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The Call of the Wild 9786 Views


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Description:

A cheap shot at a bestseller or a deeper book with connections relevant to the human race? In The Call of the Wild , the protagonist is a dog named Buck, who's thrown into the wilderness and forced to survive on his own. But this dog has human-esque emotions that help the reader empathize with him.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

Call of the Wild, a la Shmoop: It's a Dog's Life.

00:08

Let's talk about calls. . . No not the kind of call you get from your

00:11

mother... Or even the kind of call you get from Mother

00:14

Nature... Jack London writes about another call. . .

00:18

. . .a powerful urge to get back to one's primitive

00:21

state. Buck, the hero of our story, isn't some branch-eating

00:27

survivalist. . .

00:27

. . .and he's not a guy trying to make it in Hollywood.

00:30

Yeah, this Buck isn't even a guy at all. . .he's a dog

00:33

So, what gives? Why is this book about a canine instead of a human?

00:42

Maybe London wanted to come up with an allegory about the true nature of man.

00:45

And Buck and the gang were just stand-ins. The fact that they had human emotions. . .

00:50

. . .might have been London's way of saying we're not all that different from animals.

00:55

But maybe he used dogs for another reason. If London wanted to grab the readers' attention.

01:00

. .

01:00

. . .and get their sympathy. . .

01:01

. . .putting puppies in peril was a sure-fire way to do it.

01:05

C'mon, a defenseless dog stolen by ruthless humans. . .

01:08

. . .and thrown into the frozen wilderness?

01:11

Sounds like a bestseller to us.

01:12

But maybe we're missing the obvious. Perhaps London used animals because it was

01:16

a story about life in the wilderness.

01:20

Maybe it was simply about putting a dog back in his natural habitat. . .

01:23

. . .to see what he would do. So, why was Buck a dog?

01:30

Was he an allegory for something else?

01:32

A sympathy grabber...."oooh look... puppies..."

01:34

Or was it to be taken at face value as a realistic tale?

01:38

Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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