Character guide

White Fang

major

Also known as White, Fang, White Fang Se

Raised in the Indian camp and the fighting pits, White Fang knows the world as a place of toil, blows, and meat, where affection does not exist and hands are things that hurt. What he has never been given is a kind word, and the deeps in his nature have never been sounded. His slow, grudging yielding to a master who neither clubs nor cringes is the long arc that turns a killer into something capable of loyalty.

The Cub

major

Also known as the cub

Born in a cave to a ferocious mother, the cub is learning the law of meat when he first meets the two-legged animal that is lord over living things. Instinct splits him between fight and yield, and his compromise — a snap of tiny fangs, then a clout, then a ki-yi — names him. That first collision with man is the seed of everything he will become.

Henry

supporting

Henry travels the Klondike with his partner Bill and a dwindling team, and the wilderness is picking them off one dog at a time. Where Bill wants to chase the she-wolf down, Henry reads the trail and knows better — the pack is patient, the food is short, and the fire is the only thing between them and the dark. His stubborn competence is the human measure against which the Wild's hunger is taken.

Bill

minor

A musher who is killed by the wolf pack while traveling with Henry.

Grey Beaver

supporting

Grey Beaver owns White Fang the way he owns his dogs and his goods, administering justice with a blow and rewarding merit only by withholding one. He never caresses, never speaks a kind word, and so teaches his dog that the world is bleak and materialistic and that hands are for hurting. His rule is the first human law White Fang learns, and the one he must later unlearn.

Weedon Scott

major

Also known as Scott, Weedon

Scott arrives at the Klondike camp to find a creature that has been through hell and expects nothing but blows, and he responds with patience, meat, and the strange command to growl. He is undemonstrative himself, which suits White Fang, and he becomes the love-master whose presence makes all other beings cease to exist. His decision to take White Fang south is what carries the story out of the Wild and into a world of streets, children, and a different kind of mastery.

Matt

supporting

Matt has handled dogs long enough to know that a creature fresh out of Beauty Smith's possession cannot be expected to come out a white and shining angel. When White Fang bites him and kills Major, Matt refuses to hold it against the dog — he kicked first, and he says so. His stubborn, unsentimental fairness is the bridge that keeps Scott from shooting White Fang long enough for the taming to begin.

Beauty Smith

supporting

Also known as Beauty

Beauty Smith owns White Fang during the novel's darkest stretch, exhibiting him in a Dawson cage and hauling him into the woods at night for fights to the death. Where other men might break an animal's spirit, Smith meets a hatred that matches his own, and the two rage against each other without pause. He matters because he is the environment that nearly finishes what cruelty began — the human pressure that tests whether White Fang's clay can still be molded toward anything gentler.

One Eye

minor

Also known as old One Eye, Old One Eye

The father of White Fang, a fierce old wolf who mates with Kiche.

Lip-lip

minor

Also known as Lip

A bullying puppy who torments White Fang in the Indian camp.

Cherokee

minor

A bulldog who nearly kills White Fang in a vicious fight before Weedon Scott intervenes.

Collie

minor

A female sheepdog who initially dislikes White Fang but later becomes his companion.

Kiche

supporting

Kiche belongs to two worlds: she has known the fires and hands of the gods, yet she hunts and dens in the Wild, raising White Fang in a cave where hunger and the lynx are constant. Her old domestication lingers in her — a willingness to submit to Grey Beaver's club that her son cannot yet understand. She anchors White Fang's earliest lessons about law, fear, and belonging, then fades from his life as he is folded into the camp of men.

Jim Hall

minor

A dangerous escaped convict who seeks revenge on Judge Scott and is killed by White Fang.

Baseek

minor

An older dog in the Indian camp who challenges White Fang.

Mit-sah

minor

Grey Beaver's son who helps train and handle the sled dogs.

Judge Scott

minor

Weedon Scott's father, a judge who initially distrusts White Fang.

One Ear

minor

A sled dog in the Indian camp who is killed by the lynx.

The Love Master

supporting

Also known as the love-master

Weedon Scott enters White Fang's life as a master unlike any before him: one who neither clubs nor cages, but waits, and whose kindness White Fang slowly learns to trust as the highest law. Around him, White Fang recalibrates everything — the family, the children, even the servants are valued only as the master's possessions. His patience is the hinge on which the novel's second half turns, transforming a fighting wolf into a creature capable of devotion.

Dick

minor

A dog in the Scott household who becomes White Fang's friend.

Tim Keenan

minor

Cherokee's owner who forces White Fang into a brutal dogfight.

Kloo-kooch

minor

An Indian woman who is Grey Beaver's wife.

Major

minor

A dog in the Scott household who initially bullies White Fang.

Blessed Wolf

minor

Also known as the Blessed Wolf

A nickname given to White Fang by the Scott family after his heroic act.

Spanker

minor

A horse on the Scott ranch that White Fang learns to tolerate.

Beth

minor

Weedon Scott's sister who lives at the family ranch.

Frog

minor

A dog in the Indian camp who fights White Fang.

Three Eagles

minor

A Native American who travels with Grey Beaver.

Fatty

minor

A dog in the Indian camp who is killed by the famine.

Alice

minor

Weedon Scott's mother who lives at the family ranch.