Part One Summary:

Part I opens as London vividly describes the "wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild." Two men, Henry and Bill, struggle to pull the long, narrow coffin of Lord Alfred on a dog sled through the cold, desolate terrain. Dressed in fur and leather, their faces are completely covered in frozen crystals. Making the setting bleaker, the men are being pursued by a pack of hungry wolves. Down to only three cartridges for their guns, the travelers are unable to shoot at the wolves, whose behavior is becoming more brazen. Bill voices concern to Henry about an extra dog at feeding time, who appears out of nowhere and blends in with the six regular sled dogs. The next morning the men find one dog missing, lured away by the wolves. A dog that both men agree is not very smart.

As Bill and Henry travel through the frozen, snow covered territory they notice the wolves following a little closer every day. Building fires at night to keep warm and to keep the wolves at bay, the men sense the animals closing in slowly but surely every day and every night.

The next morning as Bill is feeding the dogs he notices the wolf (a she-wolf) amidst the sled dogs and is able to land a blow with a club. The following morning the men find another sled dog, Frog, gone. Unlike Fatty, the first dog to disappear, Frog was "no fool dog" and also the "strongest of the bunch." The men eat a very gloomy breakfast, harness the sled and repeat another day across the frozen Northland. After dinner, however, they decide to tie the dogs to stakes with leather straps to prevent another dog from running away to certain death. As they settle down for the evening the dogs become agitated and Bill and Henry look up to see the she-wolf wandering through the camp, eyeing the dogs. She is a decoy for the wolf pack, remarks Henry, luring the sled dogs away as food for the pack. After much discussion, the men decide it would be prudent to use some of the remaining ammunition to take care of the troublesome she-wolf.

Left with only three dogs, the men start out the next morning only to meet more catastrophe as the sled overturns on a bad price of trail. Stuck between a tree trunk and a large rock, the men are forced to unleash the dogs to straighten the sled. One-Ear immediately begins to run across the snow towards the waiting she-wolf, who is flirting and playing in order to lure him away. All of a sudden One-Ear turns, deciding to return to the safety of his masters but is cut of by the rest of the wolf pack. "I won't stand it," says Bill. "They ain't a-goin' to get any more of our dogs if I can help it." He takes the gun, the limited ammunition and stomps off to save One-Ear. Henry sits on a stump to wait and instantly hears three shots in rapid succession and realizes Bill's ammunition is gone. He then hears loud yelps and cries and knows that he is all alone with only two sled dogs and no ammunition.

Henry now knows he must abandon his cargo, the coffin bearing Lord Alfred. Deciding to stop for the night, he makes sure he has a generous supply of firewood for the long night ahead. With his dogs on either side of him, he settles down for the evening but rest is not part of the equation. He sees the wolves all about him in a circle. Each time they try to move in closer, Henry hurls "brands from the fire" and they retreat.

As he travels during the day, the wolves follow closer and closer. The nights are long and sleepless as Henry begins to envision his fate. One morning, the wolves will not let him leave camp and he is forced to extend the campfire slowly towards a dead tree, literally leaving a trail of fires in order to obtain firewood.

Completely exhausted, Henry finally gives into sleep a few nights later but awakens to find himself being attacked by the wolves. Without thinking he throws himself into the fire, scooping and throwing coal and embers in all directions. He extends the fire in a circle around his body and continues to ward off his attackers until dawn. Unable to overcome the effects of numerous sleepless nights, he dozes off, resigned to a near certain death. The end of Part I is abrupt as Henry is awakened, not to the sound of wolves, but rather the sound of human voices asking "Where is Lord Alfred?" As the men and their dog sleds surround him, he falls to sleep and begins to snore.

Part One Analysis:

Critically acclaimed as a powerful though not so great a book as The Call of the Wild, White Fang is vital to our understanding of Jack London's literary naturalism. In tone as well as in theme, White Fang is significantly more naturalistic than the earlier book, and London's opening description of setting is as effective as anything he ever wrote in this vein:

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of the white covering of frost and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness- a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild."

Unlike the animated The Call of the Wild that calls so movingly to Buck, this Wild is predicated on the death principle: "Life is an offense to it, for life is movement: and the Wild aims always to destroy movement. It freezes the water to prevent it running to the sea: it drives the sap out of the trees till they are frozen to their mighty hearts; and most ferociously and terribly of all does the Wild harry and crush into submission man - man, who is the most restless of life, ever in revolt against the dictum that all movement must in the end come to the cessation of movement." Viewed from this bleak cosmic perspective, and deprived of the amenities of civilization, men are no more than "puny adventurersÖpitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of spaceÖspecks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and interplay of the great blind elements and forces."

The structural similarities between the two stories become clearer when one realizes that Part One, in which Bill and Henry are stalked by the wolf pack, does not belong in the novel at all. To say this is not to deny that Part One is compelling. As a narrative of life and death on the long trail, it ranks with some of the finest short stories. The skill with which London captures the mounting horror of the inexorably closing pack provokes comparison with such masterpieces of psychological terror as Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum." The plight of Poe's prisoner resembles that of Henry and Bill, who confront the encircling wolves while "the wall of darkness presses about them from every side." In London's story, the terror is augmented by a number of fine touches. The dogs, for example, disappear silently, lured one by one to their deaths by the cunning of the she-wolf. Equally chilling are the ring of eyes in the darkness, reflecting the firelight with an almost supernatural luster; the death of Bill, all the more terrifying because it occurs out o sight and must be imagined; and the desperation with which Henry, now alone, fends off the wolves by hurling brands from the fire. Another striking psychological touch is Henry's sudden appreciation of the details of his own body when he realizes he will soon become the wolves' next meal.

Part Two Summary:

Part II begins as the wolves catch the sound of men's voices rescuing Henry. Here London makes a complete shift in the tone of the book as the narrative point of view is now that of the she-wolf. The wolves begin running over the "surface of a world frozen and dead," with a large gray wolf in the lead. The she-wolf stays with him and is joined by the one-eyed "guant old wolf, grizzled and marked with scars of many battles" and a young three-year-old wolf. All three male wolves many several advances on the she-wolf, all of which are rebuked with snarls or teeth. The wolf-pack travels for days before finding a big bull moose that provided a much needed meal. The pack now breaks in half and day by day, the group dwindles to only the three wolves and the she-wolf. Battles now begin for the female as she sits and watches quite contended. One-Eye emerges victorious and is met playfully the she-wolf. Now running side-by-side, they hunt, kill, and eat together. As they approach an Indian village the she-wolf becomes strangely stirred, almost wistful, but One-Eye is apprehensive, insisting they move on.

The two wolves now run the countryside together; however the she-wolf is emotionally restless, searching for something she doesn't quite understand. Her body is becoming slower and she lacks stamina. At last they find what she has been looking for, a cave near a small river where the two wolves settle down. One-Eye goes out to look for food and upon returning hears "faint, strange sounds from within." Having experienced this many times in his life, One-Eye knows that the she-wolf has given birth to cubs. Nature takes over at this point and the mother becomes protective of the little ones, growling, snarling, and snapping at One-Eye, who instinctively goes on a hunt for food for his new family. "The urge of his awakened instinct of fatherhood was stirring upon him. He must find meat." Sensing danger from a porcupine, he is contented to capture a ptarmigin bird. However, fate was with him and on his return to the cave, he is able to reap the spoils of an encounter between a lynx and the porcupine. The food provided by One-Eye eases the fear the she-wolf has towards the father.

The five wolf cubs begin to grow and develop but it is the gray cub who most closely resembles his father and their wolf heritage. He is also "the fiercest of the litter. The cubs major fascination is with the "wall of light," the way his father could disappear into the wall of light, and how his mother's slap with a paw kept him from it. This was also a time of famine and all the cubs died, with the exception of the gray cub stronger than the others, another example of London's recurring theme of survival of the fittest. His father no longer appears and disappears through the "wall of light." He had lost a fight with the lynx.

The she-wolf is now forced to hunt for food for herself and her only remaining cub. The little cub, who has grown stronger and more adventuresome, is no longer content to stay in the lair alone and one day embarks out on his own. Outside the cave, he learns one of nature's most important lessons - fear - and returns gratefully to his cave. Each day he ventures a little further until at last his courage takes him to the edge of a small hill where he rolls and falls down the hill, beginning a great adventure. He is startled by a squirrel, a woodpecker and a moose bird. "Born to be a hunter of meat,' he quite serendipitously happens upon a nest of ptarmigan chicks. His first taste of blood, bones and meat is quite satisfying and he heads off to the banks of a small stream. This water is new to the cub and he cautiously wades through it until a current picks him up and takes him downstream. The last lesson the cub learns this day is that he wanted and needed his mother. "So he started to look for a cave and his mother, feeling at the same time an overwhelming rush of loneliness and helplessness." In the next instance, the cub finds his life jeopardized when he tangled with a mother weasel. He would have lost his life had his mother not appeared and is filled with overwhelming joy.

Time passed and the cub grew in both stature and experience. But famine came again to the northland and both wolves became thin hunting for food. As a last resort, the mother wolf raids the lair of the lynx and feasts on the small lynx kittens. Not surprisingly, the mother lynx appears at the wolves' cave entrance. The she-wolf is no match for the lynx until the gray cub intervenes, grabbing the hind leg of the lynx between his teeth. Together, they subdue their adversary but the cost is high. The cub has a gash down to the bone on his shoulder and his mother is near death. For a week they are unable to leave their lair, but when they do the cub is now armed with knowledge of life. "Life itself is meat. Life lived on life. There were eaters and the eaten. The law was EAT OR BE EATEN."

Part Two Analysis:

Part II is noteworthy for the change in tone and narrative that occurs in this section. There are many tender and even light-hearted scenes, especially in the two fine chapters, "The Gray Cub" and "The Wall of the World." The cub's inability to distinguish the sold walls of the cave from it's penetrable entrance is brilliantly captured in the image of the "wall of light," toward which the cub strives and through which the omnipotent father can magically appear and disappear. In astringent prose, London sketches the time of famine, muting the too-easy pathos of the death of White Fang's siblings.

Especially moving is the account in the "Wall of the World," of White Fang's first adventure beyond the cave. Approaching the wall of light, the cub discovers that it is "unlike any other wall with which he had had experience." Indeed, it is the antithesis of the "wall of darkness" that pressed upon Bill and Henry in Part One, for "this wall seemed to recede from him as he approached." Whereas the first wall is death, the wall of light is the orifice of the womb, the pathway to life:

"It was bewildering. He was sprawling through solidity. And ever the light grew brighter. Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on. Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of the cave. The wall, inside which he had thought himself, as suddenly leaped back before him to an immeasurable distance. The light had become painfully bright. He was dazzled by it. Likewise he was made dizzy by this abrupt and tremendous extension of space. Automatically, his eyes were adjusting themselves to the brightness, focusing themselves to meet the increased distance of objects. A first the wall leaped beyond his vision. He now saw it again; but it had taken upon itself a remarkable remoteness. Also, its appearance had changed. It was now a variegated wall, composed of the trees that fringed the stream, the opposing mountain that towered above the tree, and the sky that out-towered the mountain."

London's image of this white wall of light symbolizes with great imagination the alluring but treacherous phenomena of the natural world.

There is tender comedy in this scene as the cub ventures tentatively forward, innocent of the real dangers yet terrified of the most harmless phenomena. Having "lived all his days on a level floor" and never having "experienced the hurt of a fall," he cannot negotiate the passage from the lip of the cave to the slope beyond. Hence he steps "boldly out upon the air" and falls head downward: "The earth struck him a harsh blow on the nose that made him yelp. Then he began rolling down the slope, over and over. He was in a panic of terror. He unknown had caught him at last. It had gripped savagely hold of him and was about to wreak upon him some terrific hurt. Growth was now routed by fear, and he ki-yi'd like any frightened puppy." Arriving at the bottom of the slope undamaged and consoling himself with "one last agonized yelp and then a long, whimpering wail," he picks himself up and looks about him "as might the first man of the earth who landed upon Mars." He has "broken through the wall of the world."

These early episodes offer a remarkably precise account of psychological and epistemological experience. Such terms may at first sound too pretentious for a novel often dismissed as a children's story, but the image of the "wall of the World" draws on complex symbolic tradition, possibly first introduced by Plato's allegory of the cave. This parable, as told by Socrates in the "Republic," illustrates the passage of the mind form a state of false knowledge, based on the deceptive appearance of the physical world, to a state of true enlightenment, in which the mind can penetrate the mask of nature and apprehend ideal "Forums."

In contrast, the last section of Part II changes in tone as White Fang goes out into the world. It is here that London hews a convulsive "dog eat dog" world of raw violence - literal and figurative - in which the strongest of the strong survive, leaving the weak, old and infirm to be eaten alive. A hawk digs its sharp talons into the soft flesh of a ptarmigan while the frenzied bird screams in agony; the weasel, a drinker of blood, sucks life from the throat of smaller creatures; the once powerful moose falls to the she-wolf.

White Fang's biological heritage discussed in this chapter is more than symbolic. The wolf in him quite literally gives him a gray coat like his father's, thus making him different from his siblings, "the fiercest of the litter," the only cub strong enough to survive the first famine. Heredity, another tool of naturalists, is also a collection of instincts and London uses these instincts quite effectively in this chapter. The she-wolf's instinctive fear of the father is "the experience of all the mothers of wolves" and old One Eye is obeying an "instinct that had come down to him from all the fathers of wolves" when he goes on the trail of meat. The cub's education is partly a process of discovering his instincts and heeding them. Most of them are instincts of avoidance: fear of the unknown, of death; the instinct of concealment.

Part Three Summary:

As with Parts I and II, Part III breaks with previous sections and introduces completely new elements into the novel, showing how the gray cub learns to live in civilization. On his way to the stream for a drink the cub encounters man for the first time and is surprised by his own passive response. More surprising was his mother's reaction when these man-animals called her by name, Kiche, and she cowered to them. Given a new name, White Fang, he is introduced to life in the Indian village, a life that White Fang would soon find unbearable.

From the very beginning White Fang knew the power these man-animals had, realizing, "the superiority of these man-animals increased with every moment." The young wolf was quick to notice that they did not bite nor claw, but rather they enforced their strength with the power of "dead things." He learned to stay away from clubs and stones, was impressed with the design of tepees, and watched the way they moved about the Indian village as if they were gods. He saw them as creatures of "mastery, making obey that which moved" and most importantly, they were fire-makers!

During this first day in camp, as White Fang strayed away from his mother who is tied up, he had the opportunity to meet a part-grown puppy, Lip-Lip. This somewhat larger and older dog, already something of a bully, immediately attacked White Fang and a fight ensued. Lip-Lip had lived his life in camp and, having fought many puppy fights, was easily the victor. This encounter would not be lost on White Frang.

Although White Fang slowly began to give his "body and soul" over to the man-animals, he could not immediately let go of his wild heritage and his memories of the wild. Some days he would creep to the edge of the forest and listen to something calling him. Perhaps this restlessness was brought on by the constant torment White Fang received from Lip-Lip. Whenever he ventured away from his mother, the bully was there to attack and force a fight. This brings about a change in the young puppy - he is forced to abandoned much of his "childhood," he becomes a solitary figure in camp. He begins to develop his intellect, his cunning and his skills. One day, while being chased, White Fang deliberately leads Lip-Lip past Kiche, who is able to deal a great deal of revenge for her son.

Gray Beaver, master of both mother dog and son dog, decides one day the Kiche no longer is a threat to run away and unties her. White Fang leads his mother to the edge of the woods next to the camp and urges her to run to freedom in the quiet woods where something is calling him. Kiche refuses to go and White Fang makes a decision - the call of his mother is stronger than his call of the wild. However, a short time later Gray Beaver gives Kicke to Three Eagles to settle a debt. As Three Eagles puts Kiche in a canoe to go down river, White Fang jumps in the water and begins to swim after them as Gray Beaver repeatedly calls to him. The man-animal gods are use to being obeyed and the savage beating that White Fang received from Gray Beaver drove this new lesson home. The level of White Fang's bondage became clearer every day.

Now that Kiche is no longer able to protect White Fang, Lip-Lip sees the opportunity to increase his persecution. With the other camp dogs on his side, Lip-Lip makes life for White Fang living hell. But White Fang is brighter than most other dogs and quickly learns two important lessons: "how to take care of himself in a mass-fight against him; and how, on a single dog, to inflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of time." As White Fang becomes more savage, he becomes more and more alienated from his own kind as well as man. He learned another lesson, to obey the strong and to oppress the weak. He continued to learn the lesson of the survival of the fittest.

In the fall, as the Indians were moving their camp, White Fang had an opportunity to escape to the wild. He deliberately determined to stay behind and hid in the nearby woods as Gray Beaver called his name. As night approached, cold, hunger, and loneliness had begun to sink in. "His bondage had softened him. Irresponsibility had weakened him. He had forgotten how to shift for himself." The night images and sounds convinced him of his mistake and he decided to return to his master the next morning. After following the river, White Fang finds Gray Beaver and his family. As he approaches he knows that a beating would be coming but is surprised when Gray Beaver gives him moose meat instead. He lays down at his master's feat and realizes that "of his own choice, he came in to sit by man's fire and to be ruled by him."

The next few months are full of lessons learned by White Fang, lessons that will serve him the rest of his life. He first learns how to be a sled dog as Gray Beaver plans a trip up the Mackenzie River. It is Mit-sah, Gray Beaver's son, who is in charge of the sled and makes Lip-Lip the lead dog. Although appearing to be an honor, the lead dog had all honor taken away from him as the other dogs followed him, never able to see his face or his sharp teeth. At nights Mit-sah would feed Gray Beaver more than the other dogs and Lip-Lip now found himself hated and persecuted by the pack. White Fang learned to work hard and learned the futility of opposing the will of the gods. He also learned to oppress the weak and obey the strong. He had learned much earlier from Gray Beaver that the unpardonable crime was to bite one of the gods, but now he learned that some laws were subject to change. In a village at the Great Slave Lake, White Fang goes foraging for food and comes upon a young boy chopping moose meat. As White Fang eats a few chips of the frozen meat the boy becomes enraged and attacks the dog with a club. White Fang must now decide between a beating and defending himself. Before the boy realizes what has happened, he is attacked by the dog and White Fang now expects nothing but the most terrible punishment. Imagine his surprise when Gray Beaver defends his actions.

Before the day is out Mit-sah is attacked by a group of young Indians. At first White Fang just looks on - this was an affair of the gods, and no concern of his. When he realizes the fight is going badly for Mit-sah, a mad rush of anger sends him leaping into combat, saving Gray Beaver's son. White Fang came to understand that the law of property and and the duty of defending the property gave him rights otherwise prohibited, namely the biting of thieving gods. A covenant was worked out by White Fang and the terms were simple. "For the possession of a flesh-and-blood god, he exchanged his own liberty. Food and fire, protection and companionship, were some of the things he received from the god. In return, he guarded the god's property, defned his body, worked for him and obeyed him." It was a service of duty and awe, but not of love.

By the next spring White Fang had grown in size and at one year of age is able to compete with any other dog in the camp. He is now able to command the respect of even the older and stronger dogs in camp. He also comes upon Kiche and her new cub and as he greets her and runs to her, is surprised by the snarling reaction and lack of recognition. Although confused, his instincts let him know this is a female of his kind and it was a law of his kind that the males must not fight the females.

In the third year of his life another terrible famine comes to the valley. The gods were so hungry that they ate the leather of their moccasins and the dogs ate the harnesses off their backs. In this time of misery, White Fang retreated to the woods and takes care of himself by hunting small game and preying on young wolf, gaunt and scrawny with hunger. Despite the famine, White Fang remains in good condition and, consequently, when he comes across a hungry and tired Lip-Lip, the battle to the end is swift and merciless.

Part Three Analysis:

The essence of parts III and IV is the portrayal of the deepening estrangement from all living things; and like so much of the writing that emerges from the corners of London's mind, these chapters evoke a world bereft of redeeming value - a nihilistic world of violence and hate. When Gray Beaver trades the mother away, the young dog's "grief for her loss" combines with a "hungry yearning" for the life of his puppyhood. Now his "Ishmaelite life" begins in earnest. No longer protected form the cruelty of the other dogs, he is driven into a savage independence. White Fang becomes the personification of the masculine principle of the demonic wild: "The outcast" and "The Enemy of His Kind," who is "hated by man and dog" and in turn hates them. Even his name suggests both the demonic white wilderness and the savage Darwinian world governed by the Law of the Meat, the Law of the Fang.

From his first master, the Indian Gray Beaver, White Fang receives his name. Moreover, he learns obedience, loyalty, and the discipline of his work. A radical change takes place when the protagonist shifts his allegiance from the blind, reasonless Wild to a new deity:

"This was the ancient covenant that the first wolf that came in from the Wild Entered into with man. And, like all succeeding wolves and wild dogs that had Done likewise, White Fang worked the covenant out for himself. The terms were Simple. For the possession of a flesh-and-blood god, he exchanged his own Liberty. Food and fire, protection and companionship, were some of the things he received from the god. In return, he guarded the god's property, defended his body, worked for him, and obeyed him.

Time and again, lest his reader forget, London reiterates his underlying theme of survival of the fittest, his theme of naturalism, and his theme of environment.

"The months went by. White Fang grew stronger, heavier, and more compact, while his character was developing along the lines laid down by his heredity and environment. His heredity was a life-stuff that may be likened to clay. It possessed many possibilities, was capable of being moulded into many forms. Environment served to model the clay, to give it a particular form. Thus, had White Fang never come into the fires of man, the wild would have moulded him into a true wolf. But the gods had given him a different environment, and he was moulded into a dog that was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not a wolf

White Fang learns in this section that man, who lights the fire and carries the clubs, stands highest in nature's chain. He is god, the lawgiver in the Nietzschean salve-master system, someone dictating the destiny of nature's creatures who live by instinct, rather than superior intelligence. White Fang learns to exist in this primitive place of ice and snow on the edge of civilization through submission to their master's will, but craftily erode order among the other dogs through "tough" tactics, then shift the blame on them. White Fang has become a fearful killer despised by men and beasts.

When White Fang opts not to return to the wild, but rather go back to his master, he decides forever between the "call of the wild" and the companionship of man, and "it did not take him long to make up his mind." He surrendered himself voluntarily to Gray Beaver. There is irony in this as London acknowledges that for the "possession of flesh-and-blood good," White Fang "exchanged his own liberty." Yet he makes the exchange knowingly and later he voluntarily returns again after a later famine, when he "came boldly from the forest and trotted into camp straight to Gray Beaver's teepee."

In a well-used metaphor throughout the novel, London likens White Fang's heredity to "clay," which "possessed many possibilities, and was capable of being moulded into many different forms. The force that serves to "model the clay, to give it particular form" is environment and this favorite tool of naturalistic literature receives continual emphasis. In this chapter the clay is molded by White Fang's life in the Indian village. The world of the Indians "is no soil for kindliness and affection to blossom in."

Part Four Summary:

With the death of Lip-Lip, Mit-sah makes White Fang the lead sled dog and the other dogs' hatred of him is intensified. The extra favors bestowed on him along with the extra rations of meat given to him make the pack of dogs attack him more viciously than ever. White Fang can hardly endure it, but endure it he must or perish, and he had no desire to perish. He was continually "marred and scarred by the teeth of the pack, and as continually he left his own marks upon the pack." If ever an animal was an enemy of his own kind, it was White Fang. The other dogs sensed a difference. Like him, they were domesticated wolves, but they had been domesticated for generations. In them the Wild had been lost but in White Fang, in appearance and action and impulse, he still clung to the Wild.

In the summer of 1898, White Fang arrives with Gray Beaver at Fort Yukon along with hundreds gold-hunters. Gray Beaver hoped to make a profit selling mittens and moccasins, but never in his wildest dreams did he realize how much money he was going to make. It was at the fort that White Fang saw his first white men. Even the dog sensed that they "were to him another race of beings, a race of superior gods." Gray Beaver seemed but a child-god among these white-skinned men.

Although the white men may seem more powerful, in comparison their dogs were soft and helpless. White Fang held them in great contempt and was able to overcome them with very little effort. After a time it became his occupation to attacked these weaklings as they arrived on the ships. As the leader of a gang of dogs, White Fang spends his days harassing these dogs and learning to stay out of the way of their masters.

It is in this pursuit that White Fang's actions catch the attention of a man named Beauty Smith. "Beauty" is anything but beautiful. London gives a very colorful description; a small man with a "meager head" and a remarkably wide forehead. His eyes were large and he had an enormous prognathous jaw. The man was the "weakest of weak-kneed and sniveling cowards. In short, Beauty Smith was a monstrosity."

It becomes Beauty's obsession to own this ferocious dog and he offers to buy him from Gray Beaver. Having more money than he ever dreamed possible, Gray Beaver refuses. But Beauty knew the ways of Indians and came to visit the Indian with whiskey tucked under his coat. After many nights of drinking, Gray Beaver's money and goods are gone and then agrees to sell his dog to the white man. Needless to say, White Fang resists going with Beauty and the dog "experienced the worst beating he had ever received in his life. These beatings continued until White Fang submits to this new master.

It was Beauty Smith's goal to turn White Fang into a "fiend." The dog is kept chained in a pen at the rear of the fort and is constantly teased and irritated and tormented. "Formerly, White Fang had been merely the enemy of his kind. He now became the enemy of all things, and more ferocious than ever." Dogs were brought to the pen, bets were placed, and then the fights would begin. White Fang had now achieved a reputation in the land as the Fighting Wolf and was put on exhibition. As Beauty became rich from the fights, men wanting to pit their dogs against White Fang stopped and he remained on exhibition until the spring until a man named Tim Keenan arrived in the land with the first bulldog ever to enter the Klondike. A match between the two dogs was set up.

Cherokee and White Fang entered the ring and neither seemed too anxious to fight until prodded to do so by their masters. The initial advantage belonged to White Fang, but the wolf is still unable to knock the bulldog off his feet and attack the throat of the enemy dog. During one such attack, White Fang loses his footing and the bulldog is able to latch onto his throat. Thrashing about, White Fang is unable to loosen the other dog from his grip and eventually lays down to await his certain death. At this point, two men, Weeden Scott and his master, Matt, enter the scene and rescue the wolf. He throws a paltry sum of money at Beauty Smith and load the dying dog on a sled and take him to their cabin.

Over the next few weeks the men are unsuccessful in their attempt to calm down the dog but they notice that he had been a harness dog and he seems unusually intelligent. Matt decides to unchain the wild animal and then throws him a piece of meat. As one of the other dogs jumps for it, he is instantly killed by White Fang. It is debated rather or not to just kill him but Weeden Scott wants some time to try another approach. He begins to throw him meat and slowly teaches him to eat out of his hand. He then begins to talk softly and gently to the animal. "His voice was kindness - something of which White Fang had no experience whatever." Scott then slowly begins to pet the animal. At first White Fang finds this repulsive, but in short order he begins to find it quite pleasurable. The lordship of man was now in his nature and "because he needed a god and because he preferred Weedon Scott to Beauty Smith, White Fang remained."

Not only did White Fang stay, but he also came to love this new master. When Scott leaves on a business trip and is gone for an extended period of time, White Fang stops eating and moving and is near death until Scott returns. One night, not long after the return, Matt and Scott hear noises outside and realize that White Fang is attacking a man. Upon further examination, they find Beauty Smith outside with a chain and club in is hand. The dog and the two men send him packing.

Part Four Analysis:

Part IV shows the startling contrast between the finest attributes of civilization and the worst. When Gray Beaver takes White Fang on a trading excursion to Fort Yukon, White Fang sees his first white men and learns that these are a "race of superior gods. They possessed greater mastery over matter than the gods he had know, most powerful among which was Gray Beaver. And yet Gray Beaver was a child-god among these white-skinned ones." The Indian proves to be a mere child-god, indeed, when he foolishly barters his best dog for the white man's whiskey. Under his new master, Beauty Smith, White Fang learns that the viciousness of the perverted white man is deadlier than the Wild at its worst. Beauty Smith is a "monstrosity" both psychologically and physically, a sadistic coward who delights in inflicting punishment on his newly acquired dog and in training White Fang to kill other animals while caged for exhibit. Again, London takes a very naturalistic approach to this awful man when he makes it clear that Beauty is also the product of his environment: "Beauty Smith had not created himself, and no blame was to be attached to him. He had come into the world with a twisted body and a brute intelligence. This had constituted the clay of him, and it had not been kindly moulded by the world." Nor is White Fang to be blamed for becoming a raging killer. His environment also shaped him:

He was regarded as the most fearful of wild beasts, and this was borne in to him through the bars of the cage. Every word, every cautious action, on the part of the men, impressed upon him his own terrible ferocity. It was so much added fuel to the flame of his fierceness. There could be but one result, and that was that his ferocity fed upon itself and increased. It was another instance of the plasticity of his clay, of his capacity for being moulded by the pressure of his environment.

Even the fiercest of wild animals, a full-grown lynx, is no match for the cultivated ferocity of the man-trained killer. Significantly, White Fang meets his nemesis in the form of a more highly cultivated killer-beast then himself: the bulldog. It is equally significant that White Fang is saved from death, not by his instinct or other natural abilities, but by a highly civilized with man: Weedon Scott. London's point is that if the environment made by man is sometimes worse than the Wild, it may also be made better - in fact, redemptive: "Weedon Scott Š set himself the task of redeeming White Fang - or rather of redeeming mankind from the wrong it had done White Fang. It was a matter of principle and conscience. He felt that the ill done What Fang as a debt incurred by man and that it must be paid."

In sharp contrast to Beauty Smith, Weedon Scott represents the finest attributes of civilization: intelligence decency, compassion. With patient understanding he gradually wins White Fang's confidence and, finally, his absolute devotion, demonstrating that of all environmental forces love can be the most powerful: "And love was the plummet dropped down into the deeps of him where like had never gone. And responsive, out of his deeps had come the new thing - love. That which was given unto him was returned. This was a god indeed, a love-god, a warm and radiant god, in whose light White Fang's nature expanded as a flower expands under the sun."

Part Five Summary:

The last of the many changes that will take place in White Fang take place in Part V and the title, The Tame, suggests what those changes will be. As the chapter unfolds, White Fangs becomes very agitated, sensing some calamity in the air. What Weedon Scott and Matt can't figure out is how the dog knows that Scott is leaving the Yukon Territory to return to his home in California. White Fang begins to howl night and day and his anxiety and restlessness become more pronounced every day. After locking the dog in the kitchen, the two men head off to catch the steamship to California.

As Weedon Scott is about to board the ship, he sees White Fang on the dock several feet away. White Fang's intelligence has earned him a trip to the Southland.

When White Fang lands in San Francisco he becomes aware of perils he has never faced before and realizes everything around him, the traffic, the buildings, the multitude of people, are all manifestations of the god's power. He begins to feel small and puny and as never before, he feels dependent on the love-master. Later in the day as they enter the Scott estate White Fang is set upon by a "sheep-dog, bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, righteously indignant and angry." As the wolf turns to attack, he realizes that this is a female, Collie, and the law of his kind puts a barrier between them. White Fang is immediately attacked by another sheep-dog, Dick, and Weedon Scott remarks, "I say, this is a pretty warm reception for a poor lone wolf from the Artic."

White Fang was adaptable by nature, but he had traveled a lot and knew the meaning and necessity of adjustment. In order to please his new master, he was ready to learn a completely new set of rules. He learned not to respond violently to the people that belonged to the master; Judge Scott and his wife, Weedon's wife Alice and their two children. "What was of value to the master he valued; what was dear to the master was to be cherished by White Fang and guarded carefully." He learned to tolerated the hands of the children all over him and even found himself sad when they tired of the dog and went on to other playthings.

White Fang had many other lessons to learn. One day, while wandering the yard, he came upon a chicken that had escaped from the chicken-yard. His natural impulse was to eat it, and eat it he did. But he didn't stop there. Within minutes he was in the chicken house and when the master came out, over fifty hens were dead. The master talked firmly and strongly to White Fang and "at the same time cuffed him soundly." The incident was never repeated. With his intelligence he soon figured out the difference between the domestic animals (sheep, cats, chickens, dogs) and the wild animals (rabbits, quail, squirrels) that he was allowed to hunt.

Life became very easy for White Fang, "there was plenty of food and no work in the Southland, and White Fang lived fat and prosperous and happy." One of his happiest moments was riding each day with the master. He never tired and was always able to keep up with the horses. One day, while Weedon Scott was struggling with a horse, he was thrown and his leg was broken. The master ordered White Fang home to get help. Running into the yard, the dog knocked over one of the children and was ready to be "cuffed" for pulling on aprons and paints, when the family figured out that Weedon was missing and needed help. Respect for the dog came in an unusual way. Collie, the female sheep-dog, ceased harassing him and invited him to run through the fields with her.

With the escape of Jim Hall from San Quentin, the book is about to come to a dramatic conclusion. This convict is described as "a ferocious man. He had been ill-made in the making. He had not been born right." Although wrongly convicted, Judge Scott was unaware of the police railroading but was about to feel this man's revenge. Knowing that danger could be imminent, the Judge's wife began to secretly let White Fang sleep in the entry way at night. When Jim Hall does enter the Scott home, White Fang attacks and kills the criminal, but not before he takes three bullets. White Fang is critically wounded and the doctor announces to the family, "Frankly, he has one chance in a thousand." But again, London's theme of "survival of the fittest" comes into play. This is not an average dog or wolf and his strong body and nature allow him to survive. The women of the home have renamed him "Blessed Wolf." The book ends with White Fang playing in the warm California sun with his new puppies.

Part Five Analysis:

White Fang ends where The Call of the Wild had begun, at Judge Scott's estate in the Santa Clara Valley. Here the wolf-hero must learn what Buck had to unlearn: respect for the laws, established by men, regarding property. At first White Fang responds as he did in the Northland. When he sees a chicken, he tears into it and eats it. But after he goes on a rampage and kills fifty chickens at once, earning both the ire and the admiration of his master, Weedon Scott, he learns that chickens are off limits. This was a law decreed by the "god," and to please his "love-master" he obeys his laws punctiliously. White Fang is not only very smart, he is extremely adaptable, and this is his strength. "Life had a thousand faces, and White Fang found he must meet them all." In California life is more complex than it was in the Northland and "the chief thing demanded by these intricacies of civilization was control, restraint - a poise of self that was delicate as the fluttering of gossamer wings and at the same time as rigid as steel Š

Life flowed past him, deep and wide and varied, continually impinging upon his senses, demanding of him instant and endless adjustments and correspondences and compelling him, almost always, to suppress his natural impulses."

This suppression of his natural impulses goes hand in hand with the canine equivalent of marriage. One day White Fang deserts his master to follow Collie, a rather shrewish female, into the woods: "The master rode alone that day; and, in the woods, side by side, White Fang ran with Collie, as his Mother, Kiche, and old One Eye had run long years before in the silent Northland forest." The language closely parallels the ending of The Call of the Wild, but the lyric beauty of that book is replaced in White Fang by a coy sentimentality. Collie presents White Fang with "a half-dozen pudgy puppies," and the book ends as they come "sprawling toward him Š he gravely permitting them to clamber and tumble over him as he lay with half-shut, patient eyes, drowsing in the sun."

The dramatic confrontation between two diametrically opposed products of environment - the brutalized man the humanized beast - occurs when the convict, Jim Hall, breaks into Judge Scott's home to "wreak vengeance" on the man who "railroaded" him into prison. Judge Scott's life is saved by White Fang, who very nearly loses his own life before slashing the throat of the killer. Jim Hall is a mad dog that must be destroyed for the safety of respectable citizens. In his encounter with the convict, White Fang has suffered several bullet wounds and is critically injured. But White Fang beats the odds and lives to be christened "The Blessed Wolf" by the Scott family. He lives, not only because of his extraordinary natural toughness, a legacy of the Wild, but also because of the therapeutic combination of medical expertise and loving care, the fines manifestation of The Tame (the title of Part V). These are the blessings available to all of God's creatures, suggests London, of only civilized man will avail himself to them.

Again, as in previous chapters, London takes a naturalistic approach to certain aspects of this chapter. Even though Jim Hall is bent on murdering Judge Scott, the author emphasizes that Hall is not to be blamed for his intention. Hall was "ill-made in the making," London tells the reader; though Hall is "so terrible a beast that he can best be characterized as carnivorous," it is not his fault. "The more fiercely he fought, the more harshly society handled him, and the only effect of harshness was to make him fiercer," lectures London. London was convinced that the penal system in the United States was morally wrong and chooses this time to get his point across, "Straight-jackets, starvation, and beatings and clubbings were the wrong treatment for Jim Hall; but it was the treatment he received.

White Fang was written during his romance with Charmian and published after their marriage and thus it is symbolic of own decision to tame his "wild" appetites, if he could. Another interesting symbol in this novel is the oasis of the campfire (Chapter I) surrounded by the sinister darkness of the wild. This image is a microcosm of the larger landscape; the Northland wilderness as opposed to the grassy estate in the Santa Clara Valley - the "Southland of life," in which "human kindness was like a sun."

Although very naturalistic in his approach to this novel, London received a great deal of criticism for the abrupt ending. When White Fang finally recovers from his injuries, he ventures out into the warm California sun and greats Collie and his new puppies. Instead of ending the novel in the same naturalistic vein he began, London ends White Fang with a distinctively romantic flare.

• Biography of Jack London
• About White Fang
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Part 1
• Summary and Analysis of Part 2
• Summary and Analysis of Part 3
• Summary and Analysis of Part 4
• Summary and Analysis of Part 5
• Author of ClassicNote and Sources
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• Test Yourself! Quiz 1
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