Torn by a quirk of fate from his life as a dilettante and intellectual, Humphrey van Weydon finds himself at the whim of the ruthless Wolf Larsen. The two men—one youthful, idealistic, and upper-class while the other ruthless, dangerous, self-taught, and self-determined—inevitably become adversaries. As he does in Call of the Wild and White Fang, Jack London dramatizes in this story the violent encounter between safe, genteel comfort and a brutal set of circumstances.