Alone On The Yukon Trail

He constantly decided how cold it was and how he didn’t like to be as cold as he was. Inevitably, the psychological factors wore his mind and soul down to make him only think how cold he was. By the end of his situation, any warmth, whether by the sleep of death or fire, was all the man could think about. Without any imagination to focus his thoughts elsewhere, the man helped himself collapse into his final doom.

The man represents the fraction of society that doesn't respect nature. He doesn't understand the power of nature because he is oblivious to it. On the other hand the dog was "told a truer tale than that was told to the man by the man's judgement." The man "did not know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold." "The was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man." The man and the dog are together because the man needs the dog, and the dog has no choice. They have no emotional connection between them because the dog is used as a slave. In one part of the story the man uses the dog to test the trail and make sure that it is safe. The dog has more inherent knowledge about the area, all of his "ancestry knew" about the cold and the dangers of extreme cold. He also had a warm "natural covering" to keep him safe from the weather. The man was not used to the cold. He "was without imagination. He was quick and alert to the things of life, but only the things, and not the significances." He also was stubborn for his neglect to take advice.

The main character of the story is doomed from the start. London says, “The man broke through” telling the reader about the main character’s experience with the water spring (London 337). Nature gives him bad luck over and over again, showing us his doomed fate from the start. Naturalism also demonstrates the environment being indifferent; the environment does nothing to help its inhabitants. The Yukon does not cease the bitter coldness when the man is struggling to stay alive: “He was losing this battle with the frost” (London 344). This indifference makes survival the only possible goal to try to reach. Another characteristic of Naturalism is the force of instinct. London states in the story, “The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp conscious or a condition of very cold such as in the man’s brain. But the brute had its instinct” (London 334). The dog’s instincts give it an awareness of the wilderness that is superior to or better than the man’s sense of judgment. The dog’s instinct also ties in with the Naturalistic characteristic of heredity. The dog, unlike the man, has physical characteristics that have been passed down genetically

However heart wrenching; the story is of finding hope for survival, throughout the biting cold,

During his journey, the man gets his feet wet as he falls through the ice into the water of a hot spring. Because of the severity of the cold, the man’s life depends upon his ability to adapt to his surroundings. After one, half-successful fire-starting endeavor, and several other pitiful attempts, the hopelessness of the man’s lone struggle

The affection of nature on the main character. “The main character is a young man who believes that he knows the frozen wilderness, but he is still a tenderfoot who has not yet learned to respect the power of nature” (James M.

On an extremely cold winter day (−75 °F or −59 °C), a man, who remains unnamed throughout the story, and his native wolf-dog go on the Yukon Trail after being warned of the dangers of traveling alone in extreme weather conditions by an old man from Sulfur Creek. With nine hours of hiking ahead of him, the man is expecting to meet his associates ("the boys") at a camp in Henderson Creek by that evening. The man is accompanied only by his dog, whose instincts tell it that the weather is too cold for traveling. However, the weather does not deter the man, a relative newcomer to the Yukon, even though the water vapor in the man's exhaled breaths and the saliva from the tobacco he is chewing have frozen his mouth shut. It is here where London's use of symbolism of "heat (sun-fire-life) and cold (darkness-depression-death)" immediately

The story To Build a Fire demonstrates possible dangers of traveling in the Yukon under extreme cold. Through a young man, Jack London depicts the consequences of ignoring instinct and survival advice. The man travels with a dog, who can perceive the dangers of the freezing wilderness. The reader learns of the man's personality through descriptive words and phrases while journeying through the story.

The sun peeked its face out on the Canadian wilderness. The light reflected beautifully off the snowy mountains. In fact, the whole wilderness here was covered in a blanket of snow. The snow was littered in fallen pine needles, pine cones, and the footprints of rabbits, wolves and deer. Branches of leafless trees were bending from the snow resting on them. Near one of the trees a bull moose was sharpening his antlers on the trunk, the sharp prongs easily piercing through the bark. When the moose got finished, it soon broke into a sprint when it caught an unfamiliar scent.

Imagine wandering into arctic weather, knowing your chances of making it out alive are slim. All you have is a wolf dog, and the clothing on your body. You have 10 miles to go over rugged Alaskan terrain, and you need to follow a trail cover in a foot of know. This is where a living things natural instincts kick in. You rely on them to survive and get them of a dangerous situation. This is what happened to a man who decided he could make it to a camp along a covered trail.

John Walker is driving in a snowy morning to work to publish his new book. Suddenly his car was forced out of the road by a blizzard. The car flipped four times before coming to a stop. The impact against the trees knocked him unconscious. By the time he woke up everything was dark and the temperature was below zero. Blood was coming out of his head from a cut he got during the crash. He struggled to get out of the car, but his legs were stuck between the driver’s seat and the steering wheel. He tried to break the window with his freezing hands as he stumbled to get free. After painfully pulling his legs out; he crawled out of the broken window. Once he got through the window and was exposed to the freezing temperatures, he realized there were

The man learns his lesson the hard way.The man encountered many internal warnings that it was too cold to be outside. First, his nose and cheeks went numb. His face, feet, and hands followed. His beard and mustache grew icy from his breath.

The protagonist meets his demise because of his lack in intuition and imagination. (Short Story Criticism) The miner heads out to the miners camp after being warned to not travel at such cold temperatures. The miner displays his lack of intuition many times throughout the story. The miner proves he lacks in instinct when he says “fifty below zero is just uncomfortable and cold.” (London 1) “The protagonist travels against the advice of experienced prospects, thinking that he will make it successfully.” (Short Story Criticism) He shows his inexperience further when he thinks it is “fifty below when it’s actually seventy-five below zero.”(London 2)The recurring motif of man versus nature supports the lack of intuition theory. The secondary main character displays the instinct traits the man does not have. It shows how the wolf-dog senses the severity of the climate while the miner just views it as uncomfortable and cold. The miner further proves his lack of

     During his fateful journey, the Man is given warnings first-hand of the extreme cold and of the consequences of his actions. The first is when he spits on the snow:

Do you think you could survive the Yukon trail, a mile wide and three feet of ice, and just as many feet of snow, in weather colder than fifty below? The story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, is about a man who tried to take the Yukon trail and get to his friends with just a dog to guide him. He was told that no one has ever made the journey alone, yet he chose to take on the journey. Through the story the man faces many conflicts not only through himself in having too much pride, but also with the physical ones such as the cold which lead to his death. The main theme in the book is the man’s perseverance to try and survive. The man on the Yukon Trail has to show perseverance through the story even with the harsh weather and signs of bad events coming upon him. In his story “To Build a Fire,” Jack London discusses the theme of perseverance through two literary elements, conflict and foreshadowing.