Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The call of the wild essay
The call of the wild essay
The call of the wild essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The call of the wild essay
Critical Response: Jack London
Jack London, a well known American author, has written a fair share of truly classic works. The Call of the Wild and White Fang are staples of middle and high school reading requirements. His other novels, such as The People of the Abyss and Sea Wolf are not as well known, but are still regarded as brilliant pieces of literature by many scholars. Lesser known are his many volumes of short stories; "To Build a Fire" being the most popular. I cannot say that I have read even a small percentage of London's works, but from what I have read, I noticed some recurring similarities.
During the semester in class, we have learned how authors utilize various elements of writing to make their point more prominent. For Jack London's earlier works, his Yukon setting and rugged, adventurous characters appear quite frequently. Such is the case with the three stories I chose to study; "Love of Life," "The League of the Old Men," and "To Build a Fire." Along with this, I believe that the theme of survival appears in these three, as well as many other stories from London. I took it upon myself to try and find out why London used survival as his main theme. To demonstrate this recurring theme, I will give a brief synopsis of the three stories.
"To Build a Fire" is a story about a man who is traveling alone in the frozen Yukon. He knows that it is not safe to be traveling when it is so cold, but stubbornly keeps moving. He falls through a crack in the ice, wetting his feet. In order to stay alive, he must build a fire, warm his feet and move on. Despite several attempts, the man fails and dies. Of the fourteen pages within "To Build a Fire," eight of those are devoted to the events of the man trying to make a fire; the other six mainly focus on the setting. The man's determination to build the fire is evident-a simple annoyance at the beginning leads to a frantic demise at the end. The plot was as simple as one man's attempt to survive against nature.
Cornforth, Tracee. Is Weight Loss Surgery the Easy Way to Lose Weight? About.com: Women's Health, 24 Nov. 2009. Web. 26 July 2010. .
Famous for being an influential, key author in American literature, Jack London’s literary works resemble an accurate depiction of the rigid setting and reality of nature that reflects his own adventures in the Yukon. Because of his naturalistic ideals, the audience is able to examine the beliefs of Darwin and how it plays an important role in survival. Thus, London takes another step into the genre of adventure stories that drive him toward his ultimate success.
There are a number of different weight loss methods you could try, but if they 're all fundamentally the same and your results are never favorable, it 's important to look at the plans you 're employing.
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."
During the March 1986 edition of the Journal of Modern Literature, Lee Clark Mitchell of Princeton University opens his article “‘Keeping His Head’: Repetition and Responsibility in London’s ‘To Build a Fire’” by critiquing naturalism’s style of storytelling. Mitchell claims naturalism as a slow, dull, and plain way of capturing an audience; and Jack London is the epitome of this description. Mitchell states, “[London’s] very methods of composition prompt a certain skepticism; the speed with which he wrote, his suspiciously childish plots…have all convinced readers to ignore the technical aspects of h...
"To Build a Fire Characters." Study Guides & Essay Editing. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. .
All children learn differently and teachers, especially those who teach mathematics, have to accommodate for all children’s different capacities for learning information. When teaching mathematics, a teacher has to be able to use various methods of presenting the information in order to help the students understand the concepts they are being taught.
When Jack London wrote "To Build a Fire" he embraced the idea of naturalism because it mirrored the events of daily life. Naturalism showed how humans had to be wary at every corner because at anytime death could be there, waiting for them to make a mistake and forfeit their lives. He used naturalism, the most realistic literary movement, to show how violent and uncaring nature really is and how no matter what you do nature will always be there. London also presented the basic idea of Darwinism and the survival of the fittest, basically if you are dumb you will die. Collectively, London used naturalism to show how in life, humans can depend on nothing but themselves to survive. "To Build a Fire" is a short story that embodies the idea of naturalism and how, if one is not careful, nature will gain the upper hand and they will perish.
Reys, R., Lindquist, M., Lambdin, D., Smith, N., & Suydam, M. (2001). Helping children learn mathematics. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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.
Losing weight and maintaining a diet program can be a tedious task since not everyone leans to food restrictions. Everyone wants to eat what they want but without responsibility and discipline, weight loss can be arduous. In fact, the reason why most people gain weight is due to the fact that they don’t consider what they eat or what the nutritional facts of the food they consume are. This is the habit that health experts want to change. People need to start living healthy and doing so needs discipline. There are a number of diet program as well as exercise methods that will aid you in losing weight; you just need to find the right mix/combination to help you with your goal.
The short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London is a comprehensive story that tackles the struggles of a newcomer trying to survive a day in the Yukon with very harsh and cold weather. The man travels with a big native husky and tries many times to build a fire but fails due to his inadequate personality. The man repeatedly lets his ignorance and arrogance dictate his decisions which soon leads to his demise. The theme of the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London is that being ignorant, arrogant and foolish can lead to bad decisions.
Jack London was an American man of many talents, which included being an author, journalist and a social activist, despite being minimally educated. Nonetheless, he was undoubtedly most recognized for his short stories and novels that fixated on the harsh, cold climates that Mother Nature crafted. London focused on a deeper level of the wild and the literary devices in his work are littered throughout every one of his novels and short stories, including The Call of the Wild, White Fang, as well as “To Build a Fire.”
Jack London’s message in the writing “To Build a Fire” is to never underestimate the power of nature and following Experience would actually show someone that instincts should be trusted over ego and pride. London is known for being a Naturalist, naturalists are people that practice nature in literature or writings, naturalists believed that one’s surviving methods highly involve using one 's instinct. London’s “cautionary realist/ naturalist” text in the story “to build a fire” advices methods on the survivals of nature 's forces, this is a highly appropriate advice considering our struggle against disastrous natural phenomena such as global warming, tsunamis, floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and other geologic processes.
Being that the subject of mathematics is so complicated it takes an efficient teacher to be able to successfully teach students the correct steps in solving mathematical equations. Teaching math cannot be done successfully by reading some vocabulary words, filling in the blanks on a worksheet, and then taking a quiz, mathematics needs to be taught in ways were students get to explore problems and follow the necessary steps to solve the problem. Most importantly students need practice in math and that can be done in many different ways. Many teachers today think and teach the same way to all of their students, ignoring their individual ways of learning. “Teachers need to employ strategies that will help them develop the participation essential to engaging students in mathematics.” (National). It is also a proven fact that students tend to learn more and have higher participation when they work in groups. Effective teachers in the classroom will provide students with opportunities to work independently and collaboratively to make sense of the math curriculum in which they are learning. (Anthony & Walshaw, 2012). By working in groups students can ask questions to their peers as the arise and the students take more responsibility in t...