Research Paper on:
Analyzing The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
ancestral memories housed in the primitive elements of nature and the social conditioning of civilization. What elevates this work from nature story to literary classic is that the chief  protagonist is not a man, but his "best friend," a sturdy St. Bernard and sheepdog mix named Buck. While it is, on one level, the life story of a  dog that goes from the security of Southern California civilization into the Canadian wilderness, this dog and his experiences have a much deeper symbolic meaning. It serves as an  allegory of man and is a sensitive contemplation of the human experience. Claudia Durst Johnson wrote in her literary criticism of Call of the Wild, "The novel bears  some resemblance to the literary form known as the beast fable, which gives human characteristics to an animal in order to illustrate or satirize human society and human nature" (10).  This refers to the way in which London constructed his allegory, imbuing Buck with decidedly human characteristics. This is immediately evident by the opening sentence, "BUCK DID NOT  READ the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself" (13). London quickly follows this up by identifying Buck as a dog, but  throughout the course of the text, the complex dog-hero is amazingly human in terms of his perceptions. This enabled readers to identify with the dogs struggles and come to  realize that the behavior of man and beast are not so very different. Nevertheless, in order for the allegory to be successful, the readers must "continue to imagine Londons  hero as a dog despite all his complex mental attributes" (Auerbach 91). When Buck is kidnapped from Judge Millers home and