Jack London's To Build A Fire

Also, being a newcomer to the land, believing he could travel alone through the harsh winter results in nature not caring about how it will affect the man. For example, “But the man remained silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food providers and fire providers.(London 346)” This implies that the dog leaves the man once it finds out that the man perished due to the extreme conditions. This also demonstrates that the dog moved on once man had given up on himself, and the dog did not even care about the man, like how the dog represents nature being careless towards man. The dog is the fundametal of the story because it represents nature.It shows how life can be cruel and unfair because it is an obstacle that not everyone can overcome. Nature is an obstacle in life, and sometimes, people can not go against it and will have to find a way to overcome it,

The Short story, ‘To Build a Fire’ by Jack London, published in 1908, is an archetypal naturalist tale regarding a man who travels alone through the unforgiving Yukon in Winter, before ultimately falling victim to the harsh environment. The story portrays the issues in being unaware of the power of nature and portrays a strong naturalist, In the very beginning of the story, his indifference to the forces of nature is evident through London’s vivid imagery of the uninhabited environment and the man’s nonchalant tone imitated through the neutral diction present. Furthermore, the quote “The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances,” explicitly foreshadows that an issue will come of his indifference

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.

Another way it thinks that the author has set-up a man and an animal as competitors is to show how similar things a human would do like an animal if put in such a situation such as high winds, predators, and a constant danger of frostbite, a human would only care about three things, food, shelter and water like an animal. With the only source of food, a human would resort to savage ways so similar to the ways of a polar bear as the story states, “without an instant 's hesitation the man hurled his spear” (p. 164) and when “with a growl of rage, the bear tore it loose and charged upon the man” (p. 164). This shows that when a human is exposed to this type of environment, they would kill for food without

”Buck faced the great problem of sleeping .¨ ¨A chill wind was blowing that nipped him sharply and bit especial venom into his wounded shoulder.´´This help the reader understand the character was experiencing a new situation having to sleep in the cold. He had to observe the other dogs to understand what needed to be done to survive the cold weather.

The man in this story has had a long and difficult journey, filled with emotional and physical pain. The only company he had was a native dog who followed him everywhere he went. The cold air of the Yukon trail presented a major problem for the man as he fought off frost bite. Throughout the story he struggled against nature a lot. With ups and downs along the way, the weather was always against him as he thought of ways to survive. In the end, nature won.

The protagonist is a man who is trying to get to a campground under harsh weather in order to deliver warm bread . Despite him having prior knowledge of the dangers of traveling under harsh cold- climate below 0 degrees, and the warning from another person, he continued to walk down the icy road. Despite him being smart and observing, he fails to take the cold seriously since deep inside he believes that the cold, harsh, and freezing weather can not kill a man. After realizing that he couldn’t feel his hands or fingers, he decided to gather wood in order to make a fire big enough for him and his dog. In the end when he achieves to make a fire, outside forces (avalanche) put out his fire and has no choice to build another one.

Between the years 1985 and 2012, 5.4 million people died due to cold - 20 times the amount of heat-related deaths. This is exactly what happened to the man in Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire.” In the story, a nameless man hikes along the Yukon trail, with only a dog for a companion. This man is ill-experienced, and ultimately dies on his trek from one camp to another. Three things led to the character’s death, which were all his own decisions: building a fire under a tree, traveling alone, and ignoring valuable advice.

This causes him to commit significant errors as he walks through the Yukon. He doesn't permit the extremely plausible picture of him freezing or dying of hypothermia alter his journey. His absence of premonition and imagination is essential to the pomposity in plain view and his treatment of his husky serves to underline a longing to control nature. His arrogance is rebuffed in the story as he comes to understand that he, at last, must choose the option to give into

The man had no imagination and only understood facts. He knew it was very cold and his body was numb, but he failed to realize the danger. A newcomer with no experience, he thought he was invincible. Neither the "absence of sun from the

When the man spits into the air he can hear the snap, crackle, and pop as his spit freezes. It tells the reader that it must be really cold in the wilderness. The wolf dog’s instinct tells it not to travel in such cold conditioned, but the man doesn't seem concerned

Usually people go do something in the mountains and are less prepared than they should be. Then they realize that it’s getting cold but have no resources to help them. Same goes for the man in the story “To Build a Fire” where is says, “To build the fire he had been forced to remove his mittens, and the fingers had quickly gone numb. His pace of four miles an hour had kept his heart pumping blood to his surface of his body and to all the extremities. But the instance he stopped, the action of the pump eased down.”

In comparison from the dog and the man, the dog uses his natural instinct and primal nature to survive while the man uses his mind which is useless in the situation that he is in. For instance, when London writes, “ This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life or death, with the chances against him” ( Landon 479-482). This is expressing that nature is indifferent from the man, man has no control over nature making him fall into the hands of it, his fingers slowly being overtaken by the frostbite, he realized that he would die in the freezing Yukon winter because he was a mere speck in its forest, vulnerable to everything around him. More importantly, a victim succumbing to mother nature ’s brutal force which had shown him no mercy. Proving that the man is not adapted to the Klondike unlike his furry companion a native born animal with instincts that help him endure these conditions, whilst the man suffers with only clothing as a barrier of

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

As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him. He spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle crackled. He knew that at fifty below, spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubtedly, it was colder than fifty below - how much colder he did not know.