The Call of the Wild

Buck

Buck begins as king of Judge Miller's place, a hundred and forty pounds of dignity who has never known a club or a hungry night. Kidnapped and sold north, he learns the law of fang and trace, discovering in himself a ferocity and cunning that his civilized life never demanded. His slow awakening—from snow-buried terror to open revolt for the lead—drives the novel's central question of how far a domesticated creature can travel back toward the wild.

John Thornton

Thornton enters Buck's life as a rescuer, a man who lives close to the earth and thinks simply, and Buck's devotion to him becomes total—he tolerates Thornton's partners only because they belong to Thornton. Their bond is tested by Thornton's reckless whim at the cliff's edge, where Buck obeys a command to jump and nearly dies for it, and by the barroom brawl where Buck mauls a man for striking his master. Thornton alone holds Buck to the fire when the forest calls, making him the measure of everything Buck would lose by answering it.

Spitz

Spitz is the trail-wise leader of François and Perrault's team, a fighter who laughs at hell and tolerates no rival near his place at the front. He and Buck circle each other from the first days in harness, their rivalry sharpened by stolen food, snapped warnings, and the unspoken knowledge that only one of them can lead. When the showdown finally comes, François's verdict—'Dat Spitz fight lak hell, an' dat Buck fight lak two hells'—marks the moment Buck seizes the leadership he believes is his by right.

Dave

Dave is one of the veteran sled dogs Buck joins on the mail run, a creature utterly transformed by harness—alert, irritable at delay, and happiest when the toil of the traces is going well. He pulls as wheeler just ahead of Buck, embodying the trail's strange religion of work for its own sake. His fate becomes one of the book's quietest devastations: a dog who cannot conceive of a life without the sled, and whose body finally refuses what his will will not surrender.

Mercedes

Mercedes arrives at the camp of Buck's new owners as part of a 'nice family party,' fluttering and chattering while the men load a sled so top-heavy it cannot move. She wrenches the whip from her brother Hal's hand to spare the dogs, yet her helplessness and refusal to abandon a single comfort—the tent, the clothes-sack, the unwashed dishes—make the journey harder for everyone, dogs included. Her good intentions and her uselessness are the same thing, and the trail will not forgive either.

François

François handles the dogs on the Dyea trail with a driver's pragmatism—he praises Buck's quick learning, wields the axe when mad Dolly charges, and judges Sol-leks the best lead dog left after Spitz is gone. His running battle with Buck over the leadership is half exasperation, half admiration; he grins and slaps his thighs when Buck displaces Sol-leks, then curses and throws clubs when the dog will not relent. He is the first human to see what Buck is becoming, and the first to be beaten by it.