What are three battles Buck fights for supremacy and survival in The Call of the Wild?

In The Call of the Wild by Jack London, the first fight that Buck fights for supremacy takes place in "a small high-walled back yard" in Seattle shortly after he is taken off the train from California. An unnamed "stout man with a red sweater" releases Buck from his crate, and as Buck attacks the man in rage, the man beats him down with a club until he is a senseless bloody mess. Although Buck loses this battle, he learns a great lesson from it.


He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned his lesson, and in all his afterlife he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway.


The second battle occurs after Buck arrives at the Klondike region of Canada. He joins a team of sled dogs and eventually has a fight with the lead dog, Spitz. After a bloody battle, Buck emerges as victor and becomes the leader of the pack.

Buck's final battle for supremacy occurs after his master John Thornton is killed by Indians and there is nothing left to hold Buck to civilized life. He is set upon by an entire wolf pack and has to fight for his life until the exhausted wolves concede and accept him into their midst. This is the point at which he abandons living with humankind and answers the call of the wild.


When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.