In the 19th century ,the west of America was under cultivation .Hundreds of adventurers were moving to the west .At the same time ,it was said that gold had been found in large quantity in Northern California ,so thousands of people went to the west for gold .There were so many people ,but in the freezing cold North ,transportation was the biggest problem .At such situation ,dogs and sleds was the best choice ,so in the North ,dogs and sleds was the main transport tools then .Of course ,millions of dogs were needed urgently ,from then on ,there were plenty of dogs like Buck began their unfortunate difficult journey life.
The author Jack London was one of the members who went to the North for gold ,he went through the hardships of the journey himself ,witnessed the cruel and miserable life of dogs .According to his this experience ,the story of buck came into being.
Main idea of the story
There was a dog named Buck ,who lived a comfortable and pleasant life at a Judge Miller 『s house in the warm South .Here ,Buck was a leader ,he in charge of Judge 『s house ,took care of Judge 『s grandchildren and ruled others dogs .We can say Buck had a happy time here . However ,Buck 『s misfortune was coming .But Buck did not that at all.
One day ,a gardener who worked for Judge took Buck out of the house when there were no people in home and sold Buck to a dog smuggler in secret .From then on ,Buck set foot on his miserable life .He was transferred from one to anther and under a bad condition all day ,he suffered from hunger ,cold ,various harm and pain .Sometimes ,Buck was beaten black and blue by human being .At the same time ,Buck must fight with other dog in order to stay alive ,finally ,Buck became very strong and made himself the leader of the whole dog team .life was always going on like this for o while .Once during a journey ,Buck was nearly dead ,then he met his master Jhon Thorton .Thorton was a perfect person who came to Buck 『s rescue and Buck deeply loved him forever .But one day ,Thorton was killed by Indians ,Buck lost his lover and he became nothing then .Finally ,Buck responded the call of the wild and became a wolf ,lived an early wild life as his ancestors .
From loyal dog to cruel wolf ,there were several important things in Buck 『 life .
The law of club given by the man of red sweater
Buck just entered the Northen society ,he knew nothing about the world ,he behaved on his nature completely ,the man of red sweater gave him a club and let him know obeydience ,Buck learned this lesson for his whole life .
Buck was very angry after his terrible experience ,he resisted stubbornly and treated the man in red sweater as enemy .（in fact ,the man was ） and was going to fight with him .But the short man of red sweater was more stronger .At the man 『s club ,Buck was almost beaten to death .It was the first time that Buck had been hit by a man ,he was greatly frightened .However ,Buck was beaten ,not broken ,he had learned an important lesson and would never forget it .In his later life ,when such situation appeared ,Buck reacted immediately and got rid of quickly .Here we can say that Buck was clever but and wise ,he learned quickly from what he had experience and others .That is to say ,Buck has some learning spirit ,he could adapt everything rapidly and get less punishment .
The Curly accident
Buck was shocked at a second time that was his mate Curly』 death ,he witnessed that .Curly was a good –natured dog ,she just wanted to make friends with others ,but she paid her life for that .The dog attacked Curly and other dogs immediately took part in the activity when Curly was down on the ground .Spitz also did that .
It was a second first time that Buck had seen dogs fight like wolves .At a short moment ,a life no longer existed .Buck learned another lesson ,that was life in the North was primitive ,cruel,and no fair play ,once you were down on the ground ,it was the end of you .Here ,only the strong could survive ,one must be very careful ,the others around you might be your enemy and your opponent .I think in Buck 『 life ,this point always plays an important role .For example ,he always kept calm minds about Spitz .
On the other hand ,from the Curly accident ,Buck got a clear thought about Spitz ,in Buck 『s later life ,Spitz was important .First ,Spitz was the leader of the whole team ,Buck had to follow him and avoid unnecessary conflict when he himself was not strong ,at the beginning ,it was impossible for Buck to defeat Spitz .So ,here Buck did a very good job .Second ,Spitz was a good rival for the strong ,the same for Buck .Spitz reserved Buck .As Chinese saying goes ,a strong opponent make you strong too .So Buck 『s achievement was closely related to Spitz .
Things gradually changed .Buck was not a good –natured one any more ,he came to realized that he was strong enough and can do the same thing with Spitz ,he always did trouble for Spitz ,the other dogs also started challenged the authority of Spitz .But for Buck ,it was far more not enough ,for he wanted was the leadership of the team .
The life or death fight
The final fight between Buck and Spitz came ,it was not a coincidence but a necessity .Both of them knew clearly in their inner heart ,so none of them tried to get away or avoid .They already had prepared it for a long time .At that moment ,who got the rabbit was no longer important at all .No one cared .The other dogs also knew it clearly ,at the last moment ,they all were silence and waited for something they had expected eagerly .Buck and Spitz completely understood what was going on . Whoever went down on the ground, their lives would come to an end immediately .
At first, obviously Buck had no advantage at all ,he already wounded badly .But we know ,Buck was always different ,he promptly changed and Spitz did not notice that .Finally ,the battle came to an end with Spitz went down .The following other dogs would do ,Buck himself just stood far away saw what happened ,as he had witnessed what happened to Curly .It was Spitz who deserved such an end for only he took part in the death of Curly.
Then Buck was a victor .First ,he revenged for Curly ,because he deeply hated Spitz since he saw Spitz 『s behavior in the Curly accident .Second ,he defeated Spitz and he would become the leader that he desired for a long time .Finally ,the most important one ,he was a successful winner of the primitive life and he killed a living mate by himself ,and Buck felt that kind of feeling seemed to be good ,the hot blood made Buck so excited ,the strange feeling came from Buck 『s nature that Buck got it from his ancestors ,but Buck did not understand what it meant on earth .In fact ,Buck walked a big step towards the wild ,in his inner heart , he was very curious about the wild and he was also interested in that .
After the battle with Spitz ,Buck tried his efforts to get the leadership of the whole team ,he showed his ability to his masters and earned their praise .For a while ,Buck』s journey life was good ,he and his team mates made a world record for rapid speed .However ,the good things finally would came to an end .Buck met three terrible masters who had no travel experience at all ,they also knew nothing about the cruel Northern world .So Thorton came to Buck .
For the love of a man
During the long hard journey ,only 5 of dogs were left .All of them were dead tired ,Buck was no exception of it ,he suffered a lot and almost became a dead dog .When they came to Jhon Thorton』s camp ,like his other teammates ,Buck fell down on the ground and did not try to get his feet once more .In fact ,in Buck』s inner heart he already knew something terrible would be happen ,because the route for Buck was not strange ,he came there for several times .According to his former experience and sensitive sense ,Buck decided not get to his feet though he would be beaten to death .
The master wanted Buck to get up ,he refused .Of course ,Buck knew the result of his behavior .The club came to Buck again and again ,Buck already lost conscious .At that time ,Jhon Thorton came to Buck』s rescue ,it was a great opportunity for Buck and his fortune came .Here Buck got rid of his hard days ,his good quality in the South came to him again ,he got the true love of human being .
Jhon Thorton did not like the person Buck had met before ,he was wise and had rich experience on life as well as on hard journey in the North .Of course ,Thorton also knew dogs and knew them very well .For Buck ,Jhon Thorton absolutely was a good master .In Buck』s inner heart ,Thorton was the most important person to him ,he gave his true love to Thorton and he would try his biggest effort to protect Thorton from harm even if it cost his life .
Thorton to Buck』s love ,Buck had never got it from other masters ,even though Judge Miller .Between Buck and Thorton ,there was a highly and specially agreement ,they could communicate with each other by a simple eye contact , Buck could get message from looking Thorton』s eyes .As Thorton himself once said ,sometimes he afraid of this love .So their relationship defeated anything and became the most important thing .There were several examples of this .First ,bad tempered」Black」 Burton hit Thornton for something ,Buck saw that and jumped to Burton throat at once .Second ,in the fall of a year ,three partners were travelling on a narrow boat through fast and rocky waters ,Thorton fell into the stream water ,the situation at that time was extremely dangerous ,Buck had jumped into action in an instant .When Thorn got saved at last ,Buck was nearly dead because of freezing cold .On seeing Buck was badly wounded in order to save himself ,Thorton moved to tears .Besides ,Buck helped Thorton again in another different manner .
All those things showed that Buck loved Thorton very much .If anything want to hurt Thorton ,no way .But things went to a wrong a way ,when Buck came back from outside ,he found that Thorton and other living things in their camp were killed by the Yeehat Indians .Then ,Buck got mad ,a wave of great anger came over him ,he growled out loud with a terrible terrible sound but he himself did not know that he growled .」For the first time in his life he allowed his feeling to win over his cleverness and reason ,and it was because of his great love for Thorton that he lost his head .」Buck truly was a evil ,he killed the Yeehat Indians and revenged for his master .Then,Buck returned to the empty ,ruined camp .He found Thorton in the muddy pool ,there was a great emptiness in him that he never had before .
Thorton was dead already .So ,there was nothing for Buck to leave and miss ,he was lonely again .At the same time ,Buck felt the call of the wild that striked him again and again .So joining in his old brothers was a good choice for Buck .
The fight with the leading moose
Buck lived alone and without help ,using his strength and power surviving in a hard and unfriendly environment where only the strong survived .Because of this ,Buck was proud of himself .So ,his longing for blood became stronger than ever ,he was a killer ,a thing that hunted other animals ,living on the things that lived .But Buck was not satisfied ,the animal he killed before were small and weak ,he wanted to challenged himself ,he needed a large strong one ,so the leading moose became his prey .During the battle with the leading moose ,Buck took full use of his power and cleverness .For ,Buck ,the battle was only an experiment ,but he wanted to know how strong he earth was and what kind of enemy he could not defeat ,the battle gave him an opportunity to fight with a real wild creature .The battle also laid the foundation for Buck』s later life .
From the fight with the leading moose ,we could see that Buck was completely a successful winner of the primitive life .When fighting ,Buck did not attack straightly ,instead ,he used all kinds of methods to make the leading moose exhausted and feared .So ,what the leading moose wanted to do just was escaping ,for Buck ,he could defeat the leading moose .Meanwhile ,during the fight ,he himself would not hurt badly .
As Buck had expected ,he pulled the great moose down ,we can imagine that Buck was very satisfied with himself .In fact ,it was true .When Buck killed the moose ,he did not return at once .On the contrary ,he stayed by the kill for several days ,eating ,sleeping ,enjoyed his feast .Honestly ,it is the same with our humanbeing s .When we did something successful ,we also would lost our head ,wouldn』t it ?
From those things Buck had ever through ,we can say Buck had all the good qualities of dogs or even more .For example ,Buck could adapt quickly ,we all know life from the South to the North was very different ,but Buck got it and was a successful survivor .As a man ,three were still other results ,the right example was Hal ,Charles and Mercedes ,they not only had no experience in travelling at all but they never learned from others and their lesson .So finally ,they all had taken away by the God .
Beside ,from a loyal dog to a wolf ,humanbeing plays an important role ,from that ,we can say human may be the most selfish creature .So in the story ,Buck to Thorton』s love was very valuable .