The Law of Life

The wolves that stalk first the bull moose and then Koskoosh are not simply a means of death, but a symbol of it. As London describes it, death is a kind of predator: It is “hungry” (Paragraph 2), and it relentlessly pursues all living things. This depiction echoes the hunting behavior of wolves; London, for instance, describes them peeling off the oldest and sickest of the moose and then methodically tracking it until it can no longer fight back. Similarly, the wolves claim the life of Koskoosh, who, like the bull moose, has grown old and weak. In surrendering to them, Koskoosh is therefore bowing to the inevitability of his own death and to that of death in general.

There is a long-standing figurative association between fire and life in literature; the heat and motion of a flame evoke the warmth and activity of a living body, while its intensity (or lack thereof) can speak to the strength of a person’s will to live. In “The Law of Life,” fire’s symbolism is paired with a more literal relationship to life. Koskoosh’s tribe leaves him with a small bundle of firewood, but the expectation is that