The Call of the Wild Characters

Good DoggyBuck's the alpha dog. The top dog. The big dawg. And no, we're not being subtle (that wouldn't be in the spirit of London's novel, after all). Buck's an actual d-o-g. He's a canine. And h...

Who's A Good Human? You Are! Yes, You Are!We're not going to mince words: we give Thornton five Milkbones on a five Milkbone scale.This guy is great. Not only does he probably look like a cross bet...

You might have a hard time keeping Perrault and François straight—after all, they're both mushers, both good outdoorsmen, and both have a couple of the Frenchiest names known to man.  One w...

If you’re having a hard time keeping François and Perrault straight, François is the Robin character in this Batman and Robin-like team. He doesn’t have Perrault’s brains, and he defers to...

This guy doesn’t even get a name—he gets a sweater. And when someone doesn’t have a name in literature, there’s a reason. Here, we’re pretty sure that that reason is this: the man in the...

Manuel, the Californian gardener, gets the ball rolling. It’s a thieving, illicit, morally despicable ball, but it rolls nonetheless. This guy’s thievery triggers Buck’s entire journey, trans...

It seems like Curly represents the brutality of violence that dogs face in the frozen North. Her most memorable moment in the limelight is when she gets totally mauled by a husky she tried to befri...

It's A Dog-Fight-Dog WorldSpitz is Buck’s last steppingstone on the way to becoming Buck, Master of the Universe. He may have conquered snow, starvation, and the need to wear little dog shoes, bu...

As sad as it is, the most important thing about Dave is his death. When Dave gets sick and insists on staying with the sled, we really get to see that pulling the sled can become a way of life for...

Billee and Joe are just two dogs that pay the price of the frozen North…with their lives. These brothers have a hard time. Billee gets torn up by Spitz, loses an ear to the feral dogs, and dies b...

In his desire to lead the team, Buck beats out Spitz physically and Sol-leks by sheer intimidation. That’s good stuff. Sol-leks, or "the angry one," is everybody’s pick for next leader, but he...

Hal is not someone you want to be spending time with—not if you’re a person, and definitely not if you’re a dog. If Thornton is the ideal human, Hal is his polar opposite. Hal is violent, imp...

If Charles is any better than Hal, it’s only because he’s more passive and therefore less violent. Last time we checked, though, being the willing sidekick to a violent antagonist didn’t get...

Mercedes is the only woman in this text (not counting female dogs), and unfortunately represents a bunch of gender stereotypes that existed around the turn of the 20th Century. She's weak, impracti...