8220;Buck stood and looked on, the successfulchampion, the dominant primordial beast who had made his kill and found it good”(London 42). London often witnessed these dog fights and this influenced his writing. “...he found the first successful theme for his writing in a last frontier splurge...” (Walker12). Although Buck had troubles with his new peers, he also had a great conflict with hisnew home.Buck also must adapt to survive in his new home, the Yukon Wilderness:In London’s Klondike, the game of Natural Selection meant the survival of the fittest. It was a world of inhuman cold, of blinding snow, and of sudden blizzards that obscure the trail and portend a death by freezing (Tuttleton 290).The first Lesson Buck learns is that he must sleep buried in the snow to stay warmovernight. “Buck selected a spot and... proceeded to dig a hole for himself. In a trice theheat from his body filled the confined space and he was asleep” (London 25). Thisshows how Buck quickly adapted to live in this new environment. Another method inwhich Buck learned to keep warm was to stay close to the campfire. Buck soon learnedof wolves in the territory, and from fighting with other dogs Buck could now defendhimself. In The Call of the Wild, Buck represents the “blond beast” or the “Nietzscheanhound”, the animal which struggles, and as a result survives (Tuttelton 293, Kazin 88). Another critic, Maxwell Geismar, also believes that The Call of the Wild is a celebrationof animal instincts (153). The critics and I both feel that London does believe inDarwinism, and he portrays this belief throughout the novel. This also shows that thenovel is very true-to-life, because it employs Natural Selection, a fact of nature....
