Themes In Jack London's To Build A Fire

To build a fire is a short story written by Jack London. It is a story about an individual’s choice. The main character’s self-centeredness overcomes him, as he tries to survive the wintery weather in his travel in the Yukon Trail. He made a choice of ignoring the weather warnings, which evidenced danger in his journey. There were warnings like the absence of fellow travelers due to the cold season, but his egoism made him still embark on the journey alone, despite the warnings. The protagonist’s pride and arrogance leads to a regrettable outcome, as it leads to his downfall. The protagonist made the wrong choices because of his egotism, and arrogance and they led to his downfall. He defied nature due to his lack of logical judgment, and

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 Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” the main character struggles and suffers in his trek through the Yukon trail. Eventually, his body can no longer withstand the brutal winter, and he freezes to death. Throughout this story, several context clues and character flaws scattered through the pages foreshadow his prospective fate. First, the context clue that most readily comes to mind is when his fire dies out.

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.

The fire is vital to his life. The character is not ready for the setting and he has to suffer through its conditions. The setting has the greatest influence on the plot. London tells us just how cold it really is.

Introduction "To Build a Fire," is a deplorable short story and film by Jack London. It centers on a man who made a choice to travel and explore Yukon alone. The environments of the place was not good as the temperatures were subfreezing. The forces of nature are not favorable and friendly at all. During his adventure, the man’s feet become wet when he falls into the water of a hot spring through the ice (London 122).

Confidence does not always come with intelligence. In “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, the unnamed man decides to take on the challenge of traveling through Alaska in negative fifty degree weather, despite being warned of the dangers. His over confidence has made him fear nothing, not even nature’s toughest challenges. Before this crucial experience he was a cocky and confidence man, but in the end he learned to not always trust his own thoughts. The crucial moment the man faces, is when he loses the feeling in his limbs, which leads to the self-destruction of his confidence.

In To Build a Fire by Jack London, a man was travelling in the Yukon which is one of the coldest places in the world. Not only was he travelling in an extreme area, the conditions were brutal even for Alaska. Jack London made the setting as horrible as possible for the travelling man and his dog. The man was a newcomer to the area because of the gold rush at that time in Alaska and he was experiencing his first winter. Only the people who have lived in the Yukon for years knew how to prepare for these conditions, but the man, along with most other people, are not aware how brutal the Alaskan winters can be. The influence of the setting can be analyzed through the actions, the mood, and the characters in the story.

One prominent and reoccurring theme of the story “To build a Fire” by Jack London is the need to possess instincts. The importance of one’s instincts is brought to light when, despite warnings from the locals, a man decides to travel along the Yukon Trail with only his native wolf dog. It is during this trek, when they are faced with the dangers of the extreme cold, that London brings rise to his theme: the need for one to possess instincts. He does so throughout the story by showing the contrast of the dog’s instinctive behavior and its ability to survive compared to that of the man’s. He shows the contrast by pointing out the man’s unconcern for the cold, his inability to sense danger, and finally his incapability to survive in the wilderness.

In Jack London’s short story, To Build a Fire, there is an unnamed man who is trying to make it back to his camp in the freezing weather of the Yukon. The man travels only with a sled dog and himself in the 50 degree below zero weather. Throughout the short story, the man struggles to survive as he soon realizes the temperature is actually severely dangerous at 75 degrees below zero. In the end, the man ultimately dies before successfully reaching his camp due to not being able to build a fire on time to stay warm. While laying on the cold ground finally accepting his death, the man thinks back to before he went out an old man warned him of the dangers of traveling alone out in this kind of weather. He accepts he was wrong to not head the

The opening scene establishes our main character’s inability or lack of care towards his own survival. ‘To Build a Fire’ begins with our main character, a man, hiking the Yukon trail on a bitter cold day. He had no supplies and did not care. “It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun. This fact did not worry the man.” The last sentence shows his state of mind and the reader what they will get into. ‘This fact…’ the last sentence of the quote begins this way to establish its’ dry and dark humor. “But all this—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. It was not because he was long used to it.” The ‘absence’ of the sun is gone, leaving a dark dreary sky with a foreboding mood attached. Describing the cold as ‘tremendous’ and foreign to the man is a nod to the reader to how this character sees the environment. It seemed as the

In the story To Build a Fire by Jack London, a man is trying to survive a might challenge, he is on foot in sub-zero temperatures and with snow coming down. The mans major flaw is being over confident. This personal flaw contributed to the mans death the most.One example of the man being over confident was not being prepared. With no supplies and nothing to work with, what was this man supposed to do in a dire situation, such as a bear attack. He did not think of this “he carried nothing but the lunch wrapped in the handkerchief” (London 463-464). He was not prepared at all. The man just decided to go for it and did not think of going a day later with a backpack full of supplies with everything he possibly could of needed and he may of actually

Imagining walking 60 miles through the klondike gold rush in 75 degrees below frost bites with barely any food and being ill prepared. In Jack London’s “ To Build A Fire ” , the man and his dog has to survive the bitter cold weather and very harsh conditions, he can barely set a fire because it is too cold and his hands couldn’t bare be outside of his mitten. The Settings in “ To Build A Fire ” has an impact on the story and affects the characters, plot, and the theme of the story.

No matter what type of story you are reading, setting always plays a key element in producing the desired effect. Jack London's short story To Build A Fire provides an excellent example of this. In this story, a man hikes across a snow and ice covered plane towards the encampment where he is supposed to meet up with more travelers like himself. The setting of this story is one of the northernmost most areas of the earth, the Yukon. The man must hike across this area for approximately thirty-six miles before he reaches the camp at which he is expected. The constantly dropping temperature further complicates the man's hike. When he begins his journey at nine o'clock in the morning it is

In history there has been many writers. Jack London is one of those writers with a very special style. Lots people tend to overlook the style in writing, not focusing on its impact on meaning. Jack London has developed his own type of style which is deeply shown through their personal writing. In London's stories "Love of Life" and "To Build a Fire", he uses poetic style, multiple literary movements in his writing and tons of themes throughout his stories.