This excerpt comes from Call of the Wild by Jack London, a novel where a dog is stolen from his comfortable home life to be sold as a sled dog for the Klondike Gold Rush. It maps Buck’s transformation from a home dog into a free spirit. A summary of the below passage is as follows: Buck arrives at the frigid Dyea Beach. He meets a friendly dog, Curly, who gets attacked by an aggressive dog, Spitz, which triggers a blood-thirsty dogpile under which Curly gets torn to pieces. The message that echoes throughout remarks upon the brutality of nature.

Chapter II: The Law of Club and Fang
Buck's first day on the Dyea beach was like a nightmare. Every hour was filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial. No lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do but loaf and be bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril. There was imperative need to be constantly alert; for these dogs and men were not town dogs and men. They were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang.

He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experience taught him an unforgettable lesson. It is true, it was a vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it. Curly was the victim. They were camped near the log store, where she, in her friendly way, made advances to a husky dog the size of a full-grown wolf, though not half so large as she. There was no warning, only a leap in like a flash, a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out equally swift, and Curly's face was ripped open from eye to jaw.

It was the wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away; but there was more to it than this. Thirty or forty huskies ran to the spot and surrounded the combatants in an intent and silent circle. Buck did not comprehend that silent intentness, nor the eager way with which they were licking their chops. Curly rushed her antagonist, who struck again and leaped aside. He met her next rush with his chest, in a peculiar fashion that tumbled her off her feet. She never regained them, This was what the onlooking huskies had waited for. They closed in upon her, snarling and yelping, and she was buried, screaming with agony, beneath the bristling mass of bodies.

So sudden was it, and so unexpected, that Buck was taken aback. He saw Spitz run out his scarlet tongue in a way he had of laughing; and he saw Francois, swinging an axe, spring into the mess of dogs. Three men with clubs were helping him to scatter them. It did not take long. Two minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her assailants were clubbed off. But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breed standing over her and cursing horribly. The scene often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the way. No fair play. Once down, that was the end of you. Well, he would see to it that he never went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again, and from that moment Buck hated him with a bitter and deathless hatred.

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In this excerpt, there is a prominent framing of non-humans through our human conceptions of right and wrong. The murder of Curly is described as barbaric, actions committed by “savages” in a “wolf manner of fighting, to strike and leap away”, quickly demarcating the divide between the civilised Buck and the brutal antagonist, Spitz. We relate closer to Buck as his domestic upbringing grants him human sensibilities that are similar to ours. Buck expects civility in the world but is instead confronted with “the law of club and fang”, where there was “No fair play. Once down, that was the end of you.” Buck sees the canine world through a human lens, demonstrated in the reactions of Buck to the bloody incident. Rather than joining the “Thirty or forty huskies…” that circled Curly and Spitz, he instead cannot comprehend their “silent intentness”. He shows more in common with the masters who belatedly try scaring the dogs off Curly (that is, feelings of horror and disdain).

I have made an effort to emphasise Buck’s anthropomorphism as I believe it demonstrates my e-concept of omni-endangerment (where human ethics are imposed upon indifferent non-humans, which leads to the humans becoming groundless arbiters for what they deem natural or unnatural). Buck is a fictional dog, meaning that it is inevitable that he will contain the moral sentiments of the author. We cannot know with certainty if a dog can feel “a bitter and deathless hatred.” These feelings are London’s imposition of his own human emotions onto Buck. In the wild, battles of life and death are a natural process of nature, where the predator feeds on the prey and the weak are more likely to die. Even my use of the word ‘murder’ to describe Curly’s death (in the paragraph following the excerpt) would not be how these dogs would describe it. The law of club and fang is something necessary—even celebrated.

For readers, it may be unclear why Curly was killed. What did she do wrong? However, if we approach the scene with the perception of a dog, we can gain clarity into this seemingly unsolicited act of cruel violence. The Yukon environment is frigid and desolate. Food and resources are scarce and the task of sled-pulling is physically gruelling. Those who are weak will be a waste of resources and slow down the pack. Killing a weak member kills two birds with one stone. Presumably, cannibalism also serves as a quick source of calories. Status would also be a consideration for Spitz, where the strongest dog (i.e. the alpha male) is the leader of the pack. Strength must be continually displayed, and Curly’s larger size may have threatened his image by emasculating him. From a dog’s point of view, the laws of club and fang are not brutal but simply a process of nature that bears no moral concerns. Of course, this scene is confronting to me, but it is because of my human subjectivities that I fall victim to omni-endangerment. 

Our tendency to view the life-and-death interactions of nature as something malicious is something that continually plagues our perception of non-human entities. The more we imbue non-human entities with our human predispositions, we create false ethical dilemmas from the lives of animals. When watching a documentary, we feel distraught for the deer that gets pounced on by the tiger (unless we are following the tiger’s narrative, then the tiger’s hunger justifies this act of necessary cruelty). In reality, the deer does not feel contempt for the tiger. Do we feel the same distress for the thousands of krill that get sucked up into a whale’s baleen, or for the worm plucked from the ground by a magpie? The further removed the other entity is from our human experiences, the harder it is for us to care. This scene marks a transition point of Buck’s relatability to us humans, dropping his domestic sensibilities to adapt to his new environment; doing what is necessary to survive. “So that was the way…”, he remarks, “...he would see to it that he never went down.” Buck’s acceptance of this necessary brutality reveals his rejection of his human sensibilities to cope with nature’s demands. Throughout the novel, Buck gradually takes to the ‘call of the wild’, transforming into a dog that is unrecognisable from his former domestic self, becoming increasingly unrelatable to the human reader.

In this excerpt, my concept of omni-endangerment is observed in the human tendency to ascribe their human mode of being onto non-human beings. These beings, who are physiologically different from us—with different priorities and circumstances—are not acting with malice when they kill or invade territories. They are just doing what they are biologically designed to do, and it is humans who are the ones framing actions in terms of right and wrong.

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