Characters 1
Buck kills him to become the leader.
Who is Spitz?
Buck's original owner
Who is Judge Miller?
Easy, comfortable
A major conflict between two characters in the beginning of the book.
What is 'Buck vs. Spitz'?
One of these is the law of Buck's old life. One is the law for sled dogs.
Buck's first owner after he is kidnapped; he is a good and fair man.
Who is Francois?
Who is John Thornton?
This leads to Buck's final transformation and embracing of his wild side.
What is John Thornton's death?
This source of conflict includes icy rivers, snowy mountains, and changing seasons.
What is nature or environment?
We see this theme from the conflict between Buck and Spitz. There can only be one leader.
Struggle for Mastery
He "breaks" Buck and trains him to obey the "law of club and fang"
Who is the man in the red coat/sweater?
The oldest dog in the team; the dog chosen by Francois and Perrault to be the new leader.
Who is Sol-Leks?
John Thornton does this after he sees how badly the dogs are treated by Hal, Charles, and Mercedes.
Threatens to kill them.
In the movie, these two human characters have a much bigger conflict than in the book.
Who are Hal and John Thornton?
We see this theme in the conflict between the dogs and their environment.
Survival / Adaptation
The first dog Buck sees die; she teaches Buck to avoid fights with other dogs.
Who is Curly?
She is killed out of mercy after she "goes mad"
Who is Dolly?
The reason Hal thinks the dogs won't pull the sled
What is 'They are lazy'?
Starvation; little rest; slow progress (problems caused by...)
What are 'problems caused by Hal, Charles, and Mercedes'?
This "character" symbolizes Buck's wild and ancient side, and is important for the theme of Connection to the Past
The hairy man
He refuses to stop working even when he is injured and dies while pulling the sled
Who is Dave?
A fictional group of native Americans who kill John Thornton.
Who are the Yeehats
After he wins a bet about how strong Buck is, John Thornton does this.
What is 'goes further east to look for a lost mine'?
These two sides of Buck's nature provide an internal conflict, which is the central conflict in the book.
What is 'Wild nature vs civilized nature'?
Dave embodies this theme when he refuses to stop working
The meaning found in work