Call of the Wild (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
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Call of the Wild (SparkNotes Literature Guide) - SparkNotes
The Call of the Wild
Jack London
© 2003, 2007 by Spark Publishing
This Spark Publishing edition 2014 by SparkNotes LLC, an Affiliate of Barnes & Noble
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
Sparknotes is a registered trademark of SparkNotes LLC
Spark Publishing
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4114-7428-4
Please submit changes or report errors to www.sparknotes.com/.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Context
Plot Overview
Character List
Analysis of Major Characters
Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Chapter I: Into the Primitive
Chapter II: The Law of Club and Fang
Chapter III: The Dominant Primordial Beast
Chapter IV: Who Has Won to Mastership
Chapter V: The Toil of Trace and Trail
Chapter VI: For the Love of a Man
Chapter VII: The Sounding of the Call
Important Quotations Explained
Key Facts
Study Questions & Essay Topics
Review & Resources
Context
J
ack London was born
in San Francisco on January
12
,
1876
, the illegitimate son of Flora Wellman, the rebellious daughter of an aristocratic family, and William Chaney, a traveling astrologer who abandoned Flora when she became pregnant. Eight months after her son was born, Flora married John London, a grocer and Civil War veteran whose last name the infant took. London grew up in Oakland, and his family was mired in poverty throughout his youth. He remained in school only through the eighth grade but was a voracious reader and a frequent visitor to the Oakland Public Library, where he went about edu-cating himself and laying the groundwork for his impending literary career.
In his adolescent years, London led a rough life, spending time as a pirate in San Francisco Bay, traveling the Far East on sealing expeditions, and making his way across America as a tramp. Finally, temporarily tired of adventure, London returned to Oakland and graduated from high school. He was even admitted to the University of California at Berkeley, but he stayed only for a semester. The Klondike gold rush (in Canada’s Yukon Territory) had begun, and in
1897
London left college to seek his fortune in the snowy North.
The gold rush did not make London rich, but it furnished him with plenty of material for his career as a writer, which began in the late
1890
s and continued until his death in
1916
. He worked as a reporter, covering the Russo-Japanese War of
1904
and the Mexican Revolution in the
1910
s; meanwhile, he published over fifty books and became, at the time, America’s most famous author. For a while, he was one of the most widely read authors in the world. He embodied, it was said, the spirit of the American West, and his portrayal of adventure and frontier life seemed like a breath of fresh air in comparison with nineteenth-century Victorian fiction, which was often overly concerned with what had begun to seem like trivial and irrelevant social norms.
The Call of the Wild, published in
1903
, remains London’s most famous work, blending his experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness with his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence. He drew these ideas from various influential figures, including Charles Darwin, an English naturalist credited with -developing theories about biological evolution, and Friedrich Nietzsche, a prominent German philosopher. Although The Call of the Wild is first and foremost a story about a dog, it displays a -philosophical depth absent in most animal adventures.
London was married twice—once in
1900
, to his math tutor and friend Bess Maddern, and again in
1905
, to his secretary Charmian Kittredge, whom he considered his true love. As his works soared in popularity, he became a contradictory figure, arguing for socialist principles and women’s rights even as he himself lived a materialist life of luxury, sailing the world in his boat, the Snark, and running a large ranch in northern California. Meanwhile, he preached -equality and the brotherhood of man, even as novels like The Call of the Wild celebrated violence, power, and brute force.
London died young, on November
22
,
1916
. He had been plagued by stomach problems and failing kidneys for years, but many have suggested that his death was a suicide. 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.
Plot Overview
B
uck, a powerful dog,
half St. Bernard and half sheepdog, lives on Judge Miller’s estate in California’s Santa Clara Valley. He leads a comfortable life there, but it comes to an end when men discover gold in the Klondike