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摘 要

杰克·伦敦，著名的现实主义作家，在美国乃至世界享有盛誉。他的《白牙》表达了对生命意义与精神自由的追求。本文运用达尔文的生物进化理论，对白牙的成功生存和其归化文明做了较为详细的阐述,并充分分析白牙的生活经历，得出适者生存，竞争无处不在。这些都论证了不管是人类还是动物在竞争中既要尊重热爱生命，在成长中也要探索与适应自然。

关键词：《白牙》；适者生存；竞争；生命

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 3

2.1 A Review of White Fang Studies Abroad 3

2.2 A Review of White Fang Studies at Home 3

3. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution 4

4. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in White Fang 5

4.1 Originating from the Wilderness 5

4.2 Surviving in the Cruel Environment 6

4.3 Returning to Civilization 7

5. The Illuminations of White Fang 9

5.1 Passion and Respect for Life in Competition 9

5.2 Adaptation to and Respect for the Law of Nature 10

6. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Jack London (1876-1916) is an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in San Francisco in 1876. His father was a bankrupt farmer in a poor family. London spent his adolescence as an oyster pirate, a seaman, a Yukon prospector and a tramp. These experiences, while giving him a lifelong sympathy with the working class, did not prevent him from acquiring an education. Ina Coolbrith, a poet laureate of California and a librarian. She introduced Jack London to literature and lent him Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina from her private library. London became empty-handed after joining the ranks of Canada’s gold-digger, so he concentrated on his writing. London’s experiences in the Far North led to the writing of The Call of the Wild and White Fang. His novels were an immediate success and brought him fame and wealth at an early age. The images of his characters were with a distinct personality. His stories are compact, lively and quite appealing. Jack London was considered the highest-paid best-known and most popular writer in the world by 1913. Despite his enormous fortune, London’s last years, marked by excessive drinking, were full of despair. In 1916, at the age of forty, Jack London died of uremia and of a possibly self-induced drug overdose.

In London’s time, America was a Darwinian country. In the industrial society when struggle for life was very cruel, many realists and scholars demonstrated a lot concerns for the issue of human being’s survival. Jack London was heavily influenced by Darwinism; his works exerted a great influence on the birth and development of naturalism with the influences of American conditions after the civil war. With the deepening of American industrialization process, peace and harmony of the original agricultural civilization was broken. People trapped into the helplessness and lamentations of the rural life. And idealized rural life gradually being replaced by indifferences and fear, as a result American social spirit crisis emerged, which was full of depravity and despair. With public ideals were generally suspected under American agricultural civilization, strong religious belief and nostalgic national mentality gradually dying with the industrialization process. However, the new ideals would supplement and replace the old ideals, so the new industrial capitalists replaced God and spiritual sustenance and had been a representative of American public’s new cultural ideals. As the constant improvement of the degree of economic monopoly, people felt that there was an invisible iron hand ruling them. People found that inapprehensible power was in control of them in their survival but did not know what the power was, which gradually led to people’s pessimism.

His works can be mainly divided into the following types: novels, story collections and travel sketches, essays and other nonfiction. The novels are The sea Wolf(1904), The Game(1905), Before Adam(1906), The Iron Heel(1907), Martin Eden(1909), John Barleycorn(1913), The Valley of the Moon(1913) and The Star Rover(1914). The story collections are The Son of the Wolf (1900), The God of His Fathers (1901), Children of the Frost (1902), Smoke Bellew(1912) and The Night Born(1913). Others are The Kempton-Wace Letter (1903), The People of the Abyss (1903), The War of the Classes (1905), The Road (1907), Revolution (1910) and The Cruise of the Snark(1911).

The story began when White Fang was born. White Fang had a harsh life in the Indian camp. The current dog, seeing White Fang as a wolf, immediately attacked him. The Indians save him, but the pups never accepted him, and the leader, Lip-lip, singled him out for persecution. It was at this time that White Fang was separated from his mother who was sold off to another Indian Camp. When a famine occurred, he ran away into the woods and reunited with his mother Kiche, only for her to chase him away for she had a new little pup. When White Fang was five years old, he was taken to Fort Yukon so that Grey Beaver could trade with the gold-hunters. There, he was bought with several bottles of whiskey by a dog-fighter, Beauty Smith, who made Grey Beaver addicted to alcohol. White Fang defeated all opponents, including several wolves and a lynx, until a bulldog called Cherokee was brought in to fight him. White Fang nearly suffocated but was rescued when a rich, young gold hunter, Weedon Scott, stopped the fight and forcefully bought White Fang from Beauty Smith. Scott attempted to tame since White Fang had become so crueler, finally, he succeeded after a long while efforts. At the end of the book, a murderous criminal, Jim Hall, tried to kill Scott’s father, Judge Scott, for sentencing him to prison. White Fang killed Hall and was nearly injured himself but survived. As a result, the women of Scott’s estate named him “The Blessed Wolf”. The story ended with White Fang relaxing in the sun with the puppies he had fathered with the sheep-dog Collie.

2. Literature Review

2.1 A Review of White Fang Studies Abroad

Critics pointed out that many potential themes of the novel. Tom Feller described the novel as humanity from barbarism to civilization on the development process of fable. He also pointed out that White Fang suggested that changes in individual and social needs in some way involved in the violence. Paul Dean pointed out that White Fang reflected the need for social norms to suppress individualism. Jack London himself was influenced by Herbert Spencer’s famous “affect survival of the fittest,” and Friedrich Nietzsche’s “superman philosophy” and “the power of worship” view. Also Jack London used Darwinism in White Fang expounded another understanding of survival of the fittest that it not only refers to survive in the brutal competition, only the stronger survive, but also referred to another kind of adaptation is to adapt to civilization. In the course of adaptation, love played a key role. There are works of literature that reflect the awareness of the ecological ethics aiming to establish a harmonious relationship between humans and animals. At the same time, Jack London abandoned the anthropocentric position and made the animal’s life experience as the core of the novel. In the 20th century, the booming American ecological literature was a useful try. In addition, Randal Kleiser adapted White Fang for movies in 1991.

2.2 A Review of White Fang Studies at Home

Jack London is one of the early twentieth century American most famous writers, but also the most popular writers of that era. His novels are based on his personal life experiences and the true nature of the content. White Fang is the work of many of the more influential one. It is every popular in China and has been translated into Chinese by many Chinese researchers. In addition, White Fang is concluded in the Chinese extracurricular reading. Fiction writers demonstrated on human thinking and survival of civilization. So far, researches for the novel in London mostly reviewed its content, theme, writing style presentation and writing methods, there are some critics from the naturalistic novel perspective to interpret, analyze and study the environment genetic effects on animals. Fu Chunyan has studied White Fang from ecological perspective. Yang Li has explored the theme of White Fang. In addition, Ma Xingzhi compared The Call of the Wild and White Fang. And most domestic researchers compared two companion White Fang and The Call of the Wild, comparing it with different themes, highlighted the “survival of the fittest” concept. But the fittest is another concept that not only in harsh environments strong survives, more comfortable in one tree banner.

Basing on these preparations and previous studies, the author of this paper intends to analyze another concept of “the fittest survive” reflected in the work associate with the background of that era. By the analysis and the understanding of White Fang, the eternal love of life and the representation of the meaning of life and the endless exploration of human civilization were conveyed to human. Only striving and keeping forgoing ahead can human beings make human civilization prosper.

3. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called Darwinian theory, it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance when Charles Robert Darwin published On the Origin of Species(Charles Darwin, 1968), including concepts which predated Darwin’s theories, but subsequently referred to specific concepts of natural selection, the Weismann barrier or in genetics the central dogma of molecular biology. Though it usually refers strictly to biological evolution, the term has been used by creationists to refer to the origin of life, and has even been applied to concepts of cosmic evolution, both of which have no connection to Darwin’s work. It is therefore considered the belief and acceptance of Darwin’s, and his predecessors, work in place of other theories including divine design and extraterrestrial origins.

Darwin’s theory of evolution includes four subs (Carroll, 2004): general theory of evolution, the common ancestor theory, theory of natural selection and gradualism. What requires special explanation is that natural selection theory: natural selection is the primary mechanism of evolution. The existence of natural selection is already confirmed by numerous observations and experiments, so this is a scientific fact. But now academics generally believed that the use of natural selection is not as extensive as Darwin envisioned. Natural selection is adaptive evolution (i.e., organisms adapt to the environment) mechanism for non-adaptive evolution, there are other mechanisms such as genetic drift. In other words, natural selection can not explain all evolutionary phenomena. Taking into account the adaptive evolution is a core phenomenon of biological evolution; natural selection is the primary mechanism of evolution, also the establishment.

4. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in White Fang

The principle of Darwinism’s survival had tremendous impact on London, which made London recognize the existence of the natural law of competition. So in his White Fang, he applied Darwinism to the whole novel.

4.1 Originating from the Wilderness

In the wild, the goal of life is the meat, the meat itself is life. The character White Fang was born in the wilderness, though he inherited half of the dog lineage mother, “Kiche”, and his father “One Eye” (Jack London, 1984). When he was only a young wolf, he was driven by the instinct of life’s yearning for freedom. He was full of curiosity to explore the outside world, trying to integrate with the world. It was very ordinary to face the difficulties in the natural life. White Fang also encountered famine, and he had to leave his own nest hole to find food to feed himself. He experienced all the wonderful things in unknown world and slowly known this magical world. He began to prey, from grouse to moose bird and weasel then in the wild. He overcame his fears with the courage and quickly made himself into a sophisticated hunter in the wilderness. In the hunting process, he learned the laws of meat, there are two lives in the world, and that was homogeneous and heterogeneous. White Fang, the same as his kind, such as his mother. Otherwise heterogeneous includes all moving and living things. However, heterogeneous were divided into two parts. He was the part of the slaughter and eater. This section included a non-slaughter and small murderers. Goal of life was the meat, the meat itself was life. That rule was to eat or to be eaten. As a consequence, White Fang’s adaptability in the process of survival must be explained by Darwinian naturalistic determinism. And White Fang’s life in wilderness is just the symbol of American people who live in peaceful and harmonious agricultural civilization before America toward industrialization.

4.2 Surviving in the Cruel Environment

If White Fang wanted survive in the cruel environment, he must be equipped with courage, perseverance and strength. (Sun Xuhua, 2006: 28) When White Fang first lived with human, he met his enemy Lip-lip. Lip-lip was taller and older than White Fang, also more robust than White Fang. White Fang was selected as a special object of his persecution. The result was that Lip-lip deprived of White Fang’s childhood innocence, so that White Fang’s behavior was more aging than his age, and he became more cruel cunning clever. Later, White Fang’s mother was debt to the Mitaka by Gray Beaver, although White Fang did not want to leave his mother, but after being educated by Gray Beaver, he eventually surrendered and learned how to get along with Gray Beaver. In his process of growing up, he did not feel safe even a moment, so he realized that he must become more powerful, and thus better able to adapt to this complex society. He was hatred by his kind and human. His perseverance constantly forced to fight, but he did not provoke a fight at first. He learned the laws that obey the strong, oppress the weak. In order to face the risk of injury or even recurring destruction, his ability to loot and protect himself got the excessive development. He was faster and more agile, cunning and compact than other dogs. He was more thin than other dogs but with steely muscles. He became more stamina, crueler, more vicious and more intelligent, because he must adapt to the cruel environment. He had no choice but to become wiser, otherwise he would not survive in the environment and soon be defeated by the stronger.

White Fang inevitably was used to pull sleds by humans; although at the beginning White Fang could not adapt to the sleds, but he could understand the opposition to man’s will was futile. Even in the face of famine, White Fang could also survive in the forest. After this, Beauty Smith used wine to exchange White Fang with Gray Beaver. Beauty Smith was a crazy and cruel guy, he often beat White Fang. He abused White Fang for entertainment and made use of White Fang to bite other dogs by winning bet, which making White Fang become an extremely ferocious fighting wolf. (Ma Xingzhi, 2007: 126) He was good at summing up experiences in battles and knew how to survive, how to deal with more tricks and methods. He also had more means. In the final battle, White Fang were defeated by Cherokee. He was injured deeply and almost died but White Fang’s vitality was too strong, his dedication to life was too intensively, so he survived. Jack London intended to describe White Fang’s living situation as American people in that era. Because American spiritual crisis of society stood out, full of depravity and despair. London wanted to awaken people by White Fang’s survival in the cruel environment.

4.3 Returning to Civilization

White Fang met human after leaving the cave, who were senior God from his eyes. It indicated that White Fang was touching human civilization in the world. Since then, he had to live with human. When he got along with human, he was slowly domesticated by human civilization. Though he could not bear to part wilderness, and there had been short part because of famine, human civilization made his heart allegiance at last. Gray Beaver showed his love, protection and care to him When White Fang bit a child, which made White Fang feel unprecedented comfort. Then civilization in his heart had slowly sprouted at this time.

In White Fang’s last battle, he was on the edge of death. He fortunately met love-master, Weedon Scott. Weedon Scott saved White Fang’s life from wild Beauty Smith, which meant White Fang began to enter civilization world. Weedon Scott attempted to influence White Fang with love and the idea of civilization. White Fang always started with skepticism to his new owner, but the new owner was always full of tolerance and love towards White Fang. He would dab White Fang, which made White Fang perceive warm in the heart. It meant the end of the past cruel life of and dominant hatred of White Fang. Living with love-master meant an inexplicable relatively good life was around the corner. White Fang was to complete the evolution of civilization; it was a revolution of his body. He never felt that he had place in civilization world in the past life. In short, White Fang would implement a job, which was harder than he voluntarily ran out of the wilderness to accept Gray Beaver. He did not know it was called the evolution of civilization. (Yang Li, 2013: 80) The new environment repressed and stimulated him to perfect himself and live harmoniously with human.

Human civilization had penetrated into White Fang’s thought. He started to like the new owner, the more touch with Weedon Scott, the warmer White Fang felt. Although White Fang did not know what love was, but he had begun to realize it. Which was a vacuum for him in his life, he screamed to be filled. In the past he liked comfort, avoided the pain, but things were different now, and he often chose not to comfort and pain for his dear owner. As a response, there was such a new thing in the depths of White Fang that was love. (Chen Shidan, 2007: 239-244) If being given, he shall return. His new owner, in the heart of White Fang was a God, a loving, warm and radiant God. God splendor ignited the nature of White Fang, like flowers in the sun under the same bloom.

In civilized life, he learned to adapt himself to the new way of life in many ways. In the south of the owner’s residence, he must adapt to the new environment and the civilized world. He must learn how to get along well with other animals in the civilized world, and learn how to protect his owner and the owner’s property. At the very beginning he hated the Indian child, who always thrown stones towards him, but now he had become like children, because they were the new owner’s cherished child. When walking on the streets of the civilized world, White Fang met a group of children throwing stones at him, he knew he could not chase them and bite them, and he did. Because he was becoming tame to adapt to the civilized world. Penetrated by civilization, White Fang was educated by the most effective palm hit by his master. He was accustomed to doing things according to his owner’s sound and sound rap. Due to White Fang had his own soul and dignity, the palm hit by his owner stroked him far more than the brutal injuries came from Gray Beaver and Beauty Smith. In the civilized world, White Fang felt comfortable and pleasurable, he was like a flower blooming in the sun. Finally White Fang made his body and soul entirely attributable to the civilized world.

5. The Illuminations of White Fang

When White Fang was born, he was faced with competition. He must continually put himself through the mill and made himself stronger. In order to survive, he had to battle with other animals, no matter how strong they were, such as grouse, weasel. The leopard cat was stronger than White Fang. At first he was afraid of the leopard cat, then White Fang had no choice but to defeat the leopard cat when his life was threaten, so he survived. So as the dog Lip-lip, it was eaten by White Fang in the famine. Later in White Fang’s life, competition is everywhere. As a result, he had to become stronger.

5.1 Passion and Respect for Life in Competition

In White Fang, Jack London shows human that life should be given love and respect through White Fang’s return to civilization. Meanwhile, when White Fang is in competition, he always keeps great passion and respect for life. Because his love for life, he never loses passion for life. When he was beaten by Gray Beaver, he just fought back but not gave up life, which shows his respect for his life. At the same time, White Fang was persecuted by the dog Lip-lip, he did not give in but showed more desire for life and when he was stronger enough, and he ate the dog Lip-lip. When White Fang was sold to Beauty Smith to be a fighting-dog, the brutal killing and longing for life accelerated his accommodation. White Fang’s passion and respect for life never weaken not until that he was injured deeply by the prisoner. He just bravely beat up the prisoner and fearlessly survived. White Fang originally comes from the wilderness, caressing, tents, people and fire brings him to the unfamiliar world. Human world makes White Fang feel strange fear, but it also makes White Fang appreciate the charm of human kindness.

When White Fang first saw strange species walking on two feet, he felt extreme fear, but the care and love of mankind soon eliminated the fear of White Fang. In the course of contacting with human, though White Fang experienced a lot of fear, but it was a sign of friendship between White Fang and humans. After White Fang was rescued by Weedon Scott, its potential of death and life withered gradually awaken by human kindness. One of the potential lives of White Fang is what we usually refer to love, in the process of contacting with God, the love has always beyond any other emotion. It is a special mission of Scott that frees White Fang from the pain, more precisely, that was, eliminates the human humiliation to White Fang.

From the perspective of White Fang, he was at the turning point of life. In the call of Scott’s love, White Fang gradually had the ability to love. This ability brings the warmth of the sun to White Fang. This activates White Fang’s life. Jack London masterly makes use of defamiliarization, reveals the animal wisdom and human love. White Fang’s return to civilization fully expresses humanity love sublimation. The differences between Beauty Smith and Weedon Scott enables White Fang to be more deeply know about human perception and understanding. White Fang’s perception and understanding of the concept of human thinking and then forms a great contrast to human’s understandings of life and nature at that time. Even though America was at the turning point, which was from republic to empire. And people was confused the future of the country. What is more important is to re-understanding of human beings, so White Fang inspired people to understand how to love and respect life.

5.2 Adaptation to and Respect for the Law of Nature

If people want to survive and develop in the nature, it is necessary to challenge the difficulties the nature poses on them. So dose White Fang. And only when the degrees of challenges of the nature are coordinated with the efforts man make can people survive in the particular natural environment. If the nature challenges are too powerful, no matter what efforts people make, they only to fail. If the nature is lack of challenges, it therefore will be destroyed by human trample, and then is discarded the side.（Fu Chunyan, 2013: 23）

The snowy north is a sacred majesty; it is the symbol of justice and moral influence power. White Fang here must comply with and adapt to the guidelines as a survival of the fittest. The silent wilderness is a symbol of death threats to human adaptation and viability, which presents a severe test, but it has also become the best place to purify and shape human, improve people’s spiritual realm, honed integrity, honesty, optimism, optimistic nature, collaborative efforts, and other fine qualities. In the Arctic, when humans face the difficulty and the death threats, they truly realize the true meaning of life and also forge the love of life and ignore aversion to death. Thus, Jack London ardently calls people return to the nature. In the end of White Fang, the author inspires human to adapt to and respect the law of nature through White Fang’s returning to civilization.

6. Conclusion

Being strong both psychologically and physically is essential. White Fang is just the symbol of our human; the cruel environment is the background of our society. We should not only adjust to the cruel, but also can live better in the comfort. In his growth, he continuously explored and adapted to the nature since in his potential consciousness he could not change the nature. White Fang shows his passion to and respect for the life in competition. By the analysis and the understanding of White Fang, the eternal love of life and the representation of the meaning of life and the endless exploration of human civilization are conveyed to human. Only striving and keeping forgoing ahead can human beings make human civilization extend. In the end, what we can see will be a new and different Jack London who possesses with great enthusiasm for life and high expectation for prosperous human civilization what is presented and highlighted.

Works Cited

[1] Carroll, Joseph, Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human, and Literature. New York: Routledge, 2004.

[2] Darwin, Charles, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Ed. J. W. Burrow. Harmondsworth：Penguin, 1968.

[3] Labor, Earle. Jack London. New York：Farrar, Straus amp; Giroux Inc, 2013.

[4] London, Jack, The Call of the Wild and White Fang. United States: Bantam Books, 1984.

[5] 傅春燕, 杰克·伦敦的生态整体观在《白牙》中的体现. 荆州：长江大学学报(社会科学版). 2013(09)：23-24.

[6] 杰克·伦敦著，陈世丹译. 《白牙》. 武汉：长江文艺出版社，2007.

[7] 马兴芝.“适者生存”在《野性的呼唤》和《白牙》中的阐释. 哈尔滨：哈尔滨商业大学学报（社会科学版）,2007(03)：126-127.

[8] 孙绪华, 杰克·伦敦小说中的自然主义——《野性的呼唤》和《白牙》的解析. 黑河：黑河学刊，2006(06):37-39.

[9] 杨丽，张营.《野性的呼唤》和《白牙》的成长叙事主题探究. 邯郸：河北工程大学学报，2013（04）：79-81.

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