Buck’s Transformation

If you are kind to an animal it will be kind back. During The Call of the Wild by  Jack London the man in the red sweater beats buck with a club, in turn buck tries to attack him. John Thornton is kind to Buck and saves him, in turn Buck helps him. The man in the red sweater and John Thornton have a very similar effect on Buck even though they are very different. Both of them start and end Buck’s transformation into a more primordial dog. Throughout the book Buck is stolen and forced to be a sled dog in the klondike. The story follows Buck as he goes on a journey to become a more primitive dog.

John Thornton and the man in the red sweater both hurt buck in different ways. This starts and ends Buck’s transformation. The man in the red sweater starts Buck’s transformation when he teaches Buck the law of club and fang. He shows Buck this by hitting him with a club for his disobedience. This is what starts Buck’s transformation into a more “wolf-like” creature. As it says in chapter 1 of The Call of The Wild “You’ve learned your place and I know mine” (16). This is what the man in the red sweater says after he beats Buck with the club. This quote teaches Buck the law of club and fang because it shows that the man in the red sweater is stronger than Buck because he is a human and Buck is a dog.. This also shows that Buck is becoming more ferocious. He is starting to become angry and is starting to hate humans more and more. This quote drives Buck to start to hate humanity and change him from loving humans to wanting to attack them.

John Thornton and the man in the red sweater change Buck's personality after they both damage how he feels in different ways, John Thornton ends Buck's transformation when he dies in chapter 7. During chapter 7 Buck starts to move farther away from his primordial instincts and closer to civilization. However this is all stopped after John Thornton is killed by the Yeehats. This leaves Buck with nothing left to hang on to which causes him to fall over the edge. This is when Buck becomes much more “wolf-like” and kills all the yeehats responsible for John Thornton’s death by tearing their necks open. “when Buck earned 16 hundred dollars in 5 minutes for John Thornton he made it possible for him to pay off his certain debts”(67). This shows that buck loves Thornton and will do anything for him. This also shows why Buck is very angry when he dies. Buck did not get a lot of time to spend with John Thornton but he withstill by far the best owner. Buck found the perfect owner for him, this is why he is super sad and angry when he is killed.

This shows that the man in the red sweater and John Thornton were the start and end of Buck's journey and transformation to become a more primordial dog. When Buck is treated kindly by John Thornton, Buck ends up winning him 16 hundred dollars. When the man in the red sweater attacked Buck this caused Buck to attack him back. This shows that if you are kind to an animal its response to you will be kind. This also says that if you are kind to an animal it will be kind back.