I would not be as crazy as this guy trotting around in the frigid weather. No way that is not for me. This man he goes unnamed in this passage goes walking by the Yukon River around in there searching for this camp or whatever and he comes upon this dog and he saves the dog and they both almost die and then the story ends. I think it is strange how in this story we only meet one person and a dog and the author keeps the details about these characters very open. 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 stories 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. “The dead fingers could neither touch nor clutch. He was very careful…. After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch between the heels of his mittened hands. In this fashion he carried it to his mouth.” There were a lot of things that the weather involving kept him from getting to the camp easily and that was when he fell into the river he could have had the attitude I am just going to die anyway so what is the point nope he tried hard and kept going anyway. I think the man showed a lot of perseve...
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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. I think there was a lot of perseverance that went on throughout this story. If you think about it what would you have done if you were in his shoes? I would not have been that brave I would have been freaking out and so scared I wouldn’t have a clue what to do. This guy in the story was not that smart, but at least he stuck to what he wanted to do and he did it even if he didn’t succeed. I would not even want to be out there in that negative 75 degree weather in the first place much less walking around doing things and falling into rivers I would rather stay where I know it is safe and warm.
According to Hunter Thompson, “Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.” In “To Build a Fire,” by Jack London, the man was clumsy and fell to the side of disaster. According to the tips in “Deep Survival,” by Laurence Gonzales, there are many steps the man could have taken that would have given him a better shot at surviving. For example, the man may have survived if he would have taken correct, decisive action, if he would have stayed calm, and if he would have surrendered. Each time that he failed to complete these actions, it was like the wind blew and pushed him closer to his final disaster.
...s and explications focus on the setting of the narrative and its graphic description, but few point out the undeniable change that takes place within the man as he attempts to ward off death. London incredibly sets up this realization as he builds the man to be overconfident, yet green to the Yukon. Tragedy is unavoidable for the man, it is how he reacts and deals with struggles of his journey that define his character and ultimately allow him to prevail with dignity. Though this change is short-lived in the story, the man dies almost instantaneously as the revelation is made, I am certain that the man would have a greater appreciation and sense of significance for his delicate life had he miraculously survived.
Both stories deal with aspects of external forces controlling and shaping the characters of the story. However, in “How to Build a Fire”, the main character struggles with a cold harsh winter in Alaska with temperatures of seventy-five degrees below zero. He must build a fire to keep warm and use his knowledge of the dangers in the snow and ice to keep him alive. Unfortunately, nature is a harsh mistress to overcome. The man later died due to the over powering force of nature, “Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death
Jack London had already established himself as a popular writer when his story "To Build a Fire" appeared in the Century Magazine in 1908. This tale of an unnamed man's disastrous trek across the Yukon Territory near Alaska was well received at the time by readers and literary critics alike. While other works by London have since been faulted as overly sensational or hastily written, "To Build a Fire" is still regarded by many as an American classic. London based the story on his own travels across the harsh, frozen terrain of Alaska and Canada in 1897-98 during the Klondike gold rush; he is also said to have relied on information from a book by Jeremiah Lynch entitled Three Years in the Klondike. Critics have praised London's story for its vivid evocation of the Klondike territory. In particular, they focus on the way in which London uses repetition and precise description to emphasize the brutal coldness and unforgiving landscape of the Northland, against which the inexperienced protagonist, accompanied only by a dog, struggles unsuccessfully to save himself from freezing to death after a series of mishaps. Involving such themes as fear, death, and the individual versus nature, "To Build a Fire" has been categorized as a naturalistic work of fiction in which London depicts human beings as subject to the laws of nature and controlled by their environment and their physical makeup. With its short, matter-of-fact sentences, "To Build a Fire" is representative of London's best work, which influenced such later writers as Ernest Hemingway.
In response to the romantic period (1798-1870), authors began to focus their writing on ordinary people and their everyday lives rather than the supernatural, nationalism, heroism, and strange and faraway places, themes characteristic of romantic literature. In the story “To Build a Fire” shows what a realism story looks like. Everything about it is based on real events that can happen, is realistic. Whatever happens to the man, you can relate to because you know how cold it can get and maybe you also can relate how hard it is to build a fire. A lot of people, like the man in the story, sometimes arent as bright in the head and can be the cause of their own problem. In the story there is a part where the man fails to kill the dog because his hands are frozen, shows how a lot of times you cant accomplish something, you fail. Instead of a happy ending and expecting for the man to find his way back to camp, he does not, he dies, adds that very realistic event that would of happened to many other people and the story has a bad ending
Jack London has written a classic short story in the 1908 version of "To Build a Fire." This is the classic story of man fighting nature. In most genres (e.g. movies, novels, short stories) the main character comes out on top, however unlikely that is. Jack London takes literary naturalism and shows the reader how unmerciful nature is. Much like Stephen Crane in "The Open Boat," in which the one of the characters dies, London doesn't buy into that "has to have a good ending" contrivance. Through analysis of two London's letters (to R.W. Gilder and Cloudesly Johns) these two versions of "To Build a Fire" come alive with new meaning. Although there are many differences on the surface, both stories use his philosophy as expressed to Johns and both teach a moral lesson, one which will not soon be forgotten: "Never travel alone."
Jack London’s To Build a Fire follows an unnamed protagonist, who’s only referred to as “the man”, as he travels the Yukon Trail during a severe snow storm. Along with his husky wolf-dog, he determined to meet friends at an old junction by six o’clock. The man, who was warned not travel in the Klondike alone, presses forward through the terrain’s harsh weather. He later falls through the snow in what looked to be a secure spot. With his feet and fingers soaked, he starts a fire and begins drying himself. The man constructs the fire under a spruce tree in order to take its twigs and drop them directly onto the fire. Each time he pulled a twig a branch overturned its load of snow, eventually blotting out the fire. He grabs all his matches and lights them simultaneously to set fire to a piece of bark; it soon goes out. The man decides to kill the dog and use its warm body to restore his circulation, but is unable to kill the animal and lets the dog go. The man attempts to run from the thought of freezing to death but he quickly falls down. He decides he should meet death in a more dignified manner; the man falls off into a calm sleep.
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).
To Build a Fire is a remarkable account of one man’s finish line. In it this story holds quite a few rather important morals. There is as well a very important theme. The theme most referred to is that of the power of nature. The force that it can display on earth is immense and cannot be duplicated or overpowered by humans. However one man decided he would be the one prove this axiom wrong. One man became totally confident that he can and will withstand the awesome mighty strength of nature.
In “To Build A Fire”, the main conflict throughout is man versus nature although it would be inaccurate to say that nature goes out of its way to assault the man. The fact of the matter is, nature would be just as cold without the man's presence regardless of him being there .The environment as a whole is completely indifferent to the man, as it frequently is in naturalist literature. The bitter environment does not aid him in any way, and it will not notice if he perishes. In the same way, the dog does not care about the man, only about itself. Ironically enough though, as the man was dying he was getting upset toward the dog because of its natural warmth, the instincts that it had, and its survival skills and those were the elements that the man lacked for survival. It is ironic that the man had to die in order to find out that man's fragile body cannot survive in nature's harsh elements, regardless of a human’s natural over-confidence and psychological strength.
...ezing, cold weather. The two types of conflict in “The Open Boat” and “To Build a Fire” are: man vs. self and man v. nature which are common in naturalism literature. London uses naturalism to show how harsh and indifferent nature really is and how no matter what, nature will always be there. He furthermore presented the basic idea of Darwinism and the survival of the fittest, ultimately if you are not the strongest you will not survive. London showed us that we only can depend on ourselves to survive in this world or in the Yukon of Alaska. "To Build a Fire" illustrates that the closer to death the character comes, the plot declines. As the story advances, the man's ambitions go from making it to camp, to staying warm, to just simply surviving. When reading, you can sense the lack of effort on the man's part, only brings him closer to a freezing, unavoidable death.
The external conflict of man against nature and the internal conflict of man against himself play a huge role in the whole story, leading to the fateful outcome of the man. The man fell victim to the struggles the conflicts presented, majorly impacting the story. "To Build a Fire" encompasses the idea of man becoming his own enemy and people remaining insignificant to forces of natures. The conflicts presented in the story embody the aspect of nature as an unstoppable, unpredictable, and powerful force that easily overtakes man. That thought shows how one man has little effect on nature, and in the end, does the most harm by subjecting oneself to nature's fury. The story, "To Build a Fire" by Jack London truly shows how weak an unprepared person compares to the unruly forces of nature.
An Analysis of Jack London's To Build a Fire. In her cultural criticism of Jack London's "To Build a Fire", Jill Widdicombe explores the question of whether the story's protagonist might have perished from the extreme cold of the Klondike winter even if with a traveling companion. She describes the brutality of the winter weather and, alluding to the man's confidence in his ability to survive the weather, describes it as "behavior most of us can understand" - especially if we are accustomed to warmer surroundings. She states: "the extreme cold of frosty landscapes--or "The White Silence", as London describes it--is so quiet and abstract that it does not immediately appear to be lethal".
In conclusion, the man thought he could travel the Yukon on his own even after the old man told him that it was not a good idea. He went through many obstacles, and the dog kept giving him warnings but the man’s ignorance and overconfidence got the best of him. London’s use of imagery, irony, and the relationship between the man and the dog helped the reader foreshadow the man’s death.
I agree with Karen Rhodes observation that to build afirecan be interpreted as the story of a man in the journey of human existence. However, I think her view of to build a fire as an American experience comes from the fact that she is an American. I agree with her theory that the Man's death in the end was due to the nature of the man and his environment. The protagonist in to build a fire did nor have any grasp of the danger he was in. he tried to reason himself through it all. He thought, " Maybe, if he ran on, his feet will thaw out; and anyway if he ran far enough, he would reach camp and the boys. (Jack London, 157).