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Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Chapter 1: Into the Primitive
Explanation and Analysis—Reading the Environment:
In Chapter 1, London foreshadows the "trouble" that is about to befall Buck by writing that Buck does not read newspapers and is therefore oblivious to current events:
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.
This moment makes clear that Buck is not the only dog about to be conscripted into working for gold rush speculators. Dogs up and down the West Coast are all going to see the end of their peaceful, pastoral lives because of the events that are printed in the newspaper. Buck's inability to read is symbolic as well as literal: because he can't read a newspaper, he also can't accurately assess what is going on in his environment. He has an extremely shortsighted view of the world, and his awareness essentially stops at the edge of the comfortable estate where he has lived all his life.
By contrast, London uses a simile in Chapter 7 to illustrate the fact that Buck has gotten much better at learning to "read" his environment:
But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called—called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.
Buck's senses have sharpened, but he has also learned at last to use them skillfully, "reading signs and sounds as man may read a book." In light of this simile, it becomes clear that Buck's failure to read the newspapers foreshadows his journey to better environmental awareness. There is a sense in the novel that Buck always belonged to "the wild," and a dog is certainly better equipped to "read" nature than a newspaper. It may be that Buck is finally in the right environment to become a "reader." On the other hand, London also seems to be making a point about people who hide within comfortable lives and fail to take account of their social environment. Someone who lives as sheltered a life as Buck does before he is kidnapped may also be oblivious to what is going on in the rest of the world. Being thrust into more "wild" and harsher circumstances, the novel suggests, may force sheltered rich people into at last "reading" their environment and accounting for its harsher realities.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3: The Dominant Primordial Beast
Explanation and Analysis—Husky Attack:
In Chapter 3, a husky attack interrupts a fight between Buck and Spitz. This moment foreshadows both Spitz's eventual death and Thornton's death at the end of the novel:
[T]he thing [happened] which projected their struggle for supremacy far into the future, past many a weary mile of trail and toil.
An oath from Perrault, the resounding impact of a club upon a bony frame, and a shrill yelp of pain, heralded the breaking forth of pandemonium. The camp was suddenly discovered to be alive with skulking furry forms,—starving huskies, four or five score of them, who had scented the camp from some Indian village.
The foreshadowing of Spitz's death is explicit. London writes that Buck and Spitz's "struggle for supremacy" is "projected [...] far into the future, past many a weary mile of trail and toil." This line clues the reader in that this "struggle for supremacy" will come up again later on in the narrative, and that there will be some kind of payoff for the building tension between the two dogs. As it turns out, the stakes could not be higher. Buck fights Spitz, and Spitz falls to his death. Buck establishes himself as the "supreme" dog at last.
The other foreshadowing is less obvious. The huskies that suddenly attack Perrault and the dogs come from "some Indian village." In Chapter 7, Buck returns from his own hunting trip to find that the "Yeehats" (a group of Indigenous antagonists of London's own invention) have raided Thornton's camp and killed him along with his other dogs. Buck then fights the "Yeehats," some to the death and others until they run away. This is the turning point for Buck: Thornton, a human with whom Buck had a positive bond, has died, leaving Buck with the feeling that he belongs in the wild rather than with humans. Buck is saved by the fact that he was away from the camp when the "Yeehats" attacked, but there is also the sense that he might have been able to save Thornton if he had not been off exploring his basic predatory instincts to hunt. In the earlier scene, with Perrault, Buck is able to set aside his struggle for mastery in order to help fight off the huskies associated with the prospectors' Indigenous antagonists. By Chapter 7, though, Buck has embraced enough of his wild nature that he misses the chance to set aside his wild pursuits to defend his human master.
Related Themes:
Chapter 7: The Sounding of the Call
Explanation and Analysis—Reading the Environment:
In Chapter 1, London foreshadows the "trouble" that is about to befall Buck by writing that Buck does not read newspapers and is therefore oblivious to current events:
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.
This moment makes clear that Buck is not the only dog about to be conscripted into working for gold rush speculators. Dogs up and down the West Coast are all going to see the end of their peaceful, pastoral lives because of the events that are printed in the newspaper. Buck's inability to read is symbolic as well as literal: because he can't read a newspaper, he also can't accurately assess what is going on in his environment. He has an extremely shortsighted view of the world, and his awareness essentially stops at the edge of the comfortable estate where he has lived all his life.
By contrast, London uses a simile in Chapter 7 to illustrate the fact that Buck has gotten much better at learning to "read" his environment:
But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called—called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.
Buck's senses have sharpened, but he has also learned at last to use them skillfully, "reading signs and sounds as man may read a book." In light of this simile, it becomes clear that Buck's failure to read the newspapers foreshadows his journey to better environmental awareness. There is a sense in the novel that Buck always belonged to "the wild," and a dog is certainly better equipped to "read" nature than a newspaper. It may be that Buck is finally in the right environment to become a "reader." On the other hand, London also seems to be making a point about people who hide within comfortable lives and fail to take account of their social environment. Someone who lives as sheltered a life as Buck does before he is kidnapped may also be oblivious to what is going on in the rest of the world. Being thrust into more "wild" and harsher circumstances, the novel suggests, may force sheltered rich people into at last "reading" their environment and accounting for its harsher realities.
Related Themes:
