MYTH AND SYMBOL IN JACK LONDON'S THE CALL OF THE WILD,WHITE FANGAND TAWIQ AL'HAKIM'S HIMAR AL'HAKIM(AL’HAKIM’S DONKEY)

Abstract

Jack London is a folk writer. He has achieved a popularity so wide and so long –
standing that he seems to have become a permanent legend in the American heritage. Tawfiq
Al'Hakim belongs to a generation of Arab writers remarkably bold in their questioning of the
values inherited from their immediate past and immensely influential in pioneering a form of
modernism shaped by the example of Western Europe. Al'Hakim was considered a pioneer as he
was the first Egyptian dramatist and novelist as well. The Call of the Wild, White Fang and
Himar Al'Hakim (Al'Hakim's Donkey) are adventure romances. The Call of the Wild bears the
influence of natural attraction and natural powers within man and animal. White Fang was
conceived as a complete antithesis and companion piece to The Call of the Wild. London averred
that he is going to reverse the process. Instead of the devolution of decivilization of a dog, he is
going to give the evolution, the civilization of a dog. In Himar Al'Hakim (Al'Hakim's Donkey) the
author recounts his experiences in an Egyptian village with a donkey and a French film crew.
One point made in the book that, “Egyptian rural areas with neo-feudal economic conditions
have lacked the beneficent French neo-feudal institution of the lady of the manor who would
promote the caring society in Egypt." Al'Hakim highlights the dilemma of the disadvantaged,
even though he did so by using a donkey as a protagonist.