London, Jack: The Call of the Wild

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London, Jack: The Call of the Wild 

1. Poet and his life

Jack London was born on Jan. 12, 1876 in San Francisco, California, USA. Jack London was only a pseudonym, adopting the surname of his stepfather, London for it. His real name was John Griffith Chaney.

Because of his parent’s lack of money, London had to drop out of school after the eighth grade in the age of 15. He shortly worked in a fish cannery. Being sixteen he became an ”oyster pirate” in San Francisco Bay and later changed to the other side of law, joining the fish patrol. In 1893, in the age of 17, he set off on a seven-month voyage on a sealing ship to Japan. This experience led to his first story, and later influenced one of his best known novels, The Sea-Wolf (1904). Returning to the USA, he became a hobo travelling trough America. He experienced economic depression, unemployment and poverty. After being jailed for vagrancy near Niagara Falls, he realised the need of an education. He finished High School and studied at Berkley University. Before that he had educated himself at public libraries with the writings of Charles Darwin, Marx and Nietzsche and developed an own blended philosophy of socialism and white superiority. After a year at Berkley, London left University to seek a fortune in the Klondike gold rush of 1897. What he did find was scurvy and London got back to California after a year and a two-thousand-mile voyage down the Yukon River.

Returning, still poor and unable to find work, he decided to earn a living as a writer. As he had educated himself about biology, sociology and philosophy before his travels, he now taught himself writing. Some harsh years followed during which he unceasingly wrote and steadily raised his output. This time is best conveyed in his autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1909). Soon people began to be interested in his Klondike adventure stories. His first book, Son of the Wolf (1900) gained a wide audience. The God of His Fathers (1901) and Children of the Frost (1902) completed the first collection of publications, making him famous throughout the USA. Then in 1903 he wrote his masterpiece The Call of the Wild, a short novel that gave him international recognition. The reverse novel or also the companion piece, White Fang (1906) turned out to be his greatest success after Sea Wolf. Maybe a most original contribution of his ideas is conveyed in The Iron Heel (1908), a chilling prophecy of a Fascist period to come.

In 1900 he married Elizabeth Maddern, who bore him two daughters. But the marriage only lasted for two years, and in 1905 after his divorce London married Charmian Kittredge. During the remainder of his life he produced steadily, completing 50 books of fiction and non-fiction, partly autobiographical in 17 years. Although he became the highest-paid writer in the United States, his earnings never matched his expenditures, and he was never freed of the urgency of writing for money. He sailed a ketch to the South Pacific on his self-made ship, telling of his adventures in The Cruise of the Snark (1911). In 1910 he settled on a ranch near Glen Ellen, California, where he built his grandiose Wolf House. During his trip in the South Pacific London ruined his health and received a damaging arsenic treatment in Australia. It was the first public defeat of a man who had created the image of a superman and now was trapped within. He continued to travel but never recovered. His health state was even steadily weakened and while the quality of his work deteriorated with his health, his style and professionalism kept him popular and respected. His wife miscarried a male child, a wish that always had been elementary to him. As another misfortune, Wolf House burnt down and London started drinking.

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Jack London died in 1916 at the age of only forty from an overdose of the drugs he took for his kidney and bladder problems. A legend in his own life time, London represented the archetypal American hero who tried to live the life he wrote about.

2. Summary

”The Call of the Wild” is one of Jack London’s most famous novels. Some even call it his masterpiece, representing all of London’s ideals and values. The novel tells the story of Buck, a domesticated dog, who feels the invitation of his savage roots as he approaches ...

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