History Literature / WhiteFang

The novel starts with two men and their dog sled team being pursued by a wolf pack in the Northland Wild. Desperate for food during a famine, the wolves eventually kill all of the dogs and one of the men before the other is rescued. The starving pack eventually splits up, the she-wolf who lured the sled dogs to their doom going off with her mate, whom the narrator refers to as [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin One Eye]]. The two raise a litter of pups, only for One Eye and all the litter except one to die. The she-wolf and her surviving pup eventually meet up with a group of Mackenzie Indians; one of them, Grey Beaver, recognizes the she-wolf as Kiche, his brother's runaway half-wolf-half-dog, and takes possession of her and her pup, whom he names White Fang.

* DisappearedDad: White Fang's father One Eye is torn to pieces early on in the book.

* SoftGlass: Averted in the book. Played straight in the 1991 film where White Fang jumps through a window with nary a scratch.

*** The animated series don't seem to even have that before going to the [[AGirlAndHerX A Girl and her Dog]] format (although some book characters remain important to the plot), aside from the girl making a few references to her father saving Fang's life.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: White Fang kills a weakened Lip-Lip during a famine. While it is meant to show that even the dogs are resorting to desperate measures to survive, it's hard to feel sorry for Lip-Lip.

* SoftGlass: Averted.

* AdaptationalNameChange: Common in the 1991 film. Weeden Scott is changed to Jack Conroy. Judge Scott to Scott Conroy. [[CompositeCharacter Henry/Matt]] to Alex Larson. Bill to Clarence Thurston. Lord Alfred to Dutch. It is easier to find examples they didn't change.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: In the 2018 film, Weedon and Maggie let White Fang go free rather than bringing him to California with them.

* SlapYourselfAwake: Near the beginning, a drowsing character attaches a burning stick to his hand to keep from falling asleep, since he's surrounded by wolves and if the fire goes out, he's Wolf Chow.

The novel starts with two men and their dog sled team being pursued by a wolf pack in the Northland Wild. Desperate for food during a famine, the wolves eventually kill all of the dogs and one of the men before the other is rescued. The starving pack eventually splits up, the She-Wolf who lured the sled dogs to their doom going off with her mate, whom the narrator refers to as [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin One Eye]]. The two raise a litter of pups, only for One Eye and all the litter except one to die. The She-Wolf and her surviving pup eventually meet up with a group of Mackenzie Indians; one of them, Grey Beaver, recognizes the She-Wolf as Kiche, his brother's runaway half-wolf-half-dog, and takes possession of her and her pup, whom he names White Fang.

So begin White Fang's lessons in cruelty and mastery. The puppy pack he now belongs to see him as a wolf and treat him as an enemy. The abuse he endures from them, particularly the leader Lip-lip, makes him both stronger and more vicious, gradually turning him into a brutal, savage fighter. Nevertheless, he adapts to the laws of his new surroundings and develops a loyalty and respect for Grey Beaver, who eventually sells Kiche and takes White Fang to his trading post at Fort Yukon.

* TheBully: Lip-lip. A stronger older puppy in the Indian tribe, Lip Lip singled White Fang out as his special object of persecution.

* DirtyCoward: Beauty Smith, and Lip-lip.

* MamaBear: Kiche repeatedly in the first part of the book. She even risks the wrath of a ''Mama Cat'' by killing lynx kittens to feed her pup.

* ArtisticLicenceBiology: It's stated that no male wolf will ever fight a female wolf or dog, even if attacked by one. This is completely untrue of real wolves (although the alpha female is more likely to have the last word in a dispute than her mate). Then there are inaccuracies in wolf pack structure, hunting, mating behavior, etc. Most notably, White Fang's father, One-Eye, kills two rival males to mate with Kiche; in real life, wolves rarely fight to the death, and really problematic subordinate wolves typically leave to found their own packs. Killing mostly happens when a bunch of unrelated wolves are thrown together in a confined space like a zoo. And when White Fang meets Kiche as an adult, she drives him away as a potential threat to her current pups, and it's said that wolf mothers don't remember their own pups after a year; in reality, pups tend to stay with their parents for years and baby-sit their younger siblings. In fact, most packs consist of one mated pair and their offspring.

Definitely ''not'' a ComingOfAgeStory about ABoyAndHisX? but a harsh look at life in the rugged Northland Wild where only the strong survive and an ugly examination of the forces that shape the clay that is the human mind.

Definitely ''not'' a ComingOfAgeStory about ABoyAndHisX but a harsh look at life in the rugged Northland Wild where only the strong survive and an ugly examination of the forces that shape the clay that is the human mind.

The novel was adapted to a namesake film in 1991, directed by Randal Kleiser. The film cast a real wolfdog, Jed[[note]]incidentally, the same dog who played the initial Thing in ''Film/TheThing1982''![[/note]], into the role, with Creator/EthanHawke cast as his beloved master Jack Conroy and Creator/KlausMariaBrandauer as Alex Larson. It also spawned a sequel, "White Fang 2: Myth of the White Wolf" (1994). This one briefly featured Hawke. but the main human characters were Henry Casey (Scott Bairstow) and Lily Joseph (Charmaine Craig).

* OutlivingOnesOffspring: During a winter famine, Kiche loses four of her pups with White Fang being the only survivor.

The novel was adapted to a namesake film in 1991, directed by Randal Kleiser. The film cast a real wolfdog, Jed[[note]]incidentally, the same dog who played the initial Thing in ''Film/TheThing1982''![[/note]], into the role, with Creator/EthanHawke cast as his beloved master Jack Conroy. It also spawned a sequel, "White Fang 2: Myth of the White Wolf" (1994). This one briefly featured Hawke. but the main human characters were Henry Casey (Scott Bairstow) and Lily Joseph (Charmaine Craig).