Analysis of Naturalism in the Call of the Wild

1032 Words5 Pages
Analysis of Naturalism in the Call of the Wild Naturalism originated in France, where the leading exponent of the movement was Emile Zola. And it was introduced to America by the American novelist Frank Norris. Jack London is regarded as one of the greatest naturalist novelists, and he showed his thoughts of naturalism in the Call of the Wild. The Call of the Wild is based on the background of the Industrial Revolution which brought American people a value crisis. Serial changes made people feel they were conquering the world and obtaining their treasures. It appeared a large number of poor people. The human individual indulged himself into a never end, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his desire. In 1859, Darwin’s The Origin of Specie appeared. American naturalists accepted “bestiality” and “human beast” as an explanation of desire. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness presenting characters of low social and economic classes who are determined by their environment and heredity. In The Call of the Wild, I find out some typical characteristics of naturalism. The basic characteristic is the themes of The Call of the Wild. In the human world, the reality is also like this. People have to work tediously day after day. Every day people get up, have dinner, go to work, then go back home at a certain time. Everything is almost fixed. People do it just earn his living. There is no pleasure in such a job, however, people have to take it for their living, just like Buck who “ did not like it, but he bore up well to the work, taking pride in it, and seeing that his mates did their fair share. For surviving, violence is easily found out from Buck’s experiences. Buck lives the life of a sated aristocrat before he is kidnapped. He meets the man in the red sweater, who provides the first lesson: a man with a club is a

More about Analysis of Naturalism in the Call of the Wild

Open Document