Illustration of Buck in the snow with mountains in the background

The Call of the Wild

by Jack London

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Discussion Topic

Buck's journey towards the wild and Thornton's solitary camping experience

Summary:

Buck's journey towards the wild and Thornton's solitary camping experience highlight the contrasting paths of civilization and nature. Buck gradually embraces his primal instincts, moving away from human society, while Thornton finds a deep, albeit temporary, connection with the wilderness through his solitary camping. Together, these experiences underscore the novel’s themes of survival and the call of the wild.

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What do Thornton and his partners find, and why does this push Buck towards the wild?

Thorton and his partners finally find gold. Their discovery certainly occupies much of their time; as a result, Buck has little to do and lies around in this primordial wilderness with dreams of the "ape-like" man who first subdued him. After a while, he hears the sounds of an atavistic call in the forest, sensing an instinctual pull from this wilderness. 

After the massively strong Buck wins a huge bet for Thorton, the man is able to pay off his debts and follow his dream of going with his partners to the East country in search of a fabled lost mine. They trek through wild country, hunting for their food on the way.

To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, and indefinite wandering through strange places.

The men travel for over a year and still do not find the Lost Cabin of legend. However, in the Spring, they...

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find a marker and look out at the valley "where gold shone like yellow butter." As the men toil assiduously each day, stacking bags of gold by trees, Buck lies dreaming as there is little for the dogs to do except haul meat for the men. So, as he muses by the fire, Buck recalls the memory of the ape-like figure of Perrault, who seemed more at home in trees than on the ground as he swung effortlessly from branch to branch. This memory of his introduction to the life of the wild, triggers "the call still sounding in the depths of the forest."

Further, Buck begins to have a sense of unrest, and he experiences new desires as he lies idle. 

It caused him to feel a vague, sweet gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew not what.

This is the "call of the wild." It awakens him sometimes in the night as he sleeps. On one occasion Buck decides to follow the sound and happens upon a lone wolf howling; he chases the wolf into "one blind channel" after another, although he intends the wolf no harm, only hedging him in with friendly advances. After some time, the wolf approaches in a submissive pose and they sniff noses, becoming friends. Then the wolf lopes off and Buck follows.

Buck was wildly glad. He knew he was at last answering the call, running by the side of his wood brother toward the place from where the call surely came.

Though Buck returns to camp and Thorton, he begins to spend more and more time in the woods, where his atavistic nature begins to dominate him. When he returns to camp one day, he finds his beloved master and the others slain by the Yee-hats. Buck ferociously attacks these cruel foes of his beloved master, and after fighting them for some time in which he kills some, the others flee in the belief that they have witnessed the Evil Spirit. As he stands in the middle of the ruined camp, Buck realizes that all ties to civilization are broken in him, and he responds now only to "the many-noted call of the wild."

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What do Thornton and his partners find in Call of the Wild?

After Buck had made his master $1600 by pulling the sled laden with 1000 pounds, Thornton was able to begin a journey of which he had always dreamed: He and his partners would seek the fabled Lost Cabin mine. They spent the next two winters searching the Yukon for the lost mine, but it was never found. Instead, the men stumbled upon a "shallower place" that yielded more gold than they could have ever imagined. Every day the men worked created a yield of "thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets," and so the men decided to stay until they could mine all the gold they could find. The remoteness of the area led Buck to trail a pack of wild wolves, and Buck's call of the wild became greater than ever. And when Buck returned to camp one day to find everyone dead, he realized that it was time for him to leave the world of the humans and pursue the call.

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Why did Thornton camp alone and what drives Buck to the wild?

Thornton was camping alone because he had frozen his feet and his partners had left him behind to recuperate.  They themselves had gone on ahead, and Thornton, who was much better by the time he met Buck, was just waiting for his partners to return for him with a raft that was to carry them on to Dawson.

Thornton was the ideal master because while "other men saw to the welfare of their dogs from a sense of duty and business expediency, he saw to the welfare of his as if they were his own chldren".  Thornton truly loved his dogs, and cared about their well-being (Chapter 6).

After their long search, Thornton and his partners found gold.   They set up camp and worked everyday panning for the precious metal, and there was little for the dogs to do.  With little activity and long hours just to wander and think, Buck became restless and the call of the wild was awakened within him anew.

When he returned to camp from killing the moose, Buck found Thornton, his last tie to civilization, dead, and the camp overrun with Yeehats.  With "overpowering rage...he lost his head...hurling himself upon (the Yeehats) in a frenzy to destroy".  Hie attacked with such effective fury that the Yeehats were terrified and ran away, "proclaiming...the advent of the Evil Spirit...and truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels and dragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees" (Chapter 7).

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What do Thornton and his partners find, and why does it affect Buck in The Call of the Wild?

Near the end of the narrative of Jack London's Call of the Wild,Thornton and the others find what all the other adventurers to Alaska have dreamed of: "the mother lode." While they have originally been searching for the fabled Lost Cabin mine, their discovery is even more fantastic. In a "shallower place in a broad valley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing pan," Thornton and the others finally stop. Each day they then bring forth from this mine "thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets." They work long and hard days that turn into months, stockpiling the gold in bags of fifty pounds.

Because the men are so busy with their mining, there is nothing for the sled dogs to do but help in the hauling of meat for the camp, so "Buck spent long hours musing by the fire." He notices the fear in the men, too, especially the "hairy man" who can climb trees and peer fearfully out into the wilderness.

And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call still sounding in the depths of the forest. It filled him with a great unrest and strange desires. It caused him to feel a vague, sweet gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew not what. 

Without the occupation of pulling a sled and the interaction with the driver, Buck's natural instincts are given the time and opportunity to arise within him. "Sometimes he pursued the call into the forest, looking for it as though it were a tangible thing...." These irresistible impulses of instinct, having no conflict with the chores of man, become stronger and stronger until Buck responds to this wild call in the forest, springing to his feet and hunting the animals he sees. One night Buck awakens to the atavistic call that lies within him: the howling of wolves. After Buck catches up with the wolf and the wolf's attempts to flee this larger dog prove futile, the wolf finally realizes that Buck means him no harm, so he sniffs Buck's nose in a friendly manner. Buck, then, runs happily with his "wood brother."

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