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Jack London's To Build A Fire

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The difference between life and death can be decided in a split second. One small mistake and the rest of your life disappears. In the short story To Build a Fire by Jack London, the main character’s decision to go into the Yukon alone was essentially what killed him. He was a logger, and decided to take a different path than the others, by himself. He eventually broke through the ice and wet his feet, meaning death if he did not successfully build a fire, as his feet were freezing on the spot in the 70 below zero conditions. His fire burnt out due to carelessness, and he died soon after. In the movie Cast Away, directed by Robert Zemeckis, the main character is a FedEx employee who gets caught in a plane crash. He is the sole survivor, and …show more content…

In To Build a Fire, the man’s companion is a native husky. It was not your usual man’s best friend story, as the author states that “the one was the toil-slave of the other, and the only caresses it had ever received were the caresses of the whip-lash and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that threatened the whip-lash”(5). The man’s lack of value for companionship may very well have been the reason for his death. His arrogant belief that he could survive alone led him to a life and death situation that would easily have been solved if he had another person with him. After the fire he had built burned out, his companion could have built another fire in a matter of minutes, saving him. Chuck from Cast Away, on the other hand, stayed alive because of his strong value for companionship. While he was on that island, even though though Kelly, his probable fiancee, was not physically with him, she kept him going, and the prospect of seeing her again motivated him to keep breathing. He also had a physical companion, and though Wilson was not human, he became essential for Chuck’s survival. Chuck turned a volleyball inside a FedEx package into a companion that he gave a name to, talked to, and argued with. Interestingly, it was as if he made Wilson smarter than him, and while discussing his escape plan with Wilson, Chuck credited him with the idea of using the porta potty as a sail. He thought of it as Wilson coming up with an escape plan, but essentially talked himself into a brilliant plan, as Wilson’s thoughts and actions were all a figment of his imagination. All in all, a person’s value for companionship is one of the most important traits for surviving in the

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