According to White Fang, what roles to nature and nurture play in determining individual identity and character?
Essays should draw upon the many references to the “clay” of life being molded-for example, such passages as those in II.4, in which White Fang as a pup is completely responsive to instinct, and III.3, in which White Fang’s “nurture” has forced him to become “quicker of movement than the other dogs, swifter of foot, craftier, deadlier.” In general, London’s position seems to be that nature (i.e., instinct) is a powerful factor in character development (Collie may serve as a good illustration of this tenet), but that nature can be “overruled” by the “thumb of circumstance” (IV.6, a key passage for studying the “nature-nurture” dichotomy in the novel), gently or roughly molding the clay of “nature” into something very different than it might have been otherwise. However, London also reserves a powerful role for love to undo the damage that the “thumb of circumstance,” if applied harshly, could have done in the past. 4. How may the story of White Fang be seen as a story of redemption? Ess
