大师作文网请问《野性的呼唤》的概要（英文版）是什么?能给人哪些启示?有什么象征意?
来源：学生作业帮 编辑：大师作文网作业帮 分类：英语作业 时间：2024/11/12 14:41:24
请问《野性的呼唤》的概要（英文版）是什么?能给人哪些启示?有什么象征意?
The Gold Rush in the Yukon and Alaska has prompted the need for big, strong dogs who will be able to pull sleds over icy trails. Buck, a large animal living in the home of Judge Miller in Santa Clara, California, is exactly what the explorers want. He is an animal with human-like tendencies, intelligence, strength and dignity. Thus far he has enjoyed his civilized life with the occasional nature stroll or hunting trip. Manuel, a gardener's helper with a penchant for gambling and a need for money, manages to kidnap Buck and sell him on the black market. He is given to a saloon-keeper and transported via train to the Northland. Throughout the ordeal, Buck is kept in a cage and becomes increasingly angry. He manages to badly bite one of his kidnappers. By the time he arrives at his destination, he has worked himself into a rage.
The meeting with the Red Sweater and the painful encounters with his club push Buck into submission. He is not broken, but he knows better than to keep resisting, which can only result in his death. Once he is behaving correctly, Buck, along with Dave and Curly, two other dogs, is sold to Francois and Perrault, two agents of the Canadian government. They must bring the mail between Skaquay and Dawson, Alaska. While in camp, Curly is killed for trying to make friendly advances to another husky. Buck understands that this is the law of club and fang which dominates this new world. He resolves never to go down in that manner.
Buck and Dave join a preexisting dog team led by Spitz, a bullying husky dog. The trail work begins immediately. Buck learns fast from the other dogs. In time he starts to become more wild, losing the domesticity imposed upon him in the Judge's home. Tensions develop between him and Spitz. Buck is ready to be a leader, and looks to usurp Spitz's power. While hunting a rabbit one night, the two end up in a fight to the death. Buck achieves mastery. When Francois attempts to place Sol-lek at the head of the team, Buck refuses to allow it. Even the appearance of a club does not faze him, for he has learned how to avoid it. When Francois allows him to take the position, he is amazed by Buck's abilities. Buck begins to dream of an ancient world in which man and dog fought side by side to survive.
After two round trips between towns, the dogs are exhausted and overworked. Francois and Perrault are very proud of their team, having just set a record for their run. But they receive new orders and must bid the dogs goodby. Several Scottish "half-breeds" take charge of Buck and his other dogs. He does not have strong feelings for them, but they are good men and they care for the dogs. Buck's dreams of the ancient world grow more vivid. The path is very difficult and men and dogs alike are growing weak. One day Dave shows so much pain that one of the men tries to get him to run behind the sled. He refuses so adamantly that the men give in and allow him to run himself out. The next morning they drive the sled away, then one man returns and shoots Dave.
After this last trip, the Scottish men are told to sell the dogs and buy fresher ones. The team is sold to a group of tenderfoots -- Hal, Charles, and Mercedes -- looking to strike it rich. They have no idea how to work with a dog team. In Hal's eagerness to complete the trail, he terribly mistreats the dogs. His quiet brother-in-law Charles and weepy sister Mercedes only increase the difficulty. Hal's incompetent handling of the rations leads them to run out of food for the dogs half-way through the trip. Starving and overworked, one by one the dogs start to die. The remnants pull into the camp of John Thornton. Buck refuses to rise when Hal wants to leave. After watching the cruel young man beat Buck repeatedly, John steps in and saves him by cutting him out of the harness. The rest of the team continues. Only a quarter-away, the sled falls through the ice, thinned by the sun, and dogs and humans perish together.
Buck falls wildly in love with John Thornton, who immediately recognizes that Buck is one of a kind. Under John's influence, comforted by his two other dogs Skeet and Nig, Buck begins to heal. He accomplishes a number of miraculous things for John, saving his life twice and winning a bet that allows him to pay off all his debts. He does not forget his visions of the primitive world, but he is happy at John's side. Along with Hans and Pete, John's partners, the dogs go on an expedition for a lost mine. The work on the trail, the daily hunting, are absolutely delightful for Buck. Though they don't find the mind, they do find gold, and so there is no more work for the dogs to do. Buck ruminates once more on the call that he hears nightly in the forest.
Eventually he starts to sleep away from the camp. He embraces his instincts and wild tendencies, killing his own food and watching out for himself. Buck meets a wolf who befriends him and is quite sad when he returns to the camp. This pattern continues, until one day Buck returns to the camp to find everyone killed by the Yeehats, a Native American tribe. He flies into a rage at the death of beloved John, and kills all the men who do not run away from him. There is no more tie to mankind, so Buck returns to the forest and remains with a pack of wolves. Each year he visits to the valley where John Thornton died, mourning his lost, dearest friend.
Analysis of Major Characters
Buck
Although The Call of the Wild is told from the perspective of an anonymous third-person narrator, the events that are recounted are those that the dog Buck experiences directly. As such, it is not unreasonable to call him the only fully developed character in the story. He is the only character whose past we know anything about, and London is careful to emphasize the human qualities of his protagonist, enabling us to empathize with the animal. Filtered through the third-person omniscience of the narrator, Buck comes across as far more than a creature of instinct, since he has a sense of wonder, shame, and justice. He also possesses a capacity for mystical experiences and for great, unselfish love, as his relationship to Thornton amply demonstrates. He may be a dog, but he is more human than many of the people around him.
Buck’s story is cyclical: he is introduced as a pampered prince, and the story concludes with Buck as a veritable king of beasts. In between, Buck undergoes experiences that provide him with greater insight about the world. Buck begins as a spoiled regent, strutting proudly over his soft, sun-kissed domain, but he abruptly sees everything taken away from him. He is reduced to nothing, beaten and kicked and forced to pull sleds through the Canadian wilderness. This experience, though, far from destroying him, makes him stronger, and he wins back his kingdom—or rather, he wins a new kingdom, a wild one that better suits his true destiny as a wild animal. The Call of the Wild is, as its title suggests, a celebration of wildness, of primitive life, and even of savagery. Buck’s rise to greatness is not an easy path; it is a struggle, a course strewn with obstacles, from the long duel with his rival Spitz to the folly of Hal, Mercedes, and Charles. But these obstacles, London indicates, are to be rejoiced in rather than avoided: life is ultimately a long struggle for mastery, and the greatest dogs (or men), the Bucks of the world, will always seek out struggles in order to prove their greatness. Thus, when Buck goes from being a moral, civilized pet to a fierce, bloodthirsty, violent wolf-dog, we are glad rather than shocked, because we know that he is fulfilling his highest -possible destiny.
John Thornton
The Call of the Wild is, first and foremost, the story of Buck’s gradual transformation from a tame beast into a wild animal. But even as the novel celebrates the life of a wild creature, it presents us with the character of John Thornton, whose connection to Buck suggests that there may be something good and natural in the human-dog relationship, despite its flaws. Thornton, a seasoned gold prospector, saves Buck from being beaten to death by the odious Hal and then becomes Buck’s master. From then on, a deep and abiding love blossoms between man and dog. Their relationship is a reciprocal one—Thornton saves Buck, and Buck later saves Thornton from drowning in a river. It is clear that Buck is more of a partner than a servant to the prospector. This mutual respect, we are assured, is characteristic of all Thornton’s relationships to dogs—every one of his animals bears an abiding love for him, which is returned in kind. Even as Buck is increasingly drawn to a life away from humanity, a life in the wild, his affection for Thornton keeps him from making the final break. Indeed, so strong is their bond that it is broken only when Thornton dies, and even then Buck makes an annual pilgrimage to his last master’s final resting place.
Buck is prone to visions of more primitive worlds, and sometimes he sees the humans around him as ancient men, wearing animal skins and living in caves or trees. In some of these visions, he is -running alongside these men, protecting them from the terrors of the night. His relationship to Thornton, the novel implies, is like these ancient man-dog connections; it is primitive rather than civilized, and so it remains strong even as Buck leaves the civilized world behind.
Hal, Charles, and Mercedes
These three can be analyzed in a group, because London never develops them beyond our initial impressions of them, which are strikingly similar: Hal and Charles are foolish and callow; Mercedes is spoiled and sentimental. Taken together, the trio serves as a vehicle through which London attacks the debilitating effects of human civilization and warns of how little use such civilization is in the wild. From their first appearance, Hal, Charles, and Mercedes are woefully out of place in the untamed North. Both Hal and Charles display “a callowness sheer and unutterable,” while Mercedes is spoiled and unreasonable—“it was her custom to be helpless,” London notes. As a group, the three have no experience in the wild, and, thus, they make mistake after mistake, overpacking the sled, allowing Mercedes to ride instead of walking, and miscalculating how much food they need for the journey to Dawson. When their mistakes become apparent, instead of taking action, they begin bickering and feuding, fighting over old grudges and trifles rather than dealing with the problems at hand.
The civilized world tolerates and even smiles on such absurdity, London suggests, but the wild has no such mercy. In the cold of the Klondike, incompetence is deadly, not only for the three foolish Americans but also for the team of dogs, for the humans’ poor planning has brought them to the brink of starvation. Hal, Charles, and Mercedes are weak and foolish figures, and their folly has its own reward—death in the icy waters of a northern river.
The meeting with the Red Sweater and the painful encounters with his club push Buck into submission. He is not broken, but he knows better than to keep resisting, which can only result in his death. Once he is behaving correctly, Buck, along with Dave and Curly, two other dogs, is sold to Francois and Perrault, two agents of the Canadian government. They must bring the mail between Skaquay and Dawson, Alaska. While in camp, Curly is killed for trying to make friendly advances to another husky. Buck understands that this is the law of club and fang which dominates this new world. He resolves never to go down in that manner.
Buck and Dave join a preexisting dog team led by Spitz, a bullying husky dog. The trail work begins immediately. Buck learns fast from the other dogs. In time he starts to become more wild, losing the domesticity imposed upon him in the Judge's home. Tensions develop between him and Spitz. Buck is ready to be a leader, and looks to usurp Spitz's power. While hunting a rabbit one night, the two end up in a fight to the death. Buck achieves mastery. When Francois attempts to place Sol-lek at the head of the team, Buck refuses to allow it. Even the appearance of a club does not faze him, for he has learned how to avoid it. When Francois allows him to take the position, he is amazed by Buck's abilities. Buck begins to dream of an ancient world in which man and dog fought side by side to survive.
After two round trips between towns, the dogs are exhausted and overworked. Francois and Perrault are very proud of their team, having just set a record for their run. But they receive new orders and must bid the dogs goodby. Several Scottish "half-breeds" take charge of Buck and his other dogs. He does not have strong feelings for them, but they are good men and they care for the dogs. Buck's dreams of the ancient world grow more vivid. The path is very difficult and men and dogs alike are growing weak. One day Dave shows so much pain that one of the men tries to get him to run behind the sled. He refuses so adamantly that the men give in and allow him to run himself out. The next morning they drive the sled away, then one man returns and shoots Dave.
After this last trip, the Scottish men are told to sell the dogs and buy fresher ones. The team is sold to a group of tenderfoots -- Hal, Charles, and Mercedes -- looking to strike it rich. They have no idea how to work with a dog team. In Hal's eagerness to complete the trail, he terribly mistreats the dogs. His quiet brother-in-law Charles and weepy sister Mercedes only increase the difficulty. Hal's incompetent handling of the rations leads them to run out of food for the dogs half-way through the trip. Starving and overworked, one by one the dogs start to die. The remnants pull into the camp of John Thornton. Buck refuses to rise when Hal wants to leave. After watching the cruel young man beat Buck repeatedly, John steps in and saves him by cutting him out of the harness. The rest of the team continues. Only a quarter-away, the sled falls through the ice, thinned by the sun, and dogs and humans perish together.
Buck falls wildly in love with John Thornton, who immediately recognizes that Buck is one of a kind. Under John's influence, comforted by his two other dogs Skeet and Nig, Buck begins to heal. He accomplishes a number of miraculous things for John, saving his life twice and winning a bet that allows him to pay off all his debts. He does not forget his visions of the primitive world, but he is happy at John's side. Along with Hans and Pete, John's partners, the dogs go on an expedition for a lost mine. The work on the trail, the daily hunting, are absolutely delightful for Buck. Though they don't find the mind, they do find gold, and so there is no more work for the dogs to do. Buck ruminates once more on the call that he hears nightly in the forest.
Eventually he starts to sleep away from the camp. He embraces his instincts and wild tendencies, killing his own food and watching out for himself. Buck meets a wolf who befriends him and is quite sad when he returns to the camp. This pattern continues, until one day Buck returns to the camp to find everyone killed by the Yeehats, a Native American tribe. He flies into a rage at the death of beloved John, and kills all the men who do not run away from him. There is no more tie to mankind, so Buck returns to the forest and remains with a pack of wolves. Each year he visits to the valley where John Thornton died, mourning his lost, dearest friend.
Analysis of Major Characters
Buck
Although The Call of the Wild is told from the perspective of an anonymous third-person narrator, the events that are recounted are those that the dog Buck experiences directly. As such, it is not unreasonable to call him the only fully developed character in the story. He is the only character whose past we know anything about, and London is careful to emphasize the human qualities of his protagonist, enabling us to empathize with the animal. Filtered through the third-person omniscience of the narrator, Buck comes across as far more than a creature of instinct, since he has a sense of wonder, shame, and justice. He also possesses a capacity for mystical experiences and for great, unselfish love, as his relationship to Thornton amply demonstrates. He may be a dog, but he is more human than many of the people around him.
Buck’s story is cyclical: he is introduced as a pampered prince, and the story concludes with Buck as a veritable king of beasts. In between, Buck undergoes experiences that provide him with greater insight about the world. Buck begins as a spoiled regent, strutting proudly over his soft, sun-kissed domain, but he abruptly sees everything taken away from him. He is reduced to nothing, beaten and kicked and forced to pull sleds through the Canadian wilderness. This experience, though, far from destroying him, makes him stronger, and he wins back his kingdom—or rather, he wins a new kingdom, a wild one that better suits his true destiny as a wild animal. The Call of the Wild is, as its title suggests, a celebration of wildness, of primitive life, and even of savagery. Buck’s rise to greatness is not an easy path; it is a struggle, a course strewn with obstacles, from the long duel with his rival Spitz to the folly of Hal, Mercedes, and Charles. But these obstacles, London indicates, are to be rejoiced in rather than avoided: life is ultimately a long struggle for mastery, and the greatest dogs (or men), the Bucks of the world, will always seek out struggles in order to prove their greatness. Thus, when Buck goes from being a moral, civilized pet to a fierce, bloodthirsty, violent wolf-dog, we are glad rather than shocked, because we know that he is fulfilling his highest -possible destiny.
John Thornton
The Call of the Wild is, first and foremost, the story of Buck’s gradual transformation from a tame beast into a wild animal. But even as the novel celebrates the life of a wild creature, it presents us with the character of John Thornton, whose connection to Buck suggests that there may be something good and natural in the human-dog relationship, despite its flaws. Thornton, a seasoned gold prospector, saves Buck from being beaten to death by the odious Hal and then becomes Buck’s master. From then on, a deep and abiding love blossoms between man and dog. Their relationship is a reciprocal one—Thornton saves Buck, and Buck later saves Thornton from drowning in a river. It is clear that Buck is more of a partner than a servant to the prospector. This mutual respect, we are assured, is characteristic of all Thornton’s relationships to dogs—every one of his animals bears an abiding love for him, which is returned in kind. Even as Buck is increasingly drawn to a life away from humanity, a life in the wild, his affection for Thornton keeps him from making the final break. Indeed, so strong is their bond that it is broken only when Thornton dies, and even then Buck makes an annual pilgrimage to his last master’s final resting place.
Buck is prone to visions of more primitive worlds, and sometimes he sees the humans around him as ancient men, wearing animal skins and living in caves or trees. In some of these visions, he is -running alongside these men, protecting them from the terrors of the night. His relationship to Thornton, the novel implies, is like these ancient man-dog connections; it is primitive rather than civilized, and so it remains strong even as Buck leaves the civilized world behind.
Hal, Charles, and Mercedes
These three can be analyzed in a group, because London never develops them beyond our initial impressions of them, which are strikingly similar: Hal and Charles are foolish and callow; Mercedes is spoiled and sentimental. Taken together, the trio serves as a vehicle through which London attacks the debilitating effects of human civilization and warns of how little use such civilization is in the wild. From their first appearance, Hal, Charles, and Mercedes are woefully out of place in the untamed North. Both Hal and Charles display “a callowness sheer and unutterable,” while Mercedes is spoiled and unreasonable—“it was her custom to be helpless,” London notes. As a group, the three have no experience in the wild, and, thus, they make mistake after mistake, overpacking the sled, allowing Mercedes to ride instead of walking, and miscalculating how much food they need for the journey to Dawson. When their mistakes become apparent, instead of taking action, they begin bickering and feuding, fighting over old grudges and trifles rather than dealing with the problems at hand.
The civilized world tolerates and even smiles on such absurdity, London suggests, but the wild has no such mercy. In the cold of the Klondike, incompetence is deadly, not only for the three foolish Americans but also for the team of dogs, for the humans’ poor planning has brought them to the brink of starvation. Hal, Charles, and Mercedes are weak and foolish figures, and their folly has its own reward—death in the icy waters of a northern river.