Buck With His Great Determination example essay topic

The Call of the Wild: A Tale of Survival Buck is an extraordinary character in an extraordinary narrative, The Call of the Wild, written by Jack London. Buck is an active and proud dog who walks around in a noble fashion. He lives in a big house owned by a judge and has enjoyed an aristocratic lifestyle for five years. In fact, "Buck ruled" (London 1) over the entire household, for he is "king - king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of the Judge's place. London describes him as a "stated aristocrat", (2) who carries himself in a royal fashion. His saving grace is that he has an active outdoor life; as a result, he is healthy and wasn't a pampered house dog.

During the Klondike strike in 1897, one of the Judge's gardeners, desperate for money decides to kidnap Buck and sell him as a work dog for the Yukon. Buck seems to be perfectly suited for the challenges of the Arctic, nevertheless, when the rope tightens round his neck, Buck springs in anger, pain, and frustration, for he is not used to such treatment. Acting like a "kidnapped king", (3) he bites the hand of his tormentor as he was flung into a cage. Locked away, bewildered, and unhappy, Buck had a "vague sense of impending calamity" (4). He really expects to see the Judge come to his rescue.

Instead, four strangers enter the next morning and pick up his crate, where his long journey begins. While traveling on the train for two days and nights, Buck is tormented, beaten and growing more angry. By the end of the trip, he has "accumulated a fund of wrath that boded ill for whoever first falls foul of him" (5). He has become a raging fiend that even the Judge would have trouble recognizing. When Buck arrives in Seattle, a man opens his cage with a hatchet and a club in hand.

Buck, thinking he is free, prepares for battle. Just as he was about to viciously close in on the man, he receives the shock of his life; a club struck him for the first time ever. Each time he springs towards his tormentor, Buck is clubbed until he is knocked entirely senseless. Although Buck feels beaten, he wasn't broken and has learned to fear the club. When Buck arrives in the north, he is bought by Francois and Perrault where he encounters the dogs that would become his teammates and companions on the long journey ahead. Buck quickly learns lesson's of survival when Curly a teammate dog, in her friendly way, tried to befriend Spitz, a Husky that is the size of a full-grown wolf.

Spitz grew angry and knocks Curly down, while a nearby group of Huskies watches in eagerness. Once Curly is on the ground and unable to rise, the Huskies close in and rip her apart. This death scene haunts Buck's memory and troubles his sleep for a long time. It also causes him to hate Spitz, the Husky who is responsible for Curly's death. Buck now realizes, that he has to be on constant alert. On the team, Buck is placed between Sol-leks, which means Angry One and Dave, who asks nothing and gives nothing.

Buck learns quickly from the two of them; "apt scholar that he was, they were equally apt teachers" (12). A sign of Buck's adaptability to his environment is the fact that he quickly loses many of his old ways, including his fastidiousness. Although he has always been a dainty eater, he soon behaves like the other sled dogs, eating anything. He watches the other dogs and learns from them. He duplicates the performance of one of the dogs, stealing food. The theft is another mark of Buck's adaptability to the harsh conditions of the Yukon.

London comments that his theft "marked further, the decay... of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence" (13). One day when it had snowed heavily, the team has to take an unexpected break on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Buck finds a resting-place sheltered by a rock and burrows under the snow. He reluctantly left his spot when Francois distributes fish. When he finished eating, he returns to find Spitz occupying his resting-place, the action infuriates Buck. "The beast in him roared" (15) in response and consequently a fight progressed and was quickly stopped by Francois and Perrault.

The team breaks camp and begins the arduous journey. They have travel 1800 miles, and it has takes its toll for the team is exhausted but Bucks determination moves him to the lead position. Dead tired, the dogs have become weaker and thinner; in the last five months, having lost thirty-five pounds, Buck, still manages the other dogs. On arrival to the destination point, the dog team is sold to Charles and Hal, they overload the sled and as a result the exhausted team cannot pull the sled.

Believing that they are incompetent and stubborn, the men whip the dogs. Neighbors try to explain that the dogs are exhausted, the sled is too heavy and the runners of the sled are frozen in the snow. The dogs begin to die one by one. Soon only five dogs were left, and they feel beaten, Buck no longer tries to enforce discipline, for he is "blind with weakness, half the time" (40).

Eventually the team reaches the camp of a man named John Thornton. The Arctic snow is melting, and at any moment the ice could break. As a result, John Thornton advises Charles and Hal against continuing. The dogs endure a beating from the men to get up and continue but Buck refuses.

Suddenly, without warning, Thornton springs up between the man and the dog. He throws down Hal and cuts Buck loose from the harness. Buck understands what has happened and licks the hand of John Thornton in gratitude. John Thornton, an "ideal master", who obviously loves his pets looks after his dogs as if they were his own children and thus for the first time in his life, Buck felt "love, genuine passionate love" (42), and openly displayed his adoration of Thornton. In spite of Bucks great love for Thornton, he is still drawn towards his natural instincts and his primitive past, which creates conflict in him. He learns the "law of the club" and "the fang" and will never again be ruled by either.

Practically every day the wild seems to beckon Buck. Often he feels like turning his back on the fire and following the call. The longer they stay in camp, the more Buck would wander in the woods. Sometimes he stayed away for several days at a time. Slowly but surely, Buck left behind his civilized life, trading it in for a naturalistic existence, where he must live by means of his own strength, determination, cunning, and intelligence. His natural hunting instincts emerge as seen when he relentlessly stalks a moose for four days, finally attacking and defeating it.

He enjoys the thrill of the kill and the fresh meat, but he also wants to go back to camp and see Thornton. Buck is still torn between his two worlds, even though he has proved to himself that he was totally capable of existing on his own merit in the wild. One day on his way back to camp, Buck picks up a strange scent on the trail, when he nears the camp, he finds Nig a fellow teammate and another dog lying dead from arrow wounds, he then creeps the rest of the way to camp on his belly, where he finds everything in shambles. As a result he spied on the Indians that ransacked the camp and "for the last time in his life he allowed passion to usurp cunning and reason" (60), he attacks the Indians one after another, grabbing their throats. After the intense battle the Indians eventually flee from him in fear; Buck pursues them for a while, but then returns to camp, where he discovers Thornton and Pete dead. London, with cunning style forms the picture of Buck and his restless spirit, "for he is not alone" (62), returning to nature, joining a pack of wolves that arrive at the camp shortly after the battle with the Indians.

Buck with his great determination was seen running at the head of the pack, "leaping gigantic" (62) above his fellow wolves, letting out long and mournful howls, singing the song that he needed to resonate, which was the song of the pack, for he has finally made the choice between living in the "man's world" or returning to the "natural world". The Indians still tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the pack, not to be trifled with for his shrewdness is greater than theirs. Everything from showing love and compassion, to the willpower of leading the team, to survival skills of hunting for food makes him the perfect suited character for this story and Jack London with tolerance does a great job animating the character of Buck to life.