Jack London's To Build A Fire

James E. Faust once said, “Unfortunately, some of our greatest tribulations are the result of our own foolishness and weakness and occur because of our own carelessness or transgression.” In To Build a Fire by Jack London, a man is on a journey to get to his camp but the problem is that it is seventy degrees below zero, and he is travelling only with a dog to help him. The man, unfortunately, dies at the end of the story from frostbite after falling into an almost frozen creek and not being able to make a fire in order to warm himself up. One cause of his death is the man’s arrogance. The second cause of his death is his carelessness and hasty decisions. The man makes terrible decisions leading to his death, it is not nature’s fault.

In the story and film “To Build a Fire” written by Jack London and directed by David Cobham the man and dog have very different thoughts throughout the story but they both need each other to survive. For example in the film when the man tries to kill the dog, the dog thinks the man wants to play. Also the man is very cold and his imagination is getting the best of him and he is feeling that it is colder than it really is, but the dog knows what to do in this weather condition. The film and the story have very different parts on how the man and the dog thought.

The short story "To build a Fire" by Jack London, tells about the relationship between man and nature. The story takes place in the Yukon during one of the long night. The main character who is unnamed travels with a dog along a small trail to a mining camp. The man leaves against the advice of a local and after a short time realizes that he should have waited. The temperature is extremely cold because the mans spit freezes before it hits the ground. The main obstacle of his journey is the many covered springs that mean death to whoever falls into them. The man sends his dog in front of him to make sure that the trail is safe. Eventually the dog falls into one of the springs and gets his paws wet.

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.

In Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire,” a man freezes to death in the Yukon. His unfortunate fate could have been avoided if he simply would have respected the power of nature and recognized the warning signs. It is easy to identify three signs that he shouldn’t have ventured into the Yukon off the trail fifty below zero and to never mess around with nature or you might just find out, you will not make it out alive. “His spit froze before it had even hit the ground.” (232) this indicated that it was below 70¬¬¬¬¬ below zero.

Jack London, in his short story “To Build a Fire,” details man’s attempt to prevail against the wrath of nature. In London’s story, the man, the protagonist, embarks on a dangerous ten-mile journey on the main Yukon trail during a harsh winter. Although the man shows knowledge of his snowy surroundings, his lack of sagacity, arrogance, and disrespect of nature result in his defeat in a battle between him and nature. London describes the man as one who is “quick and ready in the things of life...and not their meanings;” thus, showing the man’s lack of sagacity. The man does not think about the repercussions of his actions so he begins his journey with the thought that “50 degrees below zero [would be] nothing more than 50 degrees below.

Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” is the story of a nameless hiker traveling with his dog who has gone into the Alaskan winter with only enough to make fire, and one meal. He is making his journey by foot to meet up with his friends at a camp that lies a day ahead. He has prior experience with cold temperatures but his overconfident manner doesn’t allow him to make reasonable decisions throughout his journey. As the weather gets colder his confidence in survival quickly decreases causing him to regret his decision to ignore lifesaving advice from an experienced man. London portrays a theme of death in this short story and more is learned about the process of the characters thoughts; this shows the struggles the man faces as he comes to a harsh realization in the cold of the Alaskan wilderness.

In the short story, “To Build a Fire,” Jack London puts a tragic twist on the classic tale of wilderness survival. The author’s use of imagery and detailed sentences leave readers yearning for the warmth of fire alongside the characters. The story takes place in the Yukon during the Great Klondike Gold Rush, where the author himself spent a very influential part of his young life. London’s style of writing is an exaggeration of his own experience while mining in the arctic north. In this story, Jack London writes about an inexperienced man and his dog’s struggle through fatal weather conditions.

Advice should never be taken lightly. The story “To Build a Fire”, the central character, also known as “The man”, is the central character of this story. The man is a compelling whose lack of instinct, thoughtlessness and determination leads him to his own death. To build a fire is a well written story arrayed in imagery. Throughout the story “The man” stumbled upon a few obstacles.

Imperative: urgently necessary. In Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” building a fire is imperative for the man’s survival. While he was in the harsh Yukon environment, he falls into an ice trap, and his foot is frozen solid. Him not building a lasting fire ultimately led to his death, among him not listening to the old man’s advice to bring a partner, and him building a fire under a tree.

Naturalism was a literary movement or tendency from the 1880s to 1930s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. Basically characters can be studied through their relationship with their environment. A lot of jack London’s work was based on naturalism, and “To build a fire” was no different. The story starts off with an unnamed man in Yukon (where he is foreign) where it is more than 50 degrees below zero. "The man's red beard and moustache were likewise frosted, but more solidly, the deposit taking the form of ice and increasing with every warm, moist breath he exhaled. Also, the man was chewing tobacco, and the muzzle of ice held his lips so rigidly

Vicious cold at 75 below; much colder than your average winter. “Spittle crackled in the air before it reached the snow.” This is what the man experienced in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”. He is lost in a relatively unknown landscape, the Yukon territory in northernmost Canada and Alaska. Traveling alone with his dog. This story could have had a happy ending except some setbacks, that were almost totally avoidable. Seemingly, the man could still be with us today if it were not for his negligence of the old man’s advice, didn’t build his fire underneath a tree, and went with a trail mate on his journey.

Common Sense vs. Nature “To Build a Fire” is a short story, where the author Jack London uses the setting to tell the story. The man is the main character that experiences several catastrophic events, along with his dog. The man experiences such trouble due to his own stupidity. He does not see the weather as threatening and decides to travel the dangerous path. This leads to him freezing his hands, losing two fires, and almost eating his dog to stay alive.

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” by Jack London, is a story based on a human’s inability to overcome the forces of nature. The story’s theme surrounds perseverance, even in the presence of a foolish decision. The character’s determination to face freezing weather, no matter how hard things get, shows that no matter how hard things got for him, he wasn’t going to give up. As the story goes on, the story depicts the characters ultimate decision to give himself a meaningful death. When faced with the forces of nature, the character decides to face his death with dignity and lay down next to a warm fire until death overcomes him.