Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: The thesis aims to explore the embodiment of naturalism in The Call of the Wild so as to have a better understanding of this novel. Through the protagonist of the novel, Buck’s experience, it analyses the embodiments of natural laws in the novel, namely survival of the fittest, the hereditary determinism and environmental determinism. It reveals Jack London’s naturalistic ideas and indicates the similarity between human and animals that is the fight among people for money and status is no less cruel than that among animals for food and survival.

Key words: The Call of the Wild, naturalism; Jack London

摘要：本文试图探讨《野性的呼唤》中自然主义元素的体现,以便更好地理解作品。通过小说主人公巴克的遭遇，分析了自然主义的适者生存、遗传决定论和环境决定论三大法则在小说中的体现，揭示了杰克•伦敦本人自然主义思想的真实写照，挖掘出人兽间的相似之处即人类为了地位和金钱的残酷斗争，其程度绝不亚于野生动物为了食物和生存的争斗。

关键词：《野性的呼唤》；自然主义；杰克•伦敦
 
1. Introduction 
1.1 Literature Review
   Jack London, an illegitimate child born in San Francisco in 1876 and reared in poverty across the bay in Oakland, California, had become the highest-paid, most widely read, and best-known writer in America by the time he was thirty-seven years old. In part, Jack London achieved such tremendous popularity because he was the quintessential American adventurer, a westerner living in a country that culturally thrived on and was identified with exploration of unknown territory. He lived an adventurous life and then used events from his own life as fodder for his profession as a writer. In his short life, he created large amount of great works, which played an important role in the history of American literature. Meanwhile, his writing style had a profound lifelong effect on the latter writers. “Jack London is not only the creation of the age, but also the leader of the age”.
Jack London is generally regarded as a naturalistic writer. Being deeply affected by Marx, Darwin and Herbert Spenser, his works are full of naturalism, which came to America at the time the industry developed quickly. London’s ideology of naturalism is well expressed in The Call of the Wild, his most famous and widely read novel published in 1903. Although the novel has less than one hundred pages, its significance is profound and unexpected which makes it a classical work in American naturalistic literature. On a fundamental level, Jack London wrote The Call of the Wild as a dog story: a tale about an extraordinary dog, Buck, who meets many challenges and undergoes changes as a result of his adventures.