Jack London’s Contradictory Thinking

Through a deconstructive reading of Jack London’s masterpiece The Call of theWild (hereinafter referred to as Call), the thesis forms an attempt to analyze theauthor’s contradictory thinking by examining pairs of binary oppositions.Acknowledged as one of the major American writers in the late19thand early20thcentury, however, Jack London’s ideology is plagued by contradictoriness andthus his works are full of contradictions. The juxtaposition of opposing forces andparadoxical ideas puzzles and even irritates many readers, arousing controversy ininterpreting his works. Not as an exception, Call presents readers with not onlyseveral possible meanings but several rather ambiguous meanings, manifesting itselfas a typical controversial Londonian novel.With regard to the binary oppositions in Call, this thesis devotes five chapters todeconstructing them and then revealing the contradictoriness of Jack London’sthinking: two minor chapters being respectively an introduction to Derrideandeconstruction, thesis statement, research questions, significance of the research, andliterature review and a conclusion which highlights the author’s contradictorythinking; another three major chapters deconstructing three pairs of binary oppositionsto infer Jack London’s contradictory thinking—strong vs. weak, nature vs. civilization,and truth vs. unreality. And the major chapters each follow the same argumentative process: a detailed revelation of the contradictions on the concepts in the three binarysystems in Call and an analysis of the author’s contradictory thinking with acomprehensive investigation of Jack London’s life, ideas, and specific social,historical, and cultural background.