About "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London

The call of the Wild is a novella, short novel, by American author Jack London and published in 1903. The story takes place in the condition of the Yukon during the Gold Rush, where strong sled dogs were in highly demand. Buck, a domesticated dog, is snatched from a pastoral ranch in California, and is sold into a brutal life as a sled dog. The novella details Buck’s struggle to adjust and survive the cruel treatment it receive from humans, other dogs, and nature. As the story begins, Buck, a powerful dog lives a comfortable life in California’s Santa Clara Valley as a pet of Judge Miller. However, the gardener’s assistant, Manuel, steals Buck and sells it to pay a gambling debt. Then, shipped to Seattle, Buck is harassed in his crate and given nothing to eat or drink. Eventually, after Buck learned lessons, it has shed the veneer of civilization altogether instead of relying on primordial instincts and has learned to become a respected and feared leader in the wild world by the lesson it got. In the end, in the story, London attributes human thoughts and insights to Buck to the point that when the story was published he was accused of being a nature faker for attributing unnatural feelings to a dog.






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