Jack London's To Build A Fire

In “To Build a Fire,” Jack London presents the story of a man against nature as he tries to survive in the harsh winter of the Yukon in the early 1900’s. He begins a nine-hour hike through, temperatures as low as -75 degrees Fahrenheit, and he plans to meet up with friends in the area. With him is a local husky, with whom he has little companionship. The narrator builds a fire to warm himself. However, as the fire starts to reach a good warming point, snow falls and douses the fire. Finally realizing that things are getting drastic, the man starts running for the camp in desperation, with hopes of warming his body and possibly getting help. Eventually though he falls from exhaustion. While on the ground, he falls asleep and

The story “To Build a Fire” written by Jack London has two nearly identical versions published in 1902 and 1908 respectively. The latter is better-known and more thought-provoking because of the protagonist’s death. To begin with, the journey takes place on a cold winter day in Klondike, consists of a man and his dog. The man is ignorant of the extreme coldness and feels confident about travelling alone at fifty degrees below zero. However, he breaks through a thin skin of ice unexpectedly and wets himself halfway to the knees. In order to dry his feet, the man builds a fire, only to have it extinguished by a pile of snow unloaded from a tree. He tries to set up another fire, yet all attempts has failed. The man panics and strives to unfreeze his body by running. Not surprisingly, his efforts are useless, and the man dies of hypothermia at last. The author effectively supports the central conflict of man versus nature and gives hints about the man’s death as resolution by using appropriate title, descriptive setting, and a large amount of foreshadowing.

In her passage, Ms. Vollmer argues about McCandless failing to hear the warnings provided by Jack London through his stories which McCandless had read and reread many times. In his story 'To Build a Fire' Jack London has shown the difference between a person who did not care about the risks and a dog with pure instincts. The similarity between this man and McCandless was that both were inexperienced to the adverse events of nature and both failed to see the dangers. The main purpose of London's story was to warn the adventurers about the risks to the wilderness. As an enthusiast of Jack London, McCandless had read these stories many stories many times and yet failed to understand London's warnings. Shreds of evidence lie in every mistake he had made as he continued his journeys making Vollmer's argument agreeable.

To Build A Fire Did you know it takes less than five minutes for body tissue to become damaged when it is exposed to extreme cold weather like sixty-seven degrees below zero? The protagonist in Jack London’s “To Build A Fire” quickly learns this as he treks across the Yukon in seventy-five degrees below zero without many of the skills or equipment he needs to survive. Ultimately, this leads to the man’s death. There are three main reasons for which the man did not survive: he ignored valuable advice, traveled alone, and fell into an ice trap.

Jack London starts early in the story to set a foreboding feeling: "Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little traveled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland." (London) It is this

¨A Hot Fire¨ Expect the unexpected. Jack London used his characters to illustrate imagery. He had thoughts of biscuits being frozen. Mr. London also used his characters to illustrate characterization.

Jack London's story "to build a fire" is a captivating story, it's thrilling in every sentence the story is about a man and his Journey in the Yukon trail in winter in fact the essay states it was his first winter. Jack London's essay was very precise he wrote every detail in the story how long the trail was "The Yukon lay a mile wide" and the condition of the weather and everything around him "and hidden under three feet of ice. " The essay describes the place where the story took so good it creates a clear image in your mind the way how he felt "The dead fingers could neither touch nor clutch." London wrote the story so you feel like you were with him in the story. London also gave some background about where

“To Build a Fire” Jack London In Jack London’s story “To Build a Fire”, it teaches young adult’s the importance of observing your surroundings in a new environment, as well as listening to people who know the area and what not and what to do. In this story, it will show the reader why they must observe and listen. The first reason in London’s story is focusing on what you must do is if you’re told something very important, you must follow that person’s warning. In paragraph 6 on page 30 it states, “It was seventy-five below zero.”

In Jack London’s short story, “To Build a Fire,” a man attempts to reach his destination across the Yukon wilderness. The cold and wintery setting is used to create the conflict of whether the man will make it to the campsite and transitions the mood from calm and uncaring to fearful. It also manages to convey the message that overzealousness can lead to failure.

You should never dive into life or death situations unprepared and ill informed on how to take action given a common problem you could come across because it really could be your life on the line. Actions are the main factor in your survival and because of that fact, survival is your own responsibility. Alternatively, there are some situations where you really have no control and are at the mercy of nature. But, regardless people should be held accountable for their actions in situations that deal with life and death because your actions directly affect you. Your decisions also affect other people, for instance, in a story where a German caver needed to be saved the operation to extract him from underground included 728 people who weren’t even payed in the end.

Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire” begins and ends with a man and his dog. At the story’s outset we learn not only that the day is “exceedingly cold and gray” but that “this fact did not worry the man”. He is described as “without imagination”, and doesn’t appreciate the significance of things around him. Despite warnings from others, as well as from his dog - who acts very apprehensively due to his instinctual knowledge “that it was no time for traveling”- the man makes the decision to trek for miles, alone, in negative seventy-five degree weather. Even after disaster strikes, he continued to scoff at the advice he was given to never travel on his own in such temperatures, going so far as to think that those who cautioned him against

Jack London was born in San Francisco, California in 1876 and died in 1916. Through the years of his life, he was not only a writer. He pirated for oysters, sailed in the Pacific, traveled around the country during his life, and worked in factories. He let his mind escape from being a factory worker by writing. He explored the Yukon in the winter of 1897, and began publishing Overland Monthly in 1899. Many of London's short stories became classics. Some of his stories include The Call of the Wild (1903), The People of the Abyss (1903), and John Barleycorn (1913) (Stasz). One of London's most famous short stories is To Build a Fire. In the short story, "To Build a Fire," Jack London has a certain setting, imagery, repetition, irony, and symbolism he uses to expose the harsh realities of nature in order to caution the reader.

According to the reading Cynicism is described as a lifestyle that emphasizes on the natural way of life. The philosophy of Cynicism believes that pure happiness derives from independency by being self-sufficient; Antisthenes introduced this type of philosophy. He believed that people depend too much on martial things, status, and societal structure, etc. that they forgotten the importance of life. Those ideals was what he has believed was the destruction of nature.

“To Build a Fire” is a story tale about a dog that connects to nature more than man ever did.

I chose the story “to build a fire” by Jack London. The title attracted me it shows the importance of fire for humans life.