White Fang Freedom and Confinement Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph) Shmoop has numbered the chapters continuously, but the book renumbers them in each Part.

Quote #7

Beauty Smith took passage for himself and White Fang on a steamboat bound up the Yukon to Dawson. White Fang had now achieved a reputation in the land. As "the Fighting Wolf" he was known far and wide, and the cage in which he was kept on the steam-boat's deck was usually surrounded by curious men. (17.7)

We have confinement in the most serious terms here, the worst parts of civilization crammed right down White Fang's poor little throat.

Quote #8

It was necessary that he should have some god. The lordship of man was a need of his nature. (20.24)

White Fang needs to feel like a good boy, and therefore he makes himself the slave of a man. Sure, this one doesn't beat him and lets him feel loved and all that, but it's still a big step for a wild animal who hadn't experienced anything good in his confinement.

Quote #9

This expression of abandon and surrender, of absolute trust, he reserved for the master alone. (23.10)

Here, White Fang gives himself to the confinement freely. He chooses to be the master's good dog. It feels like confinement, doesn't it? But if it is, then why does it make White Fang feels so happy?