One element of the book one might overlook is White Fang's ability to adapt to any new circumstances and somehow survive. While defending Judge Scott, White Fang takes three bullets but is miraculously able to survive. His strength and intelligence make him the most feared dog in the Indian camp. From the onset, he is the strongest wolf-cub, the only one of the litter to survive the famine. This idea is embodied by the character, White Fang. The process of 'natural selection' means that only the strongest, brightest, and most adaptable elements of a species will survive. Jack London write many books with Darwin's popular ideas in mind, particularly White Fang and The Call of the Wild.

London is also particularly careful to adhere to established facts of a wolf's life cycle in White Fang's early years. White Fang's heredity is carefully defined, 'one-fourth dog, three-fourths wolf,' leading up to the struggle within him between his civilized impulses and his wild ones. He was not responsible.' Jim Hall is also portrayed as a victim of his environment, not responsible for his actions. With the environmental theme in mind, this novel is written with biological and social determinism, and London insists that although Beauty Smith was 'a monstrositythe blame of it lay elsewhere. The environmental theme is signaled at the onset of White Fang as London vividly describes the landscape, paradoxically combining a foreboding animism with a sinister desolation. Generally, naturalism refers to those who viewed life strictly from a scientific approach in this case that translates to the view that man and other creatures were victims of their heredity and environment. Throughout White Fang, Jack London uses the theme of naturalism.

White fang london