The meaning of chapter titles in The Call of the Wild extends beyond a simple description of the plot. The first chapter, “Into the Primitive,” is concerned not only with Buck’s departure from civilization and his entrance into a more savage, primitive world but also with the contrast between civilized life and primitive life. This contrast is strong throughout the novel, and the story of Buck’s adventures in the Klondike is largely the story of how he gradually sheds all the customs that define his earlier life in human society to become a creature of the wild, primal world of the north. Here, in the first days after his kidnapping, he takes the first steps away from his old life and toward a new one.
