A Comparative Study Of The Call Of The Wild And Wolf Totem

Jack London's success is a legend of individual struggle.He is an autodidact,yet a very prolific writer.The Call of the Wild brings him ever lasting fame,and many of his other short stories also deserve to be called classics.As a seminal figure in the early 19th century who has great influence upon social history,London composes various writings that touch on themes like social Darwinism,critiques of capitalism,women suffrage,etc. All these issues have been elaborated by many scholars later on.People notice his love for nature as well as for agriculture,and he often states that he writes to support his Beauty Ranch in Glen Ellen.He brings to California techniques observed in Japan,such as the cultivation of terraced fields,and fertilization,and he is well accomplished in animal husbandry.He is far ahead of his epoch in constructing of the ranch as self-sufficient and self-regenerating.His Wolf House,for example,is built of rocks and lumber gathered from his own land.At present,humankind is faced with the serious environmental problems,and ecological literary creation draws more attention from critics than ever before.Some of the critics tend to dig out the germination of ecological conscience in traditional or classical works,and the author of this paper starts with the exploration of the ecological theme in The Call of the Wild,by studying the nature writing and the description of the relationship between man and animal in the story.In the process,this paper starts with London's obsession with wolves to discuss his attitude toward Rousseau's going "back to nature".Although he calls "back to nature" an atavism and a waste of the fine machinery of civilization,he is attracted to this idea because of his gradual disappointment with human civilization and his nostalgic feeling for the beauty and vitality of nature in the primitive world.He believes animals deserve some respect and equal treatment from human beings.He cannot tolerate the sheer indignity that confinement brings to wild animals.Such concern is reflected through the founding of Jack London Club in 1918,which mainly advocates animal protection in particular. London's ideas and the measures he takes to protect wild animals make him one of the earlier environmental and wildlife conservationists in the 19^th century.And this paper fmds that some of his standpoints are consistent with Singer and Regan's animal rights concern.The fields of the environmental ethics and environmental philosophy have greatly developed in the years since Jack London's death.Many recent philosophers working in this field have come to believe that it is inadequate to extend concern for merely animals,and even the ethical extensionism itself is an inadequate response to environmental issues and controversies.These views include biocentrism,ecocentrism, deep ecology,social ecology and ecofeminism.The Chinese novel Wolf Totem,with its unique description of nomadic life with wild wolves and nature on Inner Mongolia grassland,is a reflection of Aldo Leopold's land ethics which belongs to the deep ecological concept.Jiang Rong,who publishes the Wolf Totem under this pen name, depicts a story set in China's Great Leap Forward in the 1950s,which was on the eve of the Cultural Revolution.The students who come from Beijing to the steppes for their "up to the hill and down to the countryside" re-education,representing the swarming in of Han nationality,bring their "modernity" to the Mongolian grassland by exterminating the wolf packs.Such behaviors are severely detrimental to the long-existing equilibrium of nature and man.The brave nomadic Mongols have very complex feelings toward the wolves,which function as the cornerstone of native Mongolian religion and belief. Surviving in the harsh surroundings of the grassland which has breath-taking beauty is no easy job for the nomads,needless to mention their frequent life and death struggle with the wolves.However,the Mongols benefit significantly from the wolves by learning from their fighting skills and maintaining their primitive instinct of outliving other species.The Mongols' reverence for wolves is not generated in a vacuum.It is true that wolves help them remain blessed by Tengger.For the subsistence of the Mongols,the balance of food chain on the steppes calls for the pivotal role of wolves; for the pathway to heaven and spiritual libration of the Mongols,the messenger and savior is no other than the wolves.Throughout the novel,Jiang spares no effort to lash out at those insensitive Han people's actions that result in the deterioration of environment.Considering what they.cruelly do to the nature and animals,the punishment they deserve justifies the significance of deep ecological concems that people can hardly overestimate.Since both The Call of the Wild and Wolf Totem touch on the ecological themes and both writers possess certain ecological awareness,it is safe to say that these novels are comparable.What's more,this story coincidently shares some similar characteristics with London's The Call of the Wild in terms of story background,the necessity for the harmony and coexistence between man and animals in the wild nature.By a comparative study of The Call of the Wild and Wolf Totem,this paper endeavors to explore the ecological theme in them,to get a clear clue of the ethical extensionism in the development of modern environmental ethics,and to tell the readers that human-centered dominant worldview should be abandoned.Besides,this paper highly affirms that in cross-cultural communication,western and eastern ideas many find their proper way to get into each other's literature and culture as well.The close reading of the two texts reveals the advancement of ecological concepts from different periods.London's story concentrates more on the rudimentary level of ecological awareness whose focus is primarily on putting an end to mistreatment to animals. Jiang's novel,on the other hand,lays stress upon a higher level of exploring links between man,animals and nature.To Jiang,caring for animals is far from enough,and all form of life deserves respect and reverence.London's text is featured by anthropocentrism while Jiang's text is more of a biocentrism category.Wolf Totem can be regarded as a further progress in the practice of ecocriticism.The success of Wolf Totem may bring some Chinese ecosophy into the development of western ecological study as well.