An Interpretation Of Naturalism In The Call Of The Wild

As a literary movement, naturalism has played a significant role in the Americanliterature, even in the Western Europe. Naturalism refers to a novel genre popular inFrance and the United States at the turn of the20th century. It originated in France in the19th century, represented by Zola. Naturalism applies essentially the principle ofscientific determinism to create the novel.Jack London is taken as one of naturalistic novelists. He embodied his naturalismphilosophy in The Call of the Wild, and the creation of Buck’s image reflects Darwin’s“the survival of the fittest in natural selection” theory. This thesis analyzes naturalistictendency of The Call of the Wild from the three aspects of naturalistic elements, themesand content. At the same time, it tells which factors lead to Jack London’s naturalistictendency: when the social influence of naturalism and the rough experience of JackLondon.This thesis consists of an introduction, the main body and a conclusion. Its maincontents are as follows:The first part is an introduction, which mainly makes a brief summary of theprevious researches on the works and then points out the great significance of theanalysis and value from the naturalistic angle.The second part is the main body, which is made up of four chapters:Chapter One introduces naturalism briefly and Jack London’s Tendency towardsnaturalism. From this part, it can be learned that the basic knowledge of naturalism andJack London’s tendency towards naturalism.Chapter Two includes three parts, and the track of naturalism will be found step bystep. It analyzes the elements of naturalism: characters, environment, heredity, andopportunity. This chapter begins with the introduction and analyses of the first element ofnaturalism: five different characters. Different people have different attitudes towardsanimals and nature. Therefore, they have different destiny in their life. As for Buck, hestruggles to survive and live. In the second part, it sets forth the second elements ofnaturalism: the external environment. The hard environment shapes different characters.The third part introduces the crucial effect of heredity. The fourth part describes theelement of naturalism: opportunity. God always helps those who help themselves. Faced with opportunity and challenge, one should grasp opportunity and make good use of it.You can know and understand the protagonist Buck well by the analyses of the works.Chapter Three analyses the three themes of naturalism. There are more than threethemes in The Call of the Wild, but this chapter will give a detailed analysis of themesrelated to naturalism. The first one is the deduction of social Life, the second one thecruel struggle of survival and the third one specific survival principles including the lawof club, survival of the fittest and the humanitarian spirit. Here, the protagonist makes achoice and tries his best to adjust to the different environment.Chapter Four is a review and conclusion of the thesis—the harmony between humanbeings and nature. From the harmony between Buck and the family of Judge Miller, andthe harmony between Buck and John Thornton, an inspiration about pursuing harmonybetween human beings and nature will be gotten.The last part is a conclusion, which makes a summary to the preceding critique, andpoints out the main purpose of this thesis. Confronted with different environments andgreat troubles, Buck doesn’t yield to the destiny, choosing to fight against it. And at last,he finds his life destination. From that, naturalism can be found everywhere.Misery and hardship is a turning point of life—the end of suffering is the dawn ofvictory. At present, with the development of the constant civilization and of material lifestandard, more and more people forget the animal “nature”—the Wolf spirit. Peopleshould believe that one can’t see the rainbow without experiencing wind and rain. Onlywhen dose one make arduous efforts to struggle against life with the wolf spirit, one willhave his/her own free sky.