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The Call of the wild (1903)

The Call of the wild (1903). b y Jack London. 1876-1916. American Naturalism (1890 to WWI): extreme realism 1890’s writers: Charlotte Perkin Gilman, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Hamlin Garland, and later Jack London

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The Call of the wild (1903)

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  1. The Call of the wild (1903) by Jack London

  2. 1876-1916 • American Naturalism (1890 to WWI): extreme realism • 1890’s writers: Charlotte Perkin Gilman, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Hamlin Garland, and later Jack London • Determinism (heredity and environment) and Darwinism (evolution) • Spencer’s “survival of the fittest” • Main character: lower socioeconomic classes • Tone: emotionless and scientific • Lexis: ugly and unpleasant words (lack of lyrical diction and tone) • Plot structures: crude and pessimistic

  3. 1876-1916 • But the realist ranks stayed thin and - in the opinion of some Europeans - stunted politically. In 1888, Edward and Eleanor Marx Aveling'sThe Working-Class Movement in America asked accusingly: "Where are the American writers of fiction?" Karl Marx's daughter and her husband meant to emphasize that no novelist (Garland, Crane, and Dreiser were still apprentices) had looked penetratingly at the small farmers and the urban proletariat squeezed by the corporations, financiers, and speculators. Even rightist Europeans thought that the Old World realists and naturalists had plumbed far more deeply. (p. 19)

  4. 1876-1916 • Darwin's On the Origin of Specieswould prove more important for naturalism, though it came out as early as 1859. Not that it played to the stereotype of the epoch-making theory that inches toward notice. […] discussion drifted on into "the relations of human nature to that of the lower animals." (p. 27-8) • Emile Zola’s The Experimental Novel : first published in 1880 and translated into English in 1893

  5. 1876-1916 • from Zola’s The Experimental Novel (1893): “In my literary essays I have often spoken of the application of the experimental method to the novel and to the drama. The return to nature, the naturalistic evolution which marks the century, drives little by little all the manifestation of human intelligence into the same scientific path. Only the idea of a literature governed by science is doubtless surprise, until explained with precision and understood. It seems to me necessary, then, to say briefly and to the point what I understand by the experimental novel”. • Claude Bernard’s Introduction à l’étude de la médecineexperimentale (1865): replacing the word doctor by the word novelist

  6. 1876-1916 JACK LONDON’S ADVENTURES • born John Griffith Chaney • quintessential American adventurer • 15 years old: oyster pirate • California Fish Patrol helper • seaman for seal-hunting: Hawaii, Siberian Russia, Japan • survived a typhoon • 18 years old: social protest across the country • arrested for vagrancy in Ohio • back to California by a coal car, as a coal stoker • 21 years old: Klondike Gold Rush

  7. “The immediate success of The Call of the Wild, which catapulted London onto the international scene, and the praise lavished upon it by critics, surprised London, who knew that the book was different from other dog stories but was unaware that he had written a brilliant human allegory”. (p. 238) • Klondike Gold Rush 1897-9, Yukon river, Canada • Buck, the protagonist • Mellow environment to harsh environment: from a pampered pet to a wild beast • Evolution or Backward Evolution (Devolution) • Narration • Characters • Restless Violence • Personification of an animal

  8. RANCH IN SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA • RAILROAD TO SAN FRANCISCO • ONE NIGHT IN A “CAGELIKE CRATE” IN SAN FRANCISCO • FERRY ACROSS THE BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO TO OAKLAND AND THEN SAN PABLO BAY • RAILWAY CAR TO SEATTLE, WASHINGTON • ON THE SHIP NARWHAL ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN AND UP QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOUND • TO THE PORT OF DYEA, ACROSS FROM SKAGWAY, ALASKA SETTING • BUCK’S ABDUCTION: SANTA CLARA, SKAGWAY, DAWSON

  9. TITLE: What hint does it give to us? Southland X Northland • CHAPTERS: What hints do they offer? • Chapter I Into the Primitive • Chapter II The Law of Club and Fang • Chapter III The Dominant Primordial Beast • Chapter IV Who Has Won the Mastership • Chapter V The Toil of Trace and Trail • Chapter VI For the Love of a Man • Chapter VII The Sounding of the Call

  10. Buck’s Owners: • Judge Miller • François and Perrault • The Scotch half-breed: the Salt Water Mail • Hal, Charles, Mercedes • John Thornton • Animal Characters: • Buck • Toos and Ysabel • Spitz, Curly, Dolly, Dub, Billee, Koona, Dave, Sol-leks, Pike, Joe, Teek, • 6 Outsides • Skeet, Nig

  11. AMBIGUITIES 1. NO CONTROL X IN CONTROL Natural Law, Economic Imperatives, Deep-seated psychological drives (p. 52) Fighting for a place at the head of the team (p. 37) 2. INDIVIDUALIM X THE TEAM Buck fights Spitz (p. 35) The team rebelling against whip blows (p. 48-9) 3. DEMONIC X HEROIC Buck kills animals, dogs, a man Buck saves John Thornton’s life

  12. 3 LEVELS OF STORIES IN THE NOVEL 1. GRIPPING NATURE OR DOG STORY: ANIMAL 2. ALLEGORY OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR: HUMAN 3. THE MYTHIC STORY OF THE ARCHETYPICAL HERO: MYTH

  13. 1. GRIPPING NATURE OR DOG STORY: ANIMAL • A story of growth through adversities • Plot Structure: conventional • Novel’s Division: (1) tamed dog:Santa Clara ranch (Southland) (2) clubbed dog:transition to the wild (Change of Environment) (3) sled dog (Northland) (4) hero dog (Northland) (5) wild dog (Northland) • What / Who are Buck’s enemies? • What is Buck’s last connection to humans/civilization?

  14. 2. ALLEGORY OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR: HUMAN • A dog’s life X A human’s life: beast fable • Aesop’s Fable: “The Tortoise and The Hare” (human arrogance / human persistence) • Other dogs: one-dimensional types • Buck: complex and changeable: • Ralph Waldo Emerson: Art X Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson: social division

  15. Human Characters Characters as moral types • Judge Miller: • The man in red Sweater: • François and Perrault: • The Scotch half-breed: • Hal, Charles, Mercedes: • John Thornton: indulgence violence fairness discipline, work Vanity, ignorance Love, Loyalty

  16. animals Characters as Moral types anthropomorphism envy • Spitz: • Curly: • Dolly: • Dub: • Billee: • Dave: • Sol-Leks: • Pike: • Joe: • Koonaand Teek: • Skeet and Nig: Good-nature Fault, MISCHIEF Good-nature (Appeaser) lazyness Anger What about Buck? cheat (shirker) Ill-humor Good-nature

  17. 2. ALLEGORY OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR: HUMAN • What can we learn from Manuel? • What can we learn from the “man in a red sweater”? • What can we learn from Buck’s owners? • What do the beings (animals and humans) symbolize? • The starving dogs (p. 25): what do represent? • The Gold Rush: Capitalist ambition? Merit? Succeed or fail? Struggle for life?

  18. 3. THE MYTHIC STORY OF THE ARCHETYPICAL HERO: MYTH A legendary story, having no precise beginning or known author, that arises in a culture. These stories express universal truths that defy straightforward explanations. • What is a Myth? • The Myth of World Creation: “the Iroquois Creation Story”, an instance • The Journey of the Hero:(1) the loss of happiness (Garden of Eden) (2) the myth of initiation (a series of tests a boy is put through before he becomes a man (3) the descent into Hell (Ulysses, Dante) (4) the myth of resurrection (Jesus Christ) • Buck is “in full flower”: wolf cunning + shepherd intelligence + St. Bernard intelligence + experience + fierceness = a formidable creature (p. 77)

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