The Power Of Mother Nature In Jack London's To Build A Fire

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

When the man was trying desperately to re-light the fire he removed his gloves and lost all feeling in his hands. If he had remained calm and thought about his situation he might have had a chance to survive. Nature showed no mercy when the man attempted to re-light the fire using only his palms, and he failed. "He was losing his battle with the frost. It was creeping into his body from all sides."(1754) The man's unfortunate mistakes cost him his life and nature felt no sympathy for him. He was just another man who failed to defeat nature for one more day. If the man had brought along a companion for the journey like the old man in the town had suggested he would still be alive. However, his stubbornness would not submit to that. "The old-timer on Sulfur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner."(1752). Instead the man brought a wolf dog with him to keep him company. The only thing that the dog was good for was as an outlet for the man's jealously when he realized all the mistakes he had made. The man envied how the dog could just sit in the snow and his warm fur would protect him from the elements. The mistakes that the man made reflect everyday life by showing how just one accident or miscalculation can cost you your life. Naturalism utilized the environment to show how fierce and apathetic the world can be. In the opening scene of "To Build a Fire" London used a bleak

People fail all the time, what contributes to someone failing however can teach a valuable lesson for someone else in the future. Overconfidence is a factor that makes many people fail at what they are doing. Take a sports teams for example, going into a game against a bad team they assume they are going to crush them, but in the end the game is very close and they end up losing. Another factor is that you cannot underestimate the power of nature. Tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes are some of the strongest forces on this planet, and you should take strong precautions to stay out of the way of theses strong forces of nature. In the story “To Build a Fire,” there are many factors that lead to the main character’s death. Jack London uses his own experiences in this story from when he failed during the Klondike Gold Rush (Milne 336). The man in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” fails in his mission due to overconfidence in himself, his disdain towards nature’s power, and his inability to retain composure.

But, we realize almost immediately, the man has only a superficial knowledge of the Arctic. As he stands on a bank of the Yukon about to plunge into an almost absolute wilderness, he has little or no understanding either of his immense isolation relative to his surroundings or of the extreme danger posed by the cold snap. But all of this, London comments at the beginning of the third paragraph, "The mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all, made no impression on the man." Thus, the man also knows, in addition to the fact the sun will reappear, that it is fifty degrees below zero, but he does not know the meaning of this fact, it portends death for anyone who makes himself vulnerable to its ability to kill. "Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head."

In Jack London's “To Build A Fire” the story follows a man and his dog in the Klondike and their obstacles of trying to get to the boys which are his compatriots. The story revolves around the winter and how mankind reacts to the wild. The author uses nature to illustrate the poem’s tone by vilifying nature and using it as an obstacle.

The man is also weak in the face of nature as nature tortures him with the physical accidents the man suffers. He firstly begins when his cheekbones and nose went numb and becomes worse as he looses touch and grasp of his hands, finishing off with the freezing of his corpse and sudden stiff death. London exclaims about the accounts the man has suffered, “This man did not know cold.” (London, 487) and “He was loosing in his battle with the frost.” (London, 493) I do agree because the man is a new comer, a chechaquo, meaning that it is the man’s first contact with such freezing environment. The man constantly through out the story efforts in combating against the forces of nature that he can not control the reason being because he was inexperienced to such environment, therefore the man is bound to be with the odds and like London exclaims, loose his battle with his environment. The environment shaped him such that it proved he is not fit enough to live in the extreme cold.

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

Jack London portrayed Naturalism perfectly in “To Build a Fire”. Typically naturalism is based off of Scientific laws, throughout the story London focuses on the idea that nature is different to man. Naturalistic stories typically focus on the plot rather than the character which was exactly what London did during this story. The unnamed man faced challenges throughout the entire story that proved there were aspects of nature that were just not meant for man. The man had to constantly think about his every move to survive but he let his arrogance had The man's arrogance, foolish mistakes and lack of fear towards Natures unbeatable strength lead him to his death.

Some people believe that nature us beautiful and that it can be conquered. The truth is that she can be a cruel and awful being. The story, “To Build a Fire,” is about “The Yukon Trail,” and its treachery, by Jack London. In this short story, it tells you about the freezing environment, and the Man, but also tells you to not be foolish and to take percussion when you see the signs that mother nature gives you. The setting of the environment addresses the Man’s relation between himself and the harsh nature.

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

Do you love a good furtive? In To Build a Fire, Jack London gives students a short-term look inside the strong external view. Man and the Natural World, Foolishness, and Pride is a big take in this short story. In the third paragraph of this story, the speaker tells us all about the suffering with the man that he is disadvantaged of the mind. The absence of his imagination is an important fragility that will lead the man to create silly choices. The speaker marks a huge deal out of the point that the man has no imagination. The Yukon desert couldn’t care less. He’s just another kindly figure it can freeze. Some individuals may debate that each person has imagination. That everyone holds an assured mark of imagination capability. Out in the cold Yukon, you probably don’t think that having an imagination is going to help you much, but it will. As a reader, we must think about what good it would do the man to think enormously about the huge wilderness around the man. After all he is not a writer or a storyteller. He just want to go get some bacon. LOL. So why recommend he’s foolish for not having imagination?

As readers dig into the story, they can see that the setting is the deciding factor of the man’s fate. London devotes the entire story to the setting. The setting portrays the mood and visual of the story. London starts off the story by saying that “day had dawned cold

Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire” is about a man’s battle to survive during a Yukon winter. The unnamed man has to accept that he isn’t greater than nature, and the setting Jack London created was the perfect example. Nature’s power is immense and will not be overpowered by men. Jack London used nature as the foreshadowing force to predict the man’s future.

Nature is the strongest thing in this world that everyone takes for granted. It holds the power to create life, but also destroy in mere seconds. In the modern world, we try to figure out and use nature in a way that can benefit us, but not how we can benefit it. With a constant search for nature and its resources, it causes humans to less mindful of the wilderness around us and how no matter what, at the end, nature will outlive all of us. Humans think they can outsmart nature with their new technology and progress, but we also end up having to turn back to nature for help in order to survive. In Jack London’s story, To Build a Fire, we follow a man into the wilderness

There are a multitude of aspects that lend themselves to the setting of any story and if left underdeveloped the setting will feel like a mere passing stranger. In the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, if the author hadn’t devoted so much of the text and placed as much emphasis on the aspects of setting such as place, weather, and atmosphere there would be no story to be told. From the first to the last sentence of the story London forces the reader to submerge themselves in the frigid Yukon and walk alongside the freezing protagonist and his canine companion. For instance, in the opening line of the story London sets the overall setting and tone for the reader by illustrating, “Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray” (London 127).