Snap! Your finger just broke off with no trouble at all. Extreme cold poses the problem of frostbite for your extremities. In Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,”the man learned this the hard way. The unnamed man undertakes the daunting task of traveling alone through the snow-covered Yukon despite the frigid temperatures. Traveling alone, ice traps, and building a fire under a tree are three poor decisions that cost the man his life. Ice traps are the first thing that brings about the man’s tragic demise. These deceptive traps are pools of water that are hidden beneath a thin layer of ice and snow. “And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant trouble and danger” (London 85). Even with careful examination of the creek, the man proceeded to cross. The thin ice crumpled beneath his feet and the water covered his legs to just below his knees. A chilled block of ice formed around his legs. Frostbite is nothing to mess around with, and the man knew that he must deal with this inconvenience, but did not have a sense of urgency, which led to his frozen death. While the man did not realize the magnitude of his mistake, it resulted in a domino effect that would prove to be fatal. …show more content…
The man knew that his only hope for survival was based around thawing out his icebound legs. This meant that he must build a fire in order reach his intended destination and outlast the Yukon cold.With his fingers and toes on the verge of being frostbitten the man got a fire started. But then it happened. Packs of snow cascaded down the branches of the powdered spruce. “It grew like an avalanche, and it descended upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out!” (London 85). The fire’s light like a beacon hope, suddenly vanished along with his life. “It was as though he had just heard his own sentence of death” (London 85). The man knew that his foolish mistake could possibly cost him
story, at camp it snowed during the night, they expected the snow would stop soon, and they will attempt to make it the
This morning some locals found a person lying in a ravine. From the looks of it he has been there since the first snow fall because he body was frozen. The person known as Mr. George Harvey from Pennsylvania he is suspected to be a part of many murders of young women. Detective Len Fenerman says “ Now that Mr. Harvey is found dead hopefully the sports of the ones he killed can now finally be put to rest because their murderer is finally dead.” Mr. Harvey had fallen of the ravine by getting hit in the head by something, and since it was winter the police thinks it was probably hit in the head by an icicle then lost his balance momentarily which lead him to fall to his death. “A moment later, the icicle fell. The heavy coldness of it threw him
The short story to To Build a Fire by Jack Landon is a heartbreaking story of a man struggling to survive in the freezing temperatures. During the story the man made a crucial mistake and fell into the freezing water that would ultimately lead to his downfall. His journey began when he decided to go out on a hike we learned that the man himself was unworried about the cold temperatures however, the dog during the whole story seemed to foreshadow something bad was going to happen and left an uneasiness as the reader. Finally when the man fell into the water things quickly turned for the worst and he became worried very quickly. Throughout the story he had many small panic attacks from his fingers beginning to freeze making him unable to build a fire he so desperately needed.
The short story “To Build a Fire”, written by Jack London, is about a unnamed man who travels through a trail near the main Yukon trail in order to meet up with some friends at a camp. His first self-deception when he convinces himself that the harsh winter weather cannot affect him. From the beginning he clearly shows that he is not worried by the weather. “In all his actions, the man exercises only intellectuality--he thinks about the temperature in terms of degrees Fahrenheit, for instance, a scientific indicator.” (Wayne np).
Kneeling on the frozen snow nor feeling nor knowing what is beneath me?…. my cells are no longer responding… My body is shivering, begging me to stop…….My hands are pale as if my blood has frozen, barely moving, barely thinking, barely conscious. My glim of hope vanishing as I realise I won’t survive in this vast of white snow… Lost the sense of direction. How many days have I travelled? Believing in a glim that goes nowhere. Am I going insane? Not knowing the date nor the time nor someone to talk to but only myself. Only if my friend was here… What am I talking about his already dead. How did he die ? I can’t remember well? We were walking nearby a river hoping if we follow the current it may lead us to people,I heard a splash I turned my back and he was into the cold water, I helped him to get up but his foot got stuck into a puddle pulling his head under the water, he was struggling I tried to pull him towards me but I was too exhausted, as he was drowning I saw his face expression it gave me a
To Build A Fire Did you know it takes less than five minutes for body tissue to become damaged when it is exposed to extreme cold weather like sixty-seven degrees below zero? The protagonist in Jack London’s “To Build A Fire” quickly learns this as he treks across the Yukon in seventy-five degrees below zero without many of the skills or equipment he needs to survive. Ultimately, this leads to the man’s death. There are three main reasons for which the man did not survive: he ignored valuable advice, traveled alone, and fell into an ice trap.
In the beginning, the man assumes he wouldn’t get cold from nature but in fact ends up so frigid that he is in desperate need of building a fire. “It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning
The setting of the story is in the icy lands of the Yukon where the temperature drops to minus seventy-five degrees; and spittle crackles in the air. This sets the stage for a fatal
Each time the dog fell through, his instincts told him to stop and bite the ice from in between his paws. If he didn't they would be sore. Eventually the man walked in front and fell into a pool of water, which delayed him. He would have to stop and build a fire and wait for his feet and socks to dry off. This was still dangerous because that meant removing those articles, which would leave them exposed. His instinct told him to keep going and not stop to dry off. He decided to run the further distance hoping to increase circulation but failed. It had only wore him out and now his hands were beginning to freeze. Now it would be hard to light a fire because of the numbness in his hands. After he learned it was too late to build one he turned his thoughts towards the dog. If he killed it, he could place his hands into the core, which would defrost his hands. But the dog’s instinct told him not to go near the man, as he could be a target. Without feeling in his hands now he could not kill the dog either. He was beginning to accept his
The man learns his lesson the hard way.The man encountered many internal warnings that it was too cold to be outside. First, his nose and cheeks went numb. His face, feet, and hands followed. His beard and mustache grew icy from his breath.
But as aforementioned, the Man thinks almost nothing of the extreme temperature. Also, the man was given advice by an old-timer at Sulphur Creek, who warned him to never venture out in the Yukon when the temperature dropped below fifty degrees. Nevertheless, he goes anyways. A warning that should have shocked the Man back into reality is when he first fell into one of the many springs that never froze:
Although the circumstances nature thrust at the man were immortaly dangerous, the man’s deficit of imagination and negligence innately led to his death. Psycologically, the man was no match for the treacherous conditions around
It was a cold day, so cold that your arms start to sting as if a needle is impaling the surface of your skin. The wind applies a force which feels as if your face is oozing with thick crimson red blood. The gray puffy clouds covered the sky and dropped small snowflakes onto the road’s surface. A man stood there, freezing, clearing the coat of thick white snow from the concrete road. His nose runs with a river of snot that floods out when the cold wind strikes. His sense of smell is heavily clogged by the slimy snot, but he can still smell the scent of the steamy hot chocolate which sits on the top of his snow covered car. His feet start to numb because of the cold flood which soaks through his boots to his white, silky socks. His feet feel as if he stepped into the freezing cold ocean. As if he fell through ice and he was stuck standing there. The vast pile of the ice white snow feels almost like a quicksand around his black rubber boot. Foggy figures of people shovel the big piles of snow off the sidewalks. They scrape and pick at the glossy white ice which sticks to the sidewalk like a little boy clinging to his mother's side. His feet still sting as if he was stepping on pins and needles. His hands are damp with sweat from grasping the curved metal shaft attached to a socket which holds the blade. The blade cuts holes into the thick powdered snow which is removed from the endless pile. The jet black shovel is filled with slushy snow and crystal shards of ice. The end of
These types of tinder were perfect for constructing a fire, which was necessary for the man 's survival. On the other side, "man's frailty" and his ability "only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold" were both put to the test as nature tormented the man as he made his journey across the Yukon (London 118). It is this kind of action, which makes the setting an adversary and a companion for the protagonist of the story.