The style of the novel is vividly descriptive, emphasizing the intense impact of Buck's environment on him. Some of the description is full of lush figurative language, such as this moment in Chapter 3:
With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence.
Here, London uses a mix of concrete imagery and abstract metaphors and similes to describe Buck's surroundings in a way that emphasizes the relationship between our internal existences and the outside world we experience with our physical senses. The aurora borealis is "flaming coldly," evoking hot and cold sensations that feel contradictory. This contradiction invites the reader to reflect on their physical senses as a way of witnessing the mysteries of the universe without ever being able to fully understand their impact on us. On the other hand, sometimes our inner lives help us make sense of the outer world. The reader might be able to imagine the sound of huskies howling, but London uses an abstract comparison to the sounds of "the defiance of life" and "the pleading of life" to add nuance to the sound he is describing. Readers imbue the concrete sound of huskies' howls with their inner, less concrete sense of what "the defiance of life" and "the pleading of life" might sound like. London thus invites the reader to let inner feelings and outward senses inform one another. This relationship between a reader's inner world and outer world mimics the way Buck's character develops in relation to his environment. This style reflects London's naturalism, or the idea that a person's life is shaped by their surroundings. It also reflects London's interest in Darwinian evolution, which holds that species evolve in concert with their environments.
Sometimes, environmental circumstances lead Buck into violent encounters. London does not forgo vivid description here, either. For example, in Chapter 1, Buck attacks one of his kidnappers:
Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds of fury, surcharged with the pent passion of two days and nights. In mid air, just as his jaws were about to close on the man, he received a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip. He whirled over, fetching the ground on his back and side. He had never been struck by a club in his life, and did not understand. With a snarl that was part bark and more scream he was again on his feet and launched into the air.
The intense violence of this encounter is less beautiful than London's description of the natural world in the passage above, but this violence is nonetheless a further instance of the way Buck's outer world inspires an inward reaction. He feels rage, and so he reacts with rage. To London, the world is inherently both beautiful and violent; he describes both aspects of it with the same detail.
The style of the novel is vividly descriptive, emphasizing the intense impact of Buck's environment on him. Some of the description is full of lush figurative language, such as this moment in Chapter 3:
With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence.
Here, London uses a mix of concrete imagery and abstract metaphors and similes to describe Buck's surroundings in a way that emphasizes the relationship between our internal existences and the outside world we experience with our physical senses. The aurora borealis is "flaming coldly," evoking hot and cold sensations that feel contradictory. This contradiction invites the reader to reflect on their physical senses as a way of witnessing the mysteries of the universe without ever being able to fully understand their impact on us. On the other hand, sometimes our inner lives help us make sense of the outer world. The reader might be able to imagine the sound of huskies howling, but London uses an abstract comparison to the sounds of "the defiance of life" and "the pleading of life" to add nuance to the sound he is describing. Readers imbue the concrete sound of huskies' howls with their inner, less concrete sense of what "the defiance of life" and "the pleading of life" might sound like. London thus invites the reader to let inner feelings and outward senses inform one another. This relationship between a reader's inner world and outer world mimics the way Buck's character develops in relation to his environment. This style reflects London's naturalism, or the idea that a person's life is shaped by their surroundings. It also reflects London's interest in Darwinian evolution, which holds that species evolve in concert with their environments.
Sometimes, environmental circumstances lead Buck into violent encounters. London does not forgo vivid description here, either. For example, in Chapter 1, Buck attacks one of his kidnappers:
Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds of fury, surcharged with the pent passion of two days and nights. In mid air, just as his jaws were about to close on the man, he received a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip. He whirled over, fetching the ground on his back and side. He had never been struck by a club in his life, and did not understand. With a snarl that was part bark and more scream he was again on his feet and launched into the air.
The intense violence of this encounter is less beautiful than London's description of the natural world in the passage above, but this violence is nonetheless a further instance of the way Buck's outer world inspires an inward reaction. He feels rage, and so he reacts with rage. To London, the world is inherently both beautiful and violent; he describes both aspects of it with the same detail.
