.4

(2013): 257. MasterFILE Main Edition. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.

Feast, James. Jack London. Magills Survey of American Literature. Ed. Steven G. Kellman.

Vol. 4. Pasadena: Salem Press, Inc., 1992. 1519-1526. Print.

London, Jack. The Call of the Wild. Franklin: Dalmatian Press, 2004. Print.

Loveday, Veronica. Jack London. Jack London (2005):1. MasterFILE Main Edition. Web. 26

Oct. 2016.

SparkNotes Editors. SparkNote on The Call of the Wild. SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC.

2003.Web. 2 Nov. 2016.

The Call of the Wild. Novels for Students. Eds. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A.

Stanley. Vol. 8. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. 46-49. Print.

The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica. Social Darwinism. Encyclopdia Britannica.

Encyclopdia Britannica, 11 Dec. 2014. Web. 2 Nov. 2016.

The Klondike Gold Rush. Washington University Libraries. Washington University Libraries,

2016. Web. 1 Nov. 2016.