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Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Part 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—The Flame of Life:
Throughout White Fang, fire is used as a metaphor to represent the life that burns within all creatures, willing them to survive at all costs. One example of this metaphor can be found in Part 2, Chapter 3, when One Eye and Kiche are struggling to feed their new litter of pups, including White Fang (who is referred to as “the grey cub” at this point in the novel), during a famine:
It was not long before they were reduced to a coma of hunger […] The cubs slept, while the life that was in them flickered and died down […] When the grey cub came back to life again […] His little body rounded out with the meat he now ate, but the food had come too late for [his sister]. She slept continuously, a tiny skeleton flung round with skin in which the flame flickered lower and lower and at last went out.
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Part 2, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—The Flame of Life:
Throughout White Fang, fire is used as a metaphor to represent the life that burns within all creatures, willing them to survive at all costs. One example of this metaphor can be found in Part 2, Chapter 3, when One Eye and Kiche are struggling to feed their new litter of pups, including White Fang (who is referred to as “the grey cub” at this point in the novel), during a famine:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was not long before they were reduced to a coma of hunger […] The cubs slept, while the life that was in them flickered and died down […] When the grey cub came back to life again […] His little body rounded out with the meat he now ate, but the food had come too late for [his sister]. She slept continuously, a tiny skeleton flung round with skin in which the flame flickered lower and lower and at last went out.
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Part 3, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—The Human-Gods:
Throughout White Fang, the novel uses metaphor to compare human beings to gods and put the reader in White Fang’s perspective. White Fang regards human manipulation of the natural world as a supernatural ability, and eventually decides to submit to them in recognition of their godlike power.
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Part 3, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—White Fang's Fealty:
At several points in the novel, White Fang’s relationship to his human masters is metaphorically compared to “fealty,” while his masters are compared to feudal lords. This metaphor is a reference to feudalism, the dominant social, economic, political, and military system in medieval Europe.
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Part 3, Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Nature's Clay:
Throughout the novel, clay is used as a metaphor to represent White Fang. In this metaphor, White Fang is represented by the clay, while his environment is compared to the hand that shapes it.
In Part 3, Chapter 6, when Gray Beaver’s people are experiencing a famine and White Fang leaves their camp to hunt for his own food, it quickly becomes clear that the “clay” of his nature has been shaped into something more domestic while he was living with the Indians. Accustomed to the comforts of Gray Beaver’s camp, he is no longer a wild animal—his clay has been shaped by civilization into something more closely resembling a dog than a wolf:
Unlock with LitCharts A+White Fang grew stronger, heavier, more compact, while his character was developing along the lines laid down by his heredity and his environment. His heredity was a life-stuff that may be likened to clay. It possessed many possibilities, was capable of being molded into many different forms. Environment served to model the clay, to give it a particular form. Thus had White Fang never come in to the fires of man, the Wild would have molded him into a true wolf. But the gods had given him a different environment, and he was molded into a dog that was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not a wolf.
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Part 4, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—White Fang as the Wild:
Throughout the novel, White Fang himself functions as a metaphor for the Northland Wild. Domestic dogs fear and hate him because he represents the wild part of themselves that they have turned away from in favor of civilization and comfort.
In Part 4, Chapter 1, Gray Beaver takes White Fang to the town of Fort Yukon, where he proceeds to fight with every dog he encounters, usually killing them with a fatal bite to the throat. Generally, the other dogs are the ones to start the fights because they feel threatened by White Fang’s presence. To their minds, he embodies the Wild:
Unlock with LitCharts A+All he had to do, when the strange dogs came ashore, was to show himself. When they saw him they rushed for him. It was their instinct. He was the Wild—the unknown, the terrible, the ever-menacing, the thing that prowled in the darkness around the fires of the primeval world when they, cowering close to the fires, were reshaping their instincts, learning to fear the Wild out of which they had come, and which they had deserted or betrayed.
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Explanation and Analysis—White Fang's Roots:
At several points in the novel, London metaphorically compares White Fang to a plant with deep roots connecting him to his origins in the wild. He is like a tree firmly rooted in nature’s soil, even after he starts to live with humans. These roots give him strength, allowing him to draw power from nature in a way that domestic dogs, whose roots are severed, cannot. At the same time, they keep him from being fully at home in civilization, causing him to be alienated and shunned by other dogs.
In Part 4, Chapter 1, when White Fang is living with Gray Beaver’s people, the other domestic dogs continually gang up on him and attack him because they recognize that he is not truly one of them. Despite their numbers, they are unable to knock him off his feet:
Unlock with LitCharts A+On the other hand, try as they would, [the dogs] could not kill White Fang. He was too quick for them, too formidable, too wise […] While, as for getting him off his feet, there was no dog among them capable of doing the trick. His feet clung to the earth with the same tenacity that he clung to life. For that matter, life and footing were synonymous in this unending warfare with the pack, and none knew it better than White Fang.
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Part 5, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—White Fang's Roots:
At several points in the novel, London metaphorically compares White Fang to a plant with deep roots connecting him to his origins in the wild. He is like a tree firmly rooted in nature’s soil, even after he starts to live with humans. These roots give him strength, allowing him to draw power from nature in a way that domestic dogs, whose roots are severed, cannot. At the same time, they keep him from being fully at home in civilization, causing him to be alienated and shunned by other dogs.
In Part 4, Chapter 1, when White Fang is living with Gray Beaver’s people, the other domestic dogs continually gang up on him and attack him because they recognize that he is not truly one of them. Despite their numbers, they are unable to knock him off his feet:
Unlock with LitCharts A+On the other hand, try as they would, [the dogs] could not kill White Fang. He was too quick for them, too formidable, too wise […] While, as for getting him off his feet, there was no dog among them capable of doing the trick. His feet clung to the earth with the same tenacity that he clung to life. For that matter, life and footing were synonymous in this unending warfare with the pack, and none knew it better than White Fang.
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