|
|
The Call of the Wild: A Tale of Survival Buck is an extraordinary character in an extraordinary narrative, The Call of the Wild, written by Jack London. Buck is an active and proud dog who walks around in a noble fashion. He lives in a big house owned by a judge and has enjoyed an aristocratic lifestyle for five years. In fact, “Buck ruled” (London 1) over the entire household, for he is "king - king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of the Judge’s place. London describes him as a "stated aristocrat," (2) who carries himself in a royal fashion. His saving grace is that he has an active outdoor life; as a result, he is healthy and wasn’t a pampered housedog. During the Klondike strike in 1897, one of the Judge's gardeners, desperate for money decides to kidnap Buck and sell him as a work dog for the Yukon. Buck seems to be perfectly suited for the challenges of the Arctic, nevertheless, when the rope tightens round his neck, Buck springs in anger, pain, and frustration, for he is not used to such treatment. Acting like a "kidnapped king,"(3) he bites the hand of his tormentor as he was flung into a cage. Locked away, bewildered, and unhappy, Buck had a “vague sense of impending calamity" (4). He really expects to see the Judge come to his rescue. Instead, four strangers enter the next morning and pick up his crate, where his long journey begins. While traveling on the train for two days and nights, Buck is tormented, beaten and growing more angry. By the end of the trip, he has “accumulated a fund of wrath that boded ill for whoever first falls foul of him"(5). He has become a raging fiend that even the Judge would have trouble recognizing. When Buck arrives in Seattle, a man opens his cage with a hatchet and a club in hand. Buck, thinking he is free, prepares for battle. Just as he was about to viciously close in on the man, he receives the shock of his life; a club struck him for the first time ever. Each time he springs towards his tormentor, Buck is clubbed until he is knocked entirely senseless. Although Buck feels beaten, he wasn’t broken and has learned to fear the club.
|
