Struggle For Existence In Jack London's The Call Of The Wild

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Jack London, the author of The Call of the Wild, was a well known journalist, novelist, and explorationist born in the mid nineteenth Century. He began his writing career in the late 1890’s after his experience out west during the Gold Rush. Though the gold rush did not make London rich, it gave him ample material to write about. The Gold Rush was a short period of time in America’s history; during this time almost three hundred thousand gold thirsty men traveled to California trying to strike it rich. Originally published in 1903, soon after the Gold Rush, The Call of the Wild, is one of his novels that formed from his experiences out west. Spending so much time in the wild, Jack London witnessed the struggle for survival and exalted beings …show more content…

First off, in Darwin’s Origin of the Species, he says, “Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species” (Darwin III). In this portion of Darwin’s piece he is expressing his belief of how struggle for existence can originate from conflicts between one individual and a distinct species. For example, in The Call of the Wild, Buck encounters a man, “the man in the red sweater”. Buck falls under the domain of “the man in the red sweater”, an aggressive man, one of the many men that Buck is treated badly by before he is saved by John Thornton. This man clubs Buck when he does not obey, and Buck not being used to this type of treatment takes time to adjust. He eventually learns that if he does not obey this distinct species, a human, he will be punished. London writes about Buck and says, “He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned his lesson, and in all his after life he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law” (London 10). Here London is speaking about Buck. He says that Buck has now learned that he has no chance against a man with a club. Additionally he says that he has learned his lesson to obey a man with a club in order to protect himself. This is showing how there is a conflict between man and dog, one and a distinct species; this creates a struggle for existence for Buck yet he overcomes this struggle and grows from his mistakes and

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