Abstract

The Call of the Wild is the masterpiece of Jack London, which tells readers a story of Buck’s hard experience from the civilized world to the wild world. And this thesis analyses Buck’s legendary life from three main aspects: the influence of human and nature，the enhanced awareness of resistance and struggle for mastery. He learns many living skills from human and nature and knows how to survive the cruel environment in the wild; he recognizes the importance of resistance in the wild; he believes that he must struggle for his own mastery and dominate his own life. In the wild world, his aim of his life is not to make the struggle for survival, but to struggle for a higher end, namely mastery.
Through researching the novel, this thesis aims at revealing Buck’s persistence in the struggle for his survival and mastery, and also his brave spirit of overcoming the troubles on the way to an excellent leader in the wild. At the same time, based on the understanding of the novel, this thesis expounds the importance of “the survival of the fittest” in the wild world where only the strongest can survive.

Key words: Jack London, The Call of the Wild, the survival of the fittest, mastery
 
摘要

《野性的呼唤》是杰克•伦敦的代表作，主要讲述了巴克从文明社会重回荒野的故事。这篇论文主要从三个方面对巴克传奇的一生进行了分析：来自人类和自然环境的影响；自身反抗意识的增强以及争夺主宰权。巴克从人类和自然环境中学会了如何在残酷的环境中生存，意识到了在荒野中坚持不懈的重要性，并坚信必须争夺主宰权来获得主导自己的权利。在荒野中，他并不满足把生存作为生命的中心主题，他的奋斗是为了更高的目标，即主宰权。
通过对小说的研究，这篇论文旨在揭示荒野生存中巴克为生存和主宰权至始至终的坚持以及勇于面对困境并成为领导者的不屈精神。同时，在对原著透彻理解的基础上阐述了荒野中“适者生存”的重要意义，荒野意味着一个只有强者才能立足的地方。

关键词：杰克•伦敦；《野性的呼唤》；适者生存；主宰权

1.    Introduction
Jack London, an illegitimate child born in San Francisco in 1876，grew up in Oakland, and his family was not very rich for him to study at school continuously. He remained in school only until the eighth grade but was a voracious reader and a frequent visitor to the Oakland Public Library, where he went about educating himself and laying the groundwork for his impending literary career.
The Klondike gold rush had begun, and in 1897 London left college to seek his fortune in the snowy North. The gold rush did not make London rich, but it furnished him with plenty of material for his career as a writer, which began in the late 1890s and continued until his death in 1916. He published over fifty books and became the best- known writer in America at his age. He embodied, it was said, the spirit of the American West, and his portrayal of adventure and frontier life seemed like a breath of fresh air in comparison with nineteenth-century Victorian fiction.