Hal Character Analysis in The Call of the Wild

An American settler, Hal comes to the Klondike in search of gold and adventure with his sister, Mercedes, and her husband, Charles. Along with his relatives, he acquires Buck's sled dog team and adds six dogs to create a massive sled dog team of fourteen. Hal is an incompetent and cruel master who harshly beats his animals with clubs and whips, treating them like slaves.

Hal Quotes in The Call of the Wild

The The Call of the Wild quotes below are all either spoken by Hal or refer to Hal. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

In excess of their own misery, [Hal, Charles, and Mercedes] were callous to the suffering of their animals. Hal's theory, which he practiced on others, was that one must get hardened. He had started out preaching it to his sister and brother-in-law. Failing there, he hammered it into the dogs with a club.

Related Characters: Hal, Mercedes, Charles

Page Number and Citation: 38

Explanation and Analysis:

“They're lazy, I tell you, and you've got to whip them to get anything out of them. That's their way. You ask any one. Ask one of those men.”

Related Characters: Hal (speaker), Buck, The Insides

Page Number and Citation: 33

Explanation and Analysis:

"If you strike that dog again, I'll kill you," he at last managed to say in a choking voice.

Related Characters: John Thornton (speaker), Buck, Hal

Page Number and Citation: 41

Explanation and Analysis:

Hal Character Timeline in The Call of the Wild

The timeline below shows where the character Hal appears in The Call of the Wild. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...make another delivery, he replaces them with new dogs, selling Buck and his team to Hal and Charles, a family of amateur settlers, who are "out of place" in the Northland. (full context)

The dogs are taken to camp, where Hal's sister and Charles' wife, Mercedes loads up the sled with pots, pans, clothes, and tents.... (full context)

Kind-hearted towns folk collect the dogs and fallen articles, but also advise Hal, Charles and Mercedes to lighten their load and acquire more dogs. They cut the load... (full context)

...distrusts his new owners, observing that they are undisciplined, disorderly, and unable to "learn." Because Hal miscalculates their rations, they run out of dog food. Underfed, the team's run time slows... (full context)

Hal's whip and club drive Buck and his team onward, despite their exhaustion. Only five dogs... (full context)

The dogs drop down in exhaustion at John Thornton's camp. Thornton advises Hal not to cross the river, because the ice is thinning. Hal disregards this warning, instead... (full context)