London, Jack: The Call of the Wild

AUTHOR: Jack London

TYPE: novel

OTHER INFORMATIONS: “The Call of the Wild“ is a novel which is composed of seven chapters. It is set in1897 and the following years in the south and the north of the United States of America.

The book was first published in Canada by General Publishing Co. The story is written in prose. The story is written from an omniscient narrator who even know the feelings of the dog (the main character).

SUBJECT: The book tells about a dog, called Buck, who is sold to people who dig for gold. There he becomes a sled dog.

SYNOPSIS: Buck is a dog who´s father is a St. Bernard and who´s mother is a speherd, and he is

a very strong and intelligent dog. He lives with a judge and and is at the same time a companion of the judge and his family and master of all the animals (especially of the dogs) who live in the judge´s house. Buck sees himself as a kind of aristocrat because he leads a very quiet and comfortable life. But one day a worker of the judge sells Buck because he needs money for gambling. This is the beginning of a new life for Buck who is sold to the north where gold was found and everybody needs dogs for pilling the sleds. At first Buck doesn´t understand what to do, so he gets beaten with a club. From that time on he is very afraid of clubs and does everything what his new owner want him ti do. He is bought by two men called Fracois an Perrault who treat their dogs quite fair. Buck works for a long time, but there are troubles between him and the leading dog called Spitz. They start fighting very often, till Spitz is killed by Buck. Now Buck manages to become the leading dog himself and Francois thinks Buck is the best leading dog he ever saw. Then Buck is bought by two men and a woman who want to get to the north to find gold. They don´t knoew anything about dogs and sleds and so their dogs suffer a lot because their masters don´t see hoe tired and exhausted their dogs are. Half of the 14 dogs they own die because their masters haven´t got enough food for them. Buck survives but he is so exhausted that he refuses going on. That´s why he is nearly killed with the club. But he is saved by John Thornton who takes Buck with him. Buck really starts loving his new master because he knows quite well that it was John who saved his life. He becomes one of best sled dogs in the north and once he saves John´s life too. But after a while he starts hearing the the call of the wild. He isn´t the domestic dog of the judge any more; he learned to live and to survive in the wild too. He often leaves the camp to go to the forest where he makes friend with a wolf, but he always gets back to the camp because of John Thornton who likes Buck very much. But once he gets back and finds the camp attacked by Indians. He tries to save the camp by killing some Indians, but he finds John Thornton dead. Noe there is no more reason to come back and he killed human beings too which makes it impossible for Buck to stay in the civilisation any longer. He goes back to the forest where he meet again the wolf and his pack. He is accepted by the wolves and stays with them and even becomes their leader.

CHARACTERS: There isn´t much to tell about the characters because the main character is a dog.

About the human beings: You only get to know that they only need their dogs for the work. But John Thornton is different because he sees dogs as creatures and not as “working equipment“ like many others.

PERSONAL OPINION: The book was very interesting because it shows much about the gold fever in the beginning of this century. And it also shows the life of a dog and I think dogs are very interesting and intelligent animals.