1、Wolfish Howl and Half-Sobs Chant the call of the wildFinishing a novel in two days was a fresh experience to me.I was deeply fascinated by Bucks return to nature.It is a journey to rediscover the insidious instinct, suffering and learning.Many characters,dogs and men,played important roles on his wa
2、y back to the forest.The first one must be Spitz.Firstly,Spitz,as laed-dog and acknowledged master of the team,had capability and proficience.He was an apt teacher,never allowing buck to linger long in error,and enforcing his teaching with his sharp teeth. If spitz hadnt instructed him,buck would no
3、t have mastered his work in such a short period.Secondly, his cruelty also left me a strong impression.After he ripped friendly curlys face without any warning and finally led to curlys death,he ran out his tongue and laughed.He even bore malice to that innocent dog curly in their first and last enc
4、ounter.Thirdly,he was cold and calculating even in his supreme moods.He snatched at every chance to nip his potential contender, buck, in the bud. Spitz symbolized the cruel but competent commander in reality. Spitz acted as a spur to push buck forward.The second one is John Thornton.The show of Joh
5、n Thornton marked the final struggle between humanity and the wild spirit.Firstly,he gave buck selfless love that buck never had before. With the Judges son, hunting and tramping, it had been a working partnership; with the Judgess grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himsel
6、f, a stately and dignified friendship. But love that was feverish and burning, that was adoration, that was madness, it had taken John Thornton to arouse.John Thornton had saved bucks life, which was something; but, further, he was the ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs from a
7、sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his as if they were his own children, because he could not help it. John Thornton gave buck a kind of love that only consists in human beings.Thats why buck rewarded Thornton extremely faith and trust.When Thornton commanded buck to jum
8、p into the cliff,buck jumped without hesitation. The next instant he was grappling with Buck on the extreme edge, while Hans and Pete were dragging them back into safety.Buck had utterly faith and obedience in him.Secondly, Thornton Stimulated bucks potential via love and encouragement.In the heated
9、 competition,twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour was an impossible load for other dogs that didnt have a beloved master like thornton,but not for buck.Thirdly, Thornton was bucks last connection with human beings.Buck had great affection for Thornton.For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like
10、 Thornton to get out of his sight. From the moment he left the tent to when he entered it again, Buck would follow at his heels. His transient masters since he had come into the Northland had bred in him fear that no master could be permanent. He was afraid that Thornton would pass out of his life a
11、s Perrault and Francois and the Scotch half-breed had passed out.An instance could verfy this.Although so peremptorily did these shades of nature beckon him, that each day mankind and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. The love for John Thornton drew him back to the fire again.Thornton
12、alone held him. The rest of mankind was as nothing. Here is another proof. Buck and the timber wolf stopped by a running stream to drink, and, stopping, Buck remembered John Thornton. He sat down,declining to proceed and holding steadily on his way back to thornton.Eventually,the death of Thornton l
13、eft a great void in him,somewhat akin to hunger,but a void which ached and ached,and which food could not fill. John Thornton was dead. The warmth from humanity faded away.The last tie was broken. Man and the claims of man no longer bound him.The third one is Dave.Dave was indifferent at first.He de
14、sired to be left alone,asked nothing,gave nothing and expected nothing.These showed his loftiness,in line with his subsequent alternation.He was utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness and unconcern had dropped from him. He was alert and active.The toil of the traces seemed the supreme e
15、xpression of his being, and all that he lived for and the only thing in which they took delight.Though seemingly indifferent,he has his pride in work,which could prove his being.Dave was a dog of dignity.Plastered by certain unknowing pain,he strove to leap inside his trace and pleaded with his eyes
16、 to remain in his own position.Although injured and too old for the toil,its his pride to die in the traces,heart-easy and content.He stood on his dignity to the last gasp.Dave merited our respect.He represented the kind of people who seemingly paid no heed to the external world,but assumed the liab
17、ility in peril.The fourth one is the fifty huskies.They were neither the strongest,nor the weakest.They obeyed the brutal principle that the weak are the prey of the strong.In bucks final fight with spitz,once Buck went over, and the whole circle of fifty dogs started up; but he recovered himself, a
18、lmost in mid air, and the circle sank down again and waited. The fifty huskies symbolized the greedy numb ordinary people.They were cold and detached onlooker,just like the indifferent onlooker in Mistress Xiang Lin.The sixth one was Nig and skeet.Nig and skeet were extinct in the novel.They had the
19、 generosity and kindness like their master Thornton.Nig had the doctor trait which some dogs possess;and as a mother cat washes her kittens,so she washed and cleaned bucks wounds.Each morning,she performed her self-appointed task.Skeet had eyes that laughed and a boundless good nature. Maybe,this ki
20、nd of good nature came from his master.The mildness existed in them didnt conceal their good nature. Nig was lying on the ground, dead where he had dragged himself, an arrow protruding, head and feathers from either side of his body.This was the bloody scene that Nig passed away.She fought to the la
21、st gasp.Nig,Skeet and their master Thornton consisted a vestige of civilized warmth in Bucks harsh life.When they passed away,the instinct featured.The last one is the main character Buck.He was an extraordinary exception.Unlike ordinary southland dogs,they were too soft, dying under the toil,the fr
22、ost,and the starvation.Buck fitted to survive in the hostile northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. It marked further the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a va
23、in thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence.Physically,He alone endured and prospered,matching the husky in strength,savagery,and cunning.His muscles became hard as iron,and he grew callous to all ordinary pain.He lost his fastidiousness and could eat anything,and once eaten,diges
24、t utterly and swiftly.His sight and scent became remarkably keen.Memtally,He was a masterful dog,no longer have blind pluck and rashness.Firstly,he mastered the art of dog relationship.He sacured the offending Pike deliberately,though failed and interfered between Spitz and the culprits to provoke a
25、 general insubordination.Insidious revolt led by Buck destroyed the solidary of the team.Buck backed up the reminder of the team.All these strategies finally led to his unshakable leadership on the team.Secondly,Buck was agile learner built to withstand regular disruptionHe learned from direct lesso
26、n,such as lessen from club and fang.Buck remembered the man in the red sweater, and retreated slowly; not did he attempt to charge in when Sol-leks was once more brought forward.Another Lessen,from spitz and the chief fighting dogs of the police,was to be merciless ,never drawing back from a foe.No
27、middle course,master or be mastered.He also learned from indirect experience,the death of kind-hearted curly. The abrupt assault made him act timid to avoid fight in his rising power period.Thirdly,he is fully competent.Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment was required, and quic
28、k thinking and quick acting, he showed himself the superior even of Spitz, of whom Francois had never seen an equal.Buck recalled the nature and instinct enshrined in him.The strain of the primitive,which the northland had aroused in him,remained alive and active,never leave him.Four instincts appea
29、red.First,he found pride from trail and trace made bucks clash of leadership, from running free in the open,the unpacked earth underfoot,the wild sky overhead.He proved ones vitality by running. Second,the blood lust,the joy to kill. He got satisfaction from Bloody conquest.The blood-longing became
30、stronger than ever before. He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided,alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived.Third,wildness and wiliness.Honesty was a thing in a civilized so
31、ciety,not a thing of the wild.Buck could steal food when he almost starved to death. He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamour of his stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect for club and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it
32、was easier to do them than not to do them.Finally,he ducked his lofty head before survival.Fourth,he learned to be patient.There is a patience of the wild- dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself- that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther
33、in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding its march.Above all,the theme of the novel is bucks return to nature.Bucks life is just like mans life,full of pain and struggle. I have r
34、ead a great number of articles that feature the thought of the survival of the fittest in The Call of The Wild.Nevertheless,I find the Greek tragedy enshrined in this novel.First,the main character,Buck,is a dog,but an extraordinary exceptional dog. In fact,Buck finally became a wolfish dog and king
35、 in the wild.Just like those heroes in Greek-Roman mythology,they are human beings,but eminent human beings-heroes.Second,Bucks life is stuffing with hardship and struggle,just like heroes life. Under the harsh environment,under the lash,under the club,buck enforced himself to adapt to the cruel cha
36、nges.He had almost been battered to death by the man in the red sweater and bitten into pieces by the ferocious Spitz,until he mastered the skill of survival. He used his endurance and capability to smooth his thorny way.Third,after all the twists and turns,ups and downs,Buck had won to some extent.
37、He recalled the insidious instinct.He responded to the call of the wild and returned to the obsessing forest as the identity of the king.Similarly,Archilles successfully revenged and led to the sack of Troy. Fourth,Buck lost the last vestige of warmth and happiness-his beloved master.His life had un
38、forgettable regrets. At the end of the novel,when he mused for a time, howling once, long and mournfully on the spot that that Thornton was killed,no one could define the ending was a happy ending.In fact,it was a tragedy that brutally unfolded in front of us.While he acquired the skills for surviva
39、l,he lost his last silver lining,left in a cold and sterile world. Thats why the wolfish long-drawn howl was half-sobs.They were endowed standouts.They went through the tortures of life.But,they had a bad ending.What did the Jack London and Greek want to express?To be a pessimist?No.The tragedy mean
40、s the uncertainty of the road ahead of us,the inherent fear to the unknown external world.In this condition,all the effort we made should be complemented.Indeed,we were slight in confront with the Nature and the fate.Despite the humanitys insignificant place,no one can disdain the infinite defiance of us.Half-Sobs chant reveals the essence of life that life is a tragedy while wolfish howl praises the dauntless defiance of human beings.The Call of The Wild is a chant towards the great humanity.
