In The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, Buck goes from thinking he is happy, to being truly happy. Buck starts his life with Judge Miller, thinking he is happy and satisfied with his life, until he meets John Thornton and is exposed to love and true joy. At the beginning of The Call of The Wild, London describes Buck’s life as a lavish, loving, and just overall great life; one that not many dogs get to experience. But the closer you look into detail and description, you can come to the conclusion that Buck is not truly happy. A convincing reflection of Buck’s solidarity and unhappiness is when London explains that “It was true, there were other dogs. There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they did not count” (10). This …show more content…
quote hints to just how lonely Buck is. Dogs are social animals; they like having other dogs to connect with, but that is what Buck is sorely missing. He is completely alone with no other dogs to connect with or love; and that is why he's not truly happy. Another depiction of Buck’s unhappy life is when Buck’s relationships in his earlier life are described. It reads “With Judge’s sons, hunting and trapping, it was a working partnership; with the Judge’s grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately and dignified friendship” (77). This quote substantiates the fact that Buck wasn't actually happy in Santa Clara. He had a ‘working partnership’, a ‘pompous guardianship’, and ‘a stately and dignified friendship’. Buck is living a life with no true relationships or mutual connection; a life without love or care. Even though buck thinks he's happy on Santa Clara; he's truly not, he just doesn't know what love and true friendship feels like until he meets John Thornton, bringing him unto a new level of joy and realization. Buck is now realizing that he is truly happy where he is in the wild with John Thornton.
Buck has left the Santa Clara Valley; his bubble where he felt no love or mutual friendship. Buck is experiencing love for the first time, while experiencing the call and joy of the wild for the first time; and couldn't be happier. An example of this is when it is described that “Sometimes he thought of Judge Miller’s big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley, and of the cement swimming-tank, and Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, and Toots, the Japanese pug; but oftener he remembered the man in the red sweater, the death of Curly, the great fight with Spitz, and the good things he had eaten or would like to eat.” (54). This quote gives proof to how Buck doesn't want that life anymore; he is happier in the Yukon with John Thornton in the wild then he ever was with Judge or his family, all while getting to be part of the wild life that he so desires. He has love now. John Thornton drives Buck into this crazy frenzy of love and joy that makes it so that Buck doesn't even give the Santa Clara Valley a second thought. The final reflection of Buck’s newfound happiness is when London says that, “Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest. But as often as he gained the soft unbroken earth and
the green shade, the love for John Thornton drew him back to the fire again.” (80). This passage corroborates that Buck gets everything he wants; the wild and John Thornton. He gets to pacify his curiosity and wild instincts, while also being loved and receiving the treatment of a domesticated dog. Buck is truly happy. Throughout the book, Buck is on a path to happiness. He slowly progresses this path, there are low points and high points, but in the end, Buck is happier than he ever was, realizing that he doesn't want the Santa Clara life anymore. He has reached a euphoric state where he is feeling emotions like love and true companionship for the first time, and he couldn't be happier.
Chris McCandless was a very unique individual. In Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild, he tries his best to make sense of McCandless’ journey to the Alaskan wilderness. However, he never really figured out what McCandless’ purpose of the trip was. Looking at McCandless’ life throughout the book, I believe that Chris McCandless went on his journey to find happiness within his own life and did achieve it in the end.
The word happiness comes from the word happy, which means to feel or show pleasure or contentment. In the novel, “The Joy Luck Club”, two daughters of the mothers in Joy Luck Club begin to compete with each other. Waverly Jong, is a child chess prodigy. June Woo, struggles to master the piano. The rivalry reflects values of success and worth depicted in the novel, “The Joy Luck Club”. In this novel, happiness does not truly come from the word happy.
Jack London wrote the novel The Call of the Wild; it was also his first success (Feast). The Call of the Wild is an exciting beast fable which dramatizes the unforgiving harshness of existence but shows that suffering can lead to heroic self-awareness (Buckner). London was big on the philosophical idea of Naturalism. As well as having links with literary naturalism, "The Call of the Wild is also a mythical book informed throughout with such traditional myths as the Myth of the Hero." Although Buck is always a dog throughout the story, his predicament is highly relevant to the human condition in a novel beginning with concise patterns of description and moving toward an increasingly lyrical style (Williams). The protagonist of The Call of the Wild is a dog named Buck. He's part German Sheppard and half Saint Bernard, he's labeled the "hero" of the story. The story takes place primarily in the Klondike region of Alaska except for in the first chapter it takes place in the Santa Clara Valley of California. The story is centrally focused around Buck; if it wasn't for him not having any speaking parts the reader would think he was a human because of the personality traits he possesses. In this paper we will discuss traits such as Buck's ability to adapt, Buck's bravery, his mental and physical strength, his loyalty and love and his instinct of the wild.
Buck had been raised in California, on the ranch of Judge Miller. There he had the run of the place and was loved and pampered by all. Unfortunately, one of the judge's workers had a gambling problem and stole Buck to sell him for fifty dollars. Buck fights being tied, caged, and beaten, but his efforts only frustrate him. He is put on a train and a boat, being shipped to Alaska to be used as a sled dog. Although he is miserable on the journey, Buck learns an important lesson - the law of the club. If he does not obey, he will be beaten.
In The Call of the Wild, Buck finds comfort in his relationships with man. When he is initially removed from Judge Miller's house in Santa Clara Valley, he is given his first exposure to the wild where, "every moment life and limb were in peril" (London 31). But soon he finds himself not entirely ready to leave civilization and answer the call of the wild, because he must first experience love. Buck establishes a relationship with John Thornton, and "love, genuine passionate love, was his for the fir...
Throughout the novella London uses various figurative language techniques to portray Buck’s gain of knowledge of the wild. From the beginning of the novella Buck’s life is easy and calm, then when he is forced to become a sled dog he is disorientated and is confused to what is happening. He progressively learns more things about the real world and starts to understand it. At the start of the novella London shows that at Judge Miller’s house he is the king and he is the one in charge. This is show when London writes “And over this great demesne Buck ruled.”. Lat...
When Jack London created the dynamic character Buck in The Call of the Wild, he made the dog in his
lonely. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Crooks, a black stable buck, endures alienation due to racial
From the moment of birth, to the moment of death, humans are flooded with emotions both good and bad. Individuals are continuously seeking fulfillment, some failing to find it while others succeed. Many seek adoration; love, accomplishment and greatness. In literature, authors take the readers on journeys that allow imagination, granting the possibility for the reader to grasp inner desires and decide what is truly important in life. Literature allows readers to dive into a different world where happiness and fulfillment is plentiful and eternal, also described as a utopia, while other pieces of literature direct the reader into a world of dissatisfaction which is a dystopia. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is in 26th century England. With the help of advanced technology and drugs, happiness fills the lives of the people living at that time period. But, the people are missing out on one of the most important feelings of life. That is sorrow or unhappiness. The society in Brave New World is very different from modern-day society; many aspects of life are removed such as family, monogamy, and religion. The citizens of Brave New World live in false happiness with all the necessities of life provided for them but have the lack of an inferred deeper satisfaction. In Brave New World happiness is the lack of unhappiness because the inhabitants can never truly know what happiness is without experiencing true unhappiness. The lifestyle in Brave New World is built on the notion that happiness is the only thing necessary in one’s life. This novel suggest that the reader should seek things besides happiness because the citizens in the World State live bleak and monotonous lives which show the faults in this so-called ‘perfect’ society. In thi...
In the book, The How of Happiness, author and researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky sets her book apart from other self-awareness books by being the first to utilize empirical studies. She uses data gained through scientific method to provide support for her hypothesis. This hypothesis consists mainly of the idea that we have the ability to overcome genetic predisposition and circumstantial barriers to happiness by how we think and what we do. She emphasizes that being happier benefits ourselves, our family and our community. “The How of Happiness is science, and the happiness-increasing strategies that [she] and other social psychologists have developed are its key supporting players” (3).
• Riding the Bus Chris Gardner, a salesman who sells bone density scanners, struggled to support his family financially, but it proved to be an arduous task as most hospitals considered the scanners to be an unnecessary and expensive luxury. Being unable to sell the bone density scanners, Chris ran into hardships in paying for rent, parking tickets, and daycare fees for their son, which caused his wife to become emotionally distressed. On one of his trips to sell the scanner in town, he encountered a person owning a red Ferrari and several happy successful people in front of an office building, which inspired his determination in becoming a stockbroker. He had the ability to work well with people and calculate numbers, and college education wasn’t required, hence this seemed to be a feasible goal even if his wife did not support the idea. • Being stupid Chris attempted to apply for a six-month internship program in becoming a stockbroker and before doing so, he asked a hippie lady to watch over his scanner, not wanting to bring in a huge piece of junk into a refined building.
The movie Pursuit of Happyness shows how a person became a homeless then eventually how he survived from being a homeless. Then, to being a multi millionaire. Even though he experienced how hard life can be he still pursued to reach his goals in his life for his son. This movie shows how a homeless person stand up and pursue to be successful.
Early Modern Europe experienced several tragedies in which the citizens sensed that there must be a better way to live where happiness was more familiar. Alterations for what truly defines absolute happiness in a society during these times of catastrophe were expressed through utopian literature. Thomas More’s Utopia, Tomasso Campanella’s City of the Sun, and Caron De Beaumarchais’ The Marriage of Figaro together attempt to answer what truly creates a happy civilization during different periods of crisis within Europe. Each of these utopian literature’s suggest a different origin that happiness derives from, soundly signifying that change in Europe would be beneficial. The revolutionary ideas of change in Europe proposed by Utopia, City of the Sun, and The Marriage of Figaro through their individual utopias, demonstrated their beliefs that such change of social classes, the expression of pleasures morally, and a more unified government would lead to a happier, less corrupt society.
It is interesting to note that the field of positive psychology, described by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) as “a science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits and positive institutions” (p. 5), has flourished over the last 15 years. This has been a time of relative peace and prosperity, conditions most would associate with contentment and joy, but also a time, as argued by Ryan and Deci (2001, p. 142), during which the more affluent among us may have discovered that financial security and material possessions alone do not necessarily equate to happiness. As Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000, p. 6) explain, prior to World War II, making the lives of all people more productive was one of three aims of the field of psychology, the other two being to cure mental illness and detect and foster extraordinary ability. Following the war however, the economic benefit to psychologists of treating mental illness narrowed the focus of psychology firmly on repair rather than prevention. Psychologists came to see people as passive beings being acted upon by external stressors and it is this view that positive psychology aims to change. Sheldon and King (2001, p. 216) maintain that the field of positive psychology encourages psychologists to embrace a more unrestricted and valued perspective of human potential, hopes and strengths; a view also espoused by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000, p. 8) who suggest that the major psychological theories (psychoanalytical, behavioural and humanistic) have now been transformed by the bolstering of a new science of “strength and resilience” (p. 8). Much research therefore is currently focusse...
According to Webster dictionary the word Happiness in defined as Enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy. People when they think of happiness, they think about having to good feeling inside. There are many types of happiness, which are expressed in many ways. Happiness is something that you can't just get it comes form your soul. Happiness is can be changed through many things that happen in our every day live.