To build a fire” written by Jack London is more of a primitive survival story where the protagonist tries not to freeze to death. It represents the battle of a man versus the nature. When I was reading the story I could feel my body possessed by the cold temperature just because of the way the author described it. The man was travelling with a dog, which was more conscious than him about the situation that they were living and how arduous it was going to be travelling in such conditions. “The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for travelling.” (London) Phrase that suggests that animal was most self-conscious than the man, even smarter.
This story shows how potent nature is, and that it does not matter
Sometimes everyone feels like giving up, and the only thing a person can rely on is his will to survive. Giving up is admitting defeat, in every circumstance. In the story by Jack London, To Build a Fire, the main character learns a hard lesson of reality, when he meets his fate. The result came about because of many factors, mainly the man’s lack of psychological perserverance on the journey, as well as the harsh temperature and surroundings. If there was any hope for the man to survive these conditions, it would rely wholey on his persistance and motivation. The man expected his fate after it was too late to change it, weighing all the variables and realizing there was no probable way to escape his prediciment. The man’s fate was
To build a fire is a short story written by Jack London. It is a story about an individual’s choice. The main character’s self-centeredness overcomes him, as he tries to survive the wintery weather in his travel in the Yukon Trail. He made a choice of ignoring the weather warnings, which evidenced danger in his journey. There were warnings like the absence of fellow travelers due to the cold season, but his egoism made him still embark on the journey alone, despite the warnings. The protagonist’s pride and arrogance leads to a regrettable outcome, as it leads to his downfall. The protagonist made the wrong choices because of his egotism, and arrogance and they led to his downfall. He defied nature due to his lack of logical judgment, and
To Build a Fire is a story is a perfect example of the writing genre Naturalism. It contains elements like survival depends on instinct, nature is impersonal, man lacks free choice, and heredity and environment direct and influence our lives. In the story nature is the antagonist and is very impersonal, as it is in life. The dog
If you went out one day and out of nowhere you find yourself in a life-or-death situation would it be your fault? People in a life-or-death situation should be held accountable for their actions because most of the time people know that if they do something that can put them in a life-or-death situation then something bad will happen but they still do it willingly. Another person might not agree with this claim and say that people should not be held accountable for their actions. The reason he or she might think this is because if when a person does face a life-or-death situation it might not be entirely their fault. The following reasons are examples of why my claim is stronger.
To begin with, I believe that there was more than one conflicts in the story. The conflicts were man vs. nature, man vs. self, man vs. man, and man vs. society. Mattie acquired all of these conflicts throughout the novel. To describe the conflict of man vs. nature, it is explained that the fever had spread through the air and it was up to Mattie to save herself from the disease. She had to “fight” nature and protect herself from the heat as well as the fever until winter arrived. Mattie also fought with herself when she had to decide to give Nell up to the orphanage or keep her in her own hands. Mattie also shows man vs. society as she defended the intruders breaking in the coffeehouse. Man vs. man is explained in the novel when Mattie would argue about doing her chores and going to Polly’s funeral in the
Some stories can have an emotional impact on readers, but every so often a story will reach out and help the reader escape into it. Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” is a fascinating story with a remarkably well described setting, and geographical descriptions of the surrounding Yukon areas. It portrays an overconfident man, whom because of his lack of intuition and stubbornness, succumbs to natures unforgiving climate.
In the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, the protagonist foremost values his pride, which leads to his demise. The story starts off with the protagonist taking a detour in the Yukon so that he could survey the trees in the area (he was doing this so that he could send logs down the river to the gold prospecting camp, where he would sell the wood to the prospectors for money). But, the protagonist’s pride blinds him from what could have and should have done to ensure his survival in the Yukon. About halfway through his journey, he accidentally breaks through the ice on the spring and his foot falls into the water. At the temperatures mentioned in the story (seventy below zero), if he did not dry himself properly, it could lead to serious frostbite and/or death. So, he was forced to build a fire, and the “fire was a success. He was safe. He remembered the advice of the old timer on Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious in laying down that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had an accident: he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish” (London 8). The man keeps feeding the fire and gets ready to take his (frozen and potentially dangerous) footwear off, and feels content and a sense of satisfaction of disproving the old-timers. But, just as it seemed to be that the fire was stable and strong, snow that was on the branches of the spruce tree he was under fell
In Jack London's “To Build A Fire” the story follows a man and his dog in the Klondike and their obstacles of trying to get to the boys which are his compatriots. The story revolves around the winter and how mankind reacts to the wild. The author uses nature to illustrate the poem’s tone by vilifying nature and using it as an obstacle.
Dogs and man have been coexisting for centuries in many different settings, both welcoming and harsh. To Build a Fire, written by Jack London, shows the thoughts of man while trying to survive in the bleak Alaskan cold. In the Call of the Wild, London embraces the instincts of sled dogs in a masterful depiction of the Alaskan wilderness. To Build a Fire and the Call of the Wild have many similarities in design but they do also have prominent differences.
In the story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, there are three principal themes. They are respecting nature, and considering results of actions. The main theme, or universal truth, is heeding warnings. The themes are shown through the character and his actions. The main character in the story had an attitude that prevented him from heeding internal and external warnings. He did not respect nature's power, and therefore he paid with his life.His attitude was arrogant and careless.
“To Build a Fire” is a short story written by Jack London. It is viewed as a masterpiece of naturalist fiction. “To Build a Fire” features a miner who is traveling to the Yukon Territory with a dog as his companion. The miner is the protagonist and the dog companion is called the foil. The dog plays off of the traits of the protagonist. “The central motif of “To Build a Fire” concerns the struggle of man versus nature.” (Short Story Criticism) The most argued point in the short story is the reason of the protagonist death. “Some critics believe that it was his lack of intuition and imagination that lead to his death, while others say that he dies because of panic.” (Short Story Criticism) The protagonist in “To Build a Fire” struggles in
Imagine being in fifty degrees below zero weather trying to survive in the Yukon. In the story the no named new comer is traveling throughout the freezing Yukon cold weather when he was told not to. But he still went anyways to meet up with his friends. During the story he met an Alaskan husky that tried to build a fire so many times; at this point he is over it. So he tries to kill the dog to sink his hands in the dog’s body. Luckily the man ends up losing control because he is so cold, and ends up dieing. In the story “To Build a Fire,” Jack London uses naturalism to explain why the protagonist’s lack of knowledge about his surroundings leads to his death.
The short story written by Jack London depicts a man that begins his journey with only a slight awareness of the weather outside. Since this story takes place in Yukon so he freezes to death walking to a shining camp which is at Henderson Creek, so he can eat his biscuits out of his sweaty shirt and to fill them with greasy bacon. Throughout the story, he embarks on a journey through the hostile environment of the Yukon. London emphasizes the existential theme in “To Build a Fire” in a number of ways, one of them and the most important being: his selection of setting in which the story is set. The setting is the cold depths of Yukon during the harsh winter months. Jack uses phrases such as, “there was no sun nor hint of sun” this reveals that the author places his main character in an environment where it is a perilous setting of the wilderness. In depth, London serves to illustrate the
“To Build a Fire” by Jack London is a short story about a man traveling through the Alaskan Yukon to meet up with his friends for lunch. The author keeps the character nameless and refers to him only as “The Man” which is used to show a connection between humanity and nature. The story shows the hardships the man goes through to get to his destination through the Alaskan Yukon, yet unfortunately doesn’t make it. The conflict is a man versus nature theme which contrasts strong and direct relations of the hardships in nature. Throughout this analysis, I am going to explore the conflict between the man and the merciless nature he has to go through before his death.
I picked To Build a Fire because I like adventure stories. It seemed that's the man was a newcomer to Yukon territory in Canada, and he didn't expect this severe frost. So he wasn't prepared for the terrible drop in colds, which was more than 75 degrees below zero, and also had no experience in the country climate. At last, he succeeded to reached his destination with his dog.