Jack London - White Fang

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Jack London - White Fang

Postby admin » Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:02 am

Jack London - white fang (1906)

Jack London was a writer that touched Chris McCandless. There were many references from his work in the book 'Into the Wild' by Jon Krakauer.

White Fang is another great story through the eyes of a wolf.
I found myself unable to put the book down many times. London has a great way of writing with suspense.

It was different to Jack London's other book 'The Call of the Wild' for me in that it did not make me think of Chris McCandless or his story. (there are some references to this at the bottom of this topic.)
The other difference is that in the Call of the Wild, the wolf goes into society rather than from it.

----------------

The story begins with a female wolf (who is also part dog) that has a litter of puppies in Alaska. The stongest of these puppies
(white fang) survives a famine and learns very quickly the way of the wild. He and his mother are later taken in by an Indian
tribe who had previously owned his mother.

White Fang is puzzled by this as he has never seen his mother submit to any animal, but he too learns to obey his
owner (or 'god' as London puts it. The wolf views people as gods because they are intelligent and powerful). WHite Fang is separated from his mother
and becomes the trusting protector to his Indian god Grey Beaver. Many times he is tempted to go back into the wild but he finds himself returning from a brief
trip in the woods to his god.

Other dogs in the tribe would gang up on him and try to attack, but he was a strong fighter and learnt to protect himself. None of the dogs liked him
and he was a loner but that was the way he liked it. He saw dogs and man as the enemy apart from his god. He put up with other people that his god
was friends or family with, because this was what the god wanted.

Grey Beaver travelled to a city where he made a lot of money selling his furs and other items he had made from wild game. During this time,
White fang had many a fight with other dogs in the city and was feared by all. When new ships full of people and dogs arrived at the port,
he would often fight the new city dogs and before killing them completely, he would leave to let the many other dogs in the port finish off his prey.
He was very intelligent and did this to escape the wrath of the humans on the dogs that killed their animals.

During this time, a disgusting excuse of a man called Beauty Smith watched in awe as White Fang battled with the new dogs.
Smith received this name because of his ugly looks and uglier personality.

He was intent on owning White Fang for himself and he tried many times to convince Grey Beaver to sell him. But only after introducing
Greay Beaver to alcohol did he succeed. He made sure that Greay Beaver got hooked on the bottle until he had no choice but to exchange White Fang for
alcohol when he ran out of money.

Smith then proceeded to beat, torture and humiliate White Fang turning him into a hating, killing machine. He would then use White Fang in
dog fights where he profited from the betting. White Fang quickly developed a reputation as unbeatable after wolves, lynxes and other animals were tossed
into the yard where he was kept.

This changed the day a bulldog was pitted against him and he was almost killed if it had not been for 2 men intervening. 2 men arrived into town on a
sled and stopped to see what the commotion was about. When they realised it was men betting on a dog fight, they were disgusted.

When they asked people to stop the fight and no-one did, one of them beat Smith while they tried to save both the dog and the wolf.
The man who punched Smith, Weedon Scott, gave Smith $150 for White Fang but Smith refused to accept it until Scott threatened him with more battering.

Smith could not simply take the wolf, he had to pay the disguting Smith so that it made the deal legal. He knew that Smith was too
cruel to own such a dog.

Thereafter came the process of trying to tame White Fang. This came slowly with time and love. Love was something that White Fang had never experienced
through his previous master Grey Beaver and certainly not Beauty Smith. SO it was strange to him, but he learned to accept this from just one
person, Scott. One night Smith approached their cabin to try and steel White Fang, but he was attacked by the wolf and sent running.

Soon after, White Fang became the leader of the sled team for Scott.

At one point Scott went away for a period of time to which White Fang became depressed and refused to eat or work with the sled. HE was nearing death.
It was not until Scott returned, did his health improve. Later when Scott attempted to leave again, White Fang followed him to the ship
he was to take and ran aboard refusing to leave. So be it. He was to begin a new life in San Fran Cisco.

From one extreme to the other, but White Fang adopted well through supervision and kindness. He began to relax, put on weight and enjoy life
without continually feeling threatened. He became the 'blessed wolf' after saving the lives of the Scott family by killing an intruder who was
intent on killing Scott's father although he was badly wounded in the effort.

After rehabilitation he recovered to start his new life with a litter of puppies he had made with a border collie on the property.

-----------

There are a couple of passages that I thought were worth mentioning -

And not for nothing had his puppyhood been made bitter by the persecution of Lip Lip and the whole puppy pack.
It might have been otherwise, and he would then have been otherwise. Had Lip Lip not existed, he would have passed his puppyhood
with the other puppies and grown more doglike and with mor eliking for dogs. Had Grey Beaver possessed the plummet of affection
and love, he might have sounded the deeps of White Fangs nature and bought up to the surface all manner of kindly qualities. But these had
not been so. The clay of White Fang had been moulded until he became what he was, morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious, the enemy of all his kind.


This refers to the torment he received by a dog in the indian pack when he was a puppy. It affected him immensely as well as other
factors. But perhaps in Chris McCandless's mind he thought like WHite Fang in that he felt he himself had not truely been loved and had been cheated
by the lies from his father in relation to his relationships with women. Perhaps he also thought that he was better off alone with no-one else to
depend on.

But, I say that this is what MAY have been in Chris's mind. He was young and reacted to things perhaps differently then he would have if
he had been older and wiser.

I would imagine that he was loved and his parents were good parents, but perhaps in his own way, he saw it differently.
I know I did when I was his age. I couldnt stand my Dad and at times hated him. But as I got older I realised that for 25 years of my life,
he was with my Mum and supported our family. He occasionally took me to my football games, motorbike riding and other things. 25 years is
a long time and I thank him for that. I realise this now as I have kids. It is hard work - very hard work. BUT it is rewarding.


Later in the book London writes -

It was the beginning of the end for White Fang - the ending of the old life and the reign of hate. A new and incomprehensibly fairer life was
dawning
.

I am sure that Chris would have come around and changed his outlook on things if he had walked out of the Alaskan Wilderness. Sure the call of the
wild would have stayed in his blood, but as I did through different experiences, he would have more knowledge and become wiser.

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