The Flame of Life

analogies to make between these two works are, I think, those between the works' two

The first paragraph of Bleak House alone gives the reader an instant idea of how Charles Dickens saw London to be around 1842. He has portrayed the streets to be muddy and extremely polluted, "As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth." Here Dickens has used a slight amount of Hyperbole to emphasize his point. He also uses personification when referring to the snow flakes, saying that they have gone into mourning, ?smoke lowering down from the chimneypots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes?gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.? the contrast of the imagery he is using helps for the reader to imagine the scene,

In 1897 London and his brother-in-law, Captain James Shepard joined the Klondike Gold Rush. He used this experience to describe the settings of some of his first successful writings. His time spent in the Klondike was very harmful to his health. Like many other men working in the harsh conditions, London was malnourished in the goldfields, and he developed scurvy. He lost four of his front teeth and he was plagued by constant pain in his hips and legs. His face was scared by the rigid work he endured, and these hard ships inspired London to write his short story, “To Build a Fire”. London’s exceptional use of foreshadowing in the title and within the first couple of lines of his story tells the reader that the character of the story will come into hardship, his use of foreshadowing is expressed within the first sentence of his story, “There was no sun or promise of sun, although there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day. However, there seemed to be an indescribable darkness over the face of things.” (London) of not traveling alone.

The two writers had two very different reasons for writing and it is seen throughout the writing how

Both men come across interesting characters to say the least. They were interested and curious when it came to these characters, and felt the need to investigate them, often leading to misfortune. Though this is not positive, it is a similarity.

There were 3 different kinds of conflicts that both stories shared. The first was man versus man, then, man versus himself, and man versus society. In both stories,

Every story begins and ends with its characters. During the time spent reading the story, you adventure through the journey with the characters; learning their qualities and quirks. We tend to compare and contrast the characters in the story with each other, because it’s common to try and spot what makes the unique and how it makes the story flow and work. But in this essay I’m taking two different characters from two different stories, and I’m going to attempt to describe their differences.

the rise or fall of a character. In both novels we are introduced to the concept that similar

Imagery is another important element which London uses to illustrate and emphasize his theme. In “To Build a Fire” Earl Labor sees the “mood and atmosphere, which is conveyed through repetitive imagery of cold and gloom and whiteness,” as being “the key to the story’s impact” (63). London does rely heavily on imagery to set the mood of the story, and in this way he draws a picture of the harsh environment that his character must endure. London uses imagery with such skill that the reader can almost feel the deadly cold of the environment and can almost hear the “sharp, explosive crackle” when the man’s spit would freeze in mid-air (119). Through the use of such vivid imagery, London guides the reader toward the realization of the story’s theme; the reader can visualize the man “losing in his battle with the frost” and therefor can picture man in his conflict with a cruel and uncaring universe (128). Symbolism is also an important element in “To Build a Fire”. David Mike Hamilton’s criticism, he says “the fire symbolizes life as does the white snow that falls at the beginning of the story.” He also views “the dark point in the midst of the stamped snow, foretelling the end of the fire, and thus of life” (2). I strongly agree with Hamilton’s criticism; “the dark point in the midst of the stamped snow” because it not only foretells the end of the fire but of the end of life itself.

Realism, Naturalism, and Regionalism are just a few examples of the many styles of writing that exist. Each style of writing deals with a specific time period. Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”, Henry James’s “Daisy Miller”, and Mary E Wilkins Freeman’s “The Revolt of Mother” are just a few examples of the literary works that represent these time periods. These literary works are perfect examples of the specific time periods each writing style was popular among certain authors. These stories allow readers to compare the modern times that we live in currently to the period these authors were in. They also allow the reader to branch out and be different.

First, the plots of both works need to be discussed and explained how they are different. The stories of both works have basically the same

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.

The realism movement of the late nineteenth century produced works in literature that were marked by reduced sentimentality and increased objectivity. The goal was to let details tell the story, and remove noticeable bias of the author through scientific and detailed descriptions. While this form of storytelling undoubtedly is most accurate, it creates difficulties for authors to incorporate their themes into the story. This resulted in an increase in symbolism in realist works. The objects and descriptions within the story are the author’s vehicle for displaying the values and themes of the work. Light and darkness are symbols commonly used in literature, and have held specific symbolic

He uses style devices such as symbolism, tone and imagery. Some ways he uses symbolism in "To Build a Fire" is at the beginning when it was interred because the man is going to die, because as it was saying "there seemed to be an intangible pall over the face of things". In the end of the story the man ended up dying because of the extreme cold conditions and setting of the story was able to foreshadow that this was going to happen. Some ways he uses imagery in "Love of Life", London describes the situation of how the man had to bite the neck of the injured wolf so he was able to live; this makes the reader be able to visualize the struggle of the wolf to live and the struggle of the man to live, so the man had to kill the wolf in order to live. There is also tone in each of the stories. The tone in both of the stories is dramatic because of all the thing they would have to do including to deal with the harsh weather and all the obstacles they had to face and fight for them selfs throughout the whole journey. For all of these reasons plus more reasons London has a poetic style due to the poetic devices he uses in his

In the first part of the eighteenth century, the ascent of the novel profoundly adjusted the craft of English account. On the other hand, the built up true to life convention influenced the improvement of the novel to a degree not yet completely figured it out. Amid this period, neither one of the forms can be completely comprehended without the other. (Historical Background: The 18th Century)