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To build a fire essay
To a build fire essay
Setting is the main character in building a fire
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Setting In to Build a Fire Two comrades go on an adventure into a extremely cold environment. Will they survive? The short story is “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. The book is about a man and a dog that attempts to cross the Yukon Territory with little equipment. In “To Build a Fire” the setting supports the character, plot, and theme. One of the first ways setting has an impact on “To Build a Fire” involves the characters. In the story the man underestimated the amount of supplies he needed for the trip, and he ended up regretted his decisions. The man has the biggest impact of the setting. He didn't expect it to be that cold and get colder (5). This show how the temperatures were rapidly increasing. During the story his limbs were starting to get lose circulation(4).The setting was killing him over time. The setting forced him to attempt killing the dog to survive. The dog is the one who helped him not step in ice water.As a result the dogs got its paws stuck in the ice water(2). The old man in the story added on to how serious the cold was by saying you will not survive alone.What the old man told him is all the man knew(4). The point …show more content…
In “To Build a Fire” a bold man ignores a warning from an old man and goes into an extremely cold area. He has to face a bunch of challenges. He has to deal with the cold the whole story. The cold atmosphere numbs his fingers and toes,which prevents him from using them properly(4). Then he used the dog to check if there was ice water. There was ice water so he had to lick the ice off of the dogs toes so he would not die(4). He had to build 2 fires,but on the second fire snow fell on it and put the fire out(6). This caused him to lose the ability to bend his fingers,because he needed the fire to thaw his hands out. As a result this made him run in panic hoping to find a camp that would save him. Eventually he gave up and remembered the old mans words. Then he laid there in the
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. Immediate, acting solely of instinct, the dog begins to chew the ice off of his feet. Further down the trail a similar incident happens, but this time the man falls into the spring. In order to keep his feet from freezing he has to build a fire. The first attempt to build a fire is flawed by the location the man chose under a tree. After the man is unable to light a second fire because of the loss of dexterity in his fingers, he becomes panicked and blindly runs, until totally exhausted, and dies. Throughout the story the mood gives the impression of extreme cold, and the tone is ironic. Through the actions of the main character, Jack London shows that man must be humble to nature.
In “To Build a Fire” it shows how not to survive and to lead to one’s demise. One example of this is that the man is very ignorant to his surroundings and how they can contribute to his survival or demise. The man doesn’t think of his physical injuries and their importance. To survive you need to go through pain by taking precautions to save one, but the man did not do this. It says in the text, “What were frosted cheeks? A bit painful, that was all; they were never serious.”(London 23). This quote shows how the man is not aware of the seriousness of his frosted cheeks. Ignorance of his frosted cheeks later contributes to his demise later in the story. This tells that to survive you have to be aware and alert of everything, so “To Build a Fire” shows lack of physical survival because the man is tr...
...the story when nature ends up killing the man. This is why setting is very important in this story, because it shows how powerful nature it and this is why I think that it is a main message that readers will derive from it. In To Build A Fire a message that comes from the characteristics of the characters is be humble. Being humble is something that is hard to do because humans like to think that they know everything and that they are going to be able to control their futures, but when they are prideful they doom themselves in the end. The final message from London’s story comes from the plot and it is to stay calm in the face of danger. He does not allow this danger to cause him to react dramatically and die because he stayed with his owner in the snow. Staying calm in the face of danger was shown through the action of each character in the story which is the plot.
When the narrator introduced the main character of the story, the man, he made it clear that the man was in a perilous situation involving the elements. The man was faced with weather that was 75 degrees below zero and he was not physically or mentally prepared for survival. London wrote that the cold "did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold."(p.1745) At first when the man started his journey to the camp, he felt certain that he could make it back to camp before dinner. As the trip progressed, the man made mistake after mistake that sealed his fate. The man's first mistake was to step into a pool of water and soak his legs to the knees. This blunder forced the man to build a fire to dry his wet socks and shoes so his feet would not freeze and become frostbitten. When the man began to build a fire he failed to notice that he was doing so under a large, snow laden spruce tree where he was getting his firewood. When the man had a small fire that was beginning to smolder the disturbance to the tree caused the snow to tumble to the ground and extinguish the fire. "It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open."(1750).
Also, the setting in this story does not have many details at all. I think the main message in To Build a Fire written by Jack London is perseverance in the characters, for the man to keep going in the freezing weather, the dog to not curl up and die and the man he tried so hard to make it to the camp and at least tried to get there. In To Build a Fire by Jack London, the main character in the story showed a lot of perseverance to not give up in the cold weather and even how freezing he was. There were a lot of times during the story he could have given up and stopped trying to get where he was going, but he didn’t. Like when his fingers were so cold that he couldn’t light a match, so he lit the whole book instead, that wasn’t the brightest idea, but at least he was trying.
According to GVSU, “‘reversal’…: occurs when a situation seems to developing in one direction, then suddenly ‘reverses’ to another”. This reversal is evident when the man is making his way over patches of ice for a while, then all of a sudden transitions (reverses) when he falls through the ice and gets his feet wet (London). According to GVSU, “‘recognition’…: a change from ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate”. This recognition is evident when the man recognizes how fast his hands and feet are freezing in the cold, and when he realizes that he should have brought a trail-mate once the snow puts out the fire he made to dry his feet (London). According to GVSU, “‘suffering’…: Also translated as ‘a calamity,’ the third element of plot is ‘a destructive or painful act’”. This suffering is evident when the man begins to freeze to death, and eventually hallucinates that he sees himself with his friends, walking towards his dying body, and after this he slowly freezes to death (London). This shows that the plot of To Build a Fire is similar to that of a complex plot of a Greek Tragedy, which again shows that To Build a Fire can be seen as a Greek Tragedy.
This is the man's first winter in the Yukon, and he is "green" to the land. Twelve inches of snow had fallen since the last tracks were made on the trail. Despite the warnings of the native of Sulfur Creek "that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below" (982), he travels only with his husky. He writes his own death sentence when he proudly refuses to take a friend. As he begins his attempt and is blind to the fact that no human could survive such a challenge "He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances" (977). He thought those old-
Somewhere past the midpoint of his trek the man breaks through the ice and his legs and feet become wet. Knowing he must dry his socks and boots or he will freeze to death he builds a fire. While attempting to light the fire he begins to realize just how cold it must be yet he attempts to rationalize the situation and stay focused.
“To Build a Fire”, a short story written by Jack London, is viewed as a masterpiece of naturalist fiction. “To Build a Fire” features a miner and his wolf-dog companion who are traveling in the Yukon Territory to meet fellow miners. The miner is the protagonist and the wolf-dog companion is the foil because the wolf-dog plays off of the traits of the protagonist. The central theme of “To Build a Fire” concerns the struggle of man versus nature. “To Build a Fire” tells of a man traveling in the extreme cold through the Yukon Territory. Before heading out on his journey, the man is warned not to travel alone in the extreme cold, but he travels any way. The man faces many hardships while on his journey. Despite his effort to stay warm and survive, the man freezes to death before he reaches his destination. The wolf-dog in the story studies the situation and knows that traveling is not a good idea. The wolf-dog stays with the miner until his death. Once the miner dies, the wolf-dog finishes his journey by heading off to the miners’ camp on his own. The most argued point of this short story is the reason for the protagonist’s death. Even though the miner in “To Build a Fire” eventually panics after being unable to start a fire, he struggles in the wilderness of the Yukon Territory and ultimately finds his death due to ignorance caused by a lack intuition and imagination.
Altho somewhat similar the two stories are very different in many ways. The first story is called “Mystery of Heroism” by Stephen Crane and the other one is “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. Both of the books are part of the short story genre and realism stories. The author's purpose for writing the “Mystery of Heroism” is to tell a story about a brave man who went to get water for a dying man. The purpose for writing “To Build a Fire” is to tell about a man and his dog and how he tried to fight the below freezing temperatures to stay alive. Both authors use realism because they want to tell real stories about people and how they had to overcome struggles in their lifetime. These two stories have similarities but they are way more different than anything else. One of the stories is about a man who has to overcome fear to get water for a man.
In “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, the setting plays a significant role throughout the entire story. The chosen setting by London creates a specific and idealistic mood for his depressing story. It forces, as well as prepares, it’s audience to what the story holds. The amount of constant detail the story holds allows the reader to anticipate the ending that is inevitable to happen.
The Importance of Setting in Jack London's To Build A Fire In "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, the setting plays a. significant role throughout the entire short story. Jack London uses techniques to establish the atmosphere of the story. By introducing his readers to the setting, prepares them for a tone that is. depressed and frightening. Isolated by an environment of frigid weather and doom, the author shows us how the main character of the story completely unaware of his surroundings.
The narrator describes the Yukon as “bleak,” “cold,” “gray” and as an “indescribable darkness” (London 64). The lack of sun is highlighted numerous times, and it is noted that “it had been days since he had seen the sun” (London 64). The narrator also expresses the barren and frigid temperatures that exist as the man sets off on his journey “the Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice” “as far as his eye could see, it was unbroken white” (London 65). The man’s spit freezes before it hits the ground (London 65) and the narrator states that it is “Fifty degrees below zero” (London 65). The man dismisses this life-threatening reality and considers it as “cold and uncomfortable, at that was all” (London 65). In the face of the overwhelming deadliness of the Yukon, the man “was not able to imagine” (London 65) that the effects of the winter could end his life. The man’s poor decisions stem from his underestimation of nature. He dismisses the frigid temperatures because to him they are nothing more than a numerical indicator of temperature and not a reality of the brutal environment that he is traveling through. The man further underestimates the risk that exists when he leaves the trail knowing that there are hidden dangers under the snow. He knew that Henderson Creek was just below the ice and snow but decided to
The setting that the man was in was cold. It was colder than 50 degrees below zero he should've never been out there in the first place. The old people of the village told the man that you don’t travel by yourself when it’s 50 degrees below zero. But the man didn’t listen and look where he is at now. I mean those people learned how to stay alive in the Yukon. Why couldn’t the man listens and understand that. They also said that you should always have a partner no matter what.
In the short story “To Build a Fire” written by Jack London, the story utilizes literary devices in order to establish the tone of the story. From the very beginning, the narrator who is a non-participant in the story slips several devices such as the setting and atmosphere, writing style, as well as figurative language. These various devices were used in order to help the reader understand the mood, which in turn would also help the reader understand the tone of the story. The story of a lone man walking in such harsh conditions who is attempting to survive, will enhance the mood and tone of the story to allow the reader to fully understand what happened. London was able to portray a good part of the tone by showing the setting of the story.