Jack London explores the clash between nature and civilization in The Call of the Wild

Here’s the thing about a good literature question in APUSH-era style: it’s never just about the book. It’s about how a story echoes the real currents running through a time period. Take the line-up of options for this classic prompt: A. Mark Twain, B. Ernest Hemingway, C. Jack London, D. John Steinbeck. The right choice is Jack London. Why? Because London didn’t just tell a story about a dog named Buck; he painted a stubborn, uncomfortable truth about the clash between nature’s raw power and the trappings of civilization. Let’s wander through that idea together, and see what it reveals about Period 6 America—the late 19th century into the early 20th.

Who was this Jack London guy, anyway?

If you’ve ever smelled pine-sap-sharp air in your mind’s eye when you hear the word “Alaska,” you’re catching a fraction of London’s atmosphere. Born in 1876, he grew up in San Francisco and Chicago, two cities that embody different American impulses: frontier grit and urban hustle. He chased adventure (and a paycheck) across the Klondike during the gold rush, which fed the realism and brutality that color many of his tales. London wore many hats—writer, social critic, self-styled tough guy—and he used those experiences to press hard on a single question: how much of who we are is baked in by our environment and our genes, and how much can we bend or even defy it?

The Call of the Wild isn’t just a boys-and-dogs adventure story. It’s a naturalist’s flashlight aimed at the human condition. Buck, a domesticated dog who’s ripped from comfort and thrust into the frigid mercy of the Yukon, becomes a case study in adaptation. The story strips away social polish and asks, in a raw, unflinching way: what remains of a creature when civilization is peeled away? The answer, London suggests, isn’t neat or sentimental. It’s a blend of instinct, cunning, and the will to survive when every day is a test of endurance. In this sense, Buck isn’t just a character; he’s a mechanism for examining how environment and heredity steer behavior.

Nature vs civilization: a persistent tug-of-war

London’s prose makes the tug-of-war feel almost physical. The wild demands loyalty to raw needs—food, warmth, safety—while civilization offers shelter, rules, and predictable routines. When Buck surrenders to the pull of his “law of fang and claw,” the text presses us to consider a bigger context: is civilization a cushion, or a cage? London flips the script just enough to make us see that civilization, for all its comforts, can dull certain instincts that nature rekindles when the world turns harsh again.

This conflict isn’t just personal; it’s cultural. Period 6 is the era when the American landscape keeps reshaping itself—from the sprawling frontier to the roaring cities. The frontier no longer seems as benevolent as it did to early settlers; in London’s hands, it becomes a testing ground for humanity’s place within a world that is not built to be gentle. The wilderness doesn’t politely whisper: it roars. And the roar is a gauge of power—physical, psychological, and social.

Naturalism in the background, history on the foreground

If you’ve studied APUSH, you’ve heard about naturalism as a literary movement. It’s the idea that environment, heredity, and social conditions shape people more than individual will alone. It’s not a fluffy philosophy class topic; it’s a way to read a whole tranche of late 19th-century American writing. London doesn’t just entertain; he demonstrates how a rough climate, scarce resources, and survival stakes can mold character. That’s not incidental. It aligns with historical currents of the same period: a country expanding into difficult terrain, wrestling with industrialization, grappling with social upheaval, and facing debates about progress, power, and human limits.

To see this dynamic in a broader lens, think about the other strands of American literature that shadow this period. Mark Twain, writing earlier, captured the frontier’s rough humor and moral ambiguity in a river-borne, improvisational voice. John Steinbeck—though writing in a later wave and in a different locale—will also remind readers that environment and economy shape the lives of ordinary people. Ernest Hemingway, coming a bit later, intensifies the idea that nature’s forces, coupled with human fragility, reveal what people are made of. London sits in a bridge position between these voices: he leans into naturalism’s determinism while telling stories that pulse with frontier energy and moral urgency.

A closer look at The Call of the Wild (and its siblings)

The Call of the Wild isn’t a one-note tale. It’s a spectrum. On one end, there’s Buck the domesticated pet who must learn the rough logic of survival in a world where the strongest thrive. On the other, there’s a deeper resonant thread: life’s raw rhythms don’t care about human plans. That tension—between the comfort of home and the perilous pull toward something older and more primal—becomes a metaphor for the American experience in London’s era. The wilderness is a teacher, a judge, and sometimes a mirror. The civilization Buck loses isn’t merely a place; it’s a historical symbol for the rules and conveniences that the newly industrialized world offered—and sometimes demanded, at a cost.

London doesn’t pretend the wild is purely noble or purely brutal. The writing wields both beauty and brutal honesty, showing how nature can be at once awe-inspiring and unforgiving. It’s a useful reminder for anyone studying Period 6: progress and hardship didn’t travel on separate tracks. They coexisted, and they shaped each other in complex ways.

White Fang and the broader London arc

If you want to expand your comprehension beyond The Call of the Wild, skim White Fang or even a few scenes from To Build a Fire. White Fang flips the equation a bit: a wild animal becomes a companion to humans, and the story explores how environment and experience steer a creature’s choices in a world where trust, loyalty, and survival intersect. These pieces reinforce London’s core message: the natural world is a powerful, shaping force—sometimes merciful, sometimes merciless—and civilization is a human enterprise that sits on top of that force, not above it.

The APUSH thread: tying literature to the era

As you map Period 6 themes—industrial growth, the closing of the frontier, urbanization, reform movements, and debates over social policy—London’s works provide a literary lens to interpret the historical mood. The late 19th century boasted spectacular gains—mass production, railways, new tech—yet those gains intensified competition, class tension, and a renewed reckoning with the land itself. The frontiers of Alaska and the Yukon symbolized both opportunity and risk; the land could make or break a person, and that ambiguity mirrored America’s economic and social tensions at home.

If you’re connecting London to your studying, try these angles:

• Environment as a driver of action: How does Buck’s adaptation mirror what frontiersmen and industrial workers faced when faced with new, unpredictable environments?

• The ethics of survival: When does the instinct to survive clash with social norms? What does that say about civilization’s veneers?

• The heredity debate: In naturalism, heredity matters as much as environment. What traits seem inherited in Buck, and how do they surface under pressure?

• The frontier in American myth: London helps us interrogate the myth of the rugged, self-made individual by layering in the harsh realities of an indifferent landscape.

A few quick notes for context and comparison

• The Klondike setting is more than a backdrop. It’s a historical node that links to the broader story of American expansion, the allure and peril of extraction economies, and the changing perception of the “wild” as a place to conquer, study, or live with respect.

• London’s realism is a tool for social commentary. He wasn’t just telling adventure tales; he was inviting readers to question what civilization owes to those who operate at the edge of it.

• The naturalist impulse in American letters aligns with other evidence of the era: journalism that exposed harsh realities, reform movements that sought to fix what industrial life had broken, and a public appetite for stories that didn’t pretend life was easy.

What all this means for readers, now

If you’re delving into Period 6, London offers a compact, powerful case study: your environment—whether the wilds of Alaska or the intensifying pressures of modern American life—can define outcomes as much as personal choice does. Reading London with that lens helps you connect a single author’s vision to broader historical themes: how the frontier shaped American identity, how technology rearranged social relations, and how culture wrestles with the tension between human mastery and the natural world.

A practical way to approach this in your own study notes:

• Tag London under naturalism and frontier literature.

• Jot down one or two lines that capture Buck’s transformation and what it reveals about civilization’s fragility.

• Link those insights to a couple of period-specific events or tendencies, like the Klondike rush, the rise of industrial capitalism, or debates about labor and reform.

To close with a gentle nudge

London’s answer to the question about nature and civilization isn’t just a trivia fact. It’s an invitation to pause and listen to a different heartbeat of American history—the one that answers to climates, terrains, and the stubborn, stubborn will to endure. The Call of the Wild invites you to hear that heartbeat clearly, and to ask yourself what it means for a society that prides itself on progress to also reckon with forces that lie beyond human control.

So, who captured that tension best? Jack London did, and in his best work you’ll feel the weather, hear the crack of ice, and sense the moment when a creature’s oldest impulses rise to meet the demands of a world that can be both magnificent and merciless. If you want to understand Period 6 a little more vividly, that’s a doorway worth stepping through. It’s a doorway that can lead you to deeper questions about history, culture, and the human place in a world that is always changing faster than we expect.

And if you’re curious to explore further, you’ll find London’s footprint echoed in later voices as well—writers who keep testing the same question: what happens when society and nature collide, and who ends up shaped by the collision? The answers aren’t simple, but they’re never dull. That’s what makes studying this era so worth it—and why London remains a touchstone for anyone who wants to understand the powerful chemistry of environment, character, and history.