General Education

A Study of Literary Representationsof Environmental Themes in American Naturalism
Yoshiki KOIZUMILecturer, M.A. in Human and Environmental Studies
Email : koizumi@gifu-nct.ac.jp
American literature, Naturalism, Environmental humanities, Literary
Research Fields
representation of animals
Keywords
Nature, Animals, Animal stories, Jack London● Research Outline
A Transpacific Interpretation ofAnimal Representationsin Jack London’s Literary Works
My field of research belongs to Environmental
Humanities. I have analyzed/critiqued American
literary works (Humanities) by focusing on animals(Environmental/Ecological POV). In particular, I haveresearched animal stories by Jack London (1876-1916).
Concentrating on dog-protagonists, I have created newinterpretations which no one had ever offered. Thus far,I have revealed that his works implicitly produce
ambiguities about “Human-Animal” boundaries. I
regard this finding as a non-western or a transpacificnotion. I think that this interpretation is ecologicalknowledge of humanities which we should require now.
I have been working on my research to re-evaluate Jack
London from an ecological perspective.
Summaries of three major publications of mine are
below:
1. The purpose of the first paper is to attain thefollowing two goals. The first goal is to create a newvalue for Jack London’s short story “Bâtard” (1902) bycomparing it to his novel The Call of the Wild (1903); inorder to consider them as companion stories. The
second goal is to show a new interpretation of The Callof the Wild, as a companion story to “Bâtard.”
Regarding them as companion stories, I can make a
new assumption of The Call of the wild. That is, thisnovel may tell us a story in which, replacing Leclère,
Buck shows how the ability of sensitive perception aregained. I focus the two senses, a sense of hearing andsight, because every animal shapes their perception
from senses. Through doing this, the assumption can besolved. I conclude that “Bâtard” and The Call of theWild display perception of humans and animals equallyand the two stories gives us the ambiguities of the“human-animal” borders.
2. The purpose of the second paper is to reveal theuniqueness of “Bâtard” through comparing this story
with The Call of the Wild. In detail, this shows anuncommon description of the protagonist Bâtard as adog.

As I have already shown the relationship between
the two stories, “Bâtard” and The Call of the Wild havea one point in common. However, “Bâtard” hassomething unique, which The Call of the Wild does nothave, and that is the frequent appearance of the word
“grin.” In the short story, “grin” appears six times, but
only four times in the novel. The word appears once inthree pages in “Bâtard” while in The Call of the Wild,
once in 25 pages. When I focused on the word “grin”
and reread the narratives, the usage of it in “Bâtard” isclearly distinct from that in The Call of the Wild. Half ofthe time, it is used for animals in the short story while in
the novel it is all used for human characters. Every“grin” is a synonym for “smile” in The Call of the Wild,
but that is not the case with “Bâtard.” In the short story,
the word seems to mean “to draw back the lips anddisplay the teeth” when it is applied to animals.
Through rereading “Bâtard” in this way, I claim that
Bâtard is an animal which may have a “laugh,” theexpression only human beings have. This can be
London’s original application of Darwinism. I conclude
that London offers a human expression to an animal andmakes ambiguities about “human-animal” boundaries.
3. The purpose of the third paper is to reveal
London’s explicit perspective on animals throughrereading The Call of the Wild. I take note of the word
“read,” as the first sentence of this novel includes:“Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have
known that trouble was brewing...” However, several
critics have discussed this sentence recently. Jonathan
Auerback poses a question on it, wondering whyLondon began this novel with “Buck did not read”
instead of “Buck could not read.” He thinks thesentence suggests that the dog protagonist does not readbecause of his unwillingness rather than inability. In
other words, London does not deny the dog’s reading
competence in The Call of the Wild. This uniqueness ofan animal reading may be ascribed to London’sDarwinian perspective on animals. In his essay, London
explains that animals will be able to gain literacy if they
continue to evolve in considerably long years. Throughnot showing the dog’s reading ability, The Call of theWild implicitly displays London’s original perspective
on animals. I claim that this finding tells us that London
suggests that literacy cannot mark the boundary
between humans and animals.