To Build A Fire Figurative Language

607 Words2 Pages

After a long, hard fight with the unforgiving cold, the stubborn, unnamed protagonist of Jack London’s To Build a Fire succumbs to his, arguably avoidable, frigid death, something that the author elaborates on with the protagonist’s deepest, darkest thoughts. By masterfully utilizing literary terms and diction, London creates a quote that’s subtly laced with the overall story’s theme and importance. London uses many literary terms in this block quote, like personification. The protagonist in the story, who stays unnamed throughout the entirety of the text, is yielding to death in the quote chosen. Direct quotes from the block quote, like “[the cold] was creeping into his body from all sides,” describe how the bitter cold affects the novice hiker. With that direct quote, London utilizes personification to tell the readers how the cold is getting to him. Another direct quote, “with this newfound peace of mind came the first glimmerings of drowsiness,” also uses personification to describe to us that the …show more content…

In the direct quote “it was his last panic,” London uses the word panic instead of a word like effort, fight, or words like that. Using panic instead of the other words shows just how frightened the man is of death. He does not want to die, and instead, he fights and struggles to stay alive by fleeing to his best ability. In the quote “it was like taking an anesthetic,” he uses anesthetic to almost compare his hypothermic coma to slipping under the effects of the drug. It shows that the man has given up at this point, and finds no reason why he should fight it. Describing the man at Sulphur Creek as an ‘old timer’ instead of old man, elder, or words alike that tells us that the older man had been there for a long time and most likely knew more than the novice hiker, which he did. Diction is always a crucial part in any text, and London chooses words

Show More
Related

  • Fire Metaphors In Fahrenheit 451

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book “Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury, is about a man, Guy Montag, who has a job burning books. When he realizes how twisted the world he lives in is, he tries to change it, although he doesn’t really succeed. In the novel, the author uses the metaphor of fire to make the narrative more interesting. When the author uses a fire metaphor, it often seems very exciting and dramatic. Additionally, they are used to show emotion. The metaphors also make the novel feel more violent.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Mccandless And To Build A Fire

    1560 Words  | 4 Pages

    Christopher McCandless had always admired the works of Jack London. He even went as far as naming Jack London “king”. McCandless relished the naturalisitc elements of London’s writings, elements that he chose to ignore in his own life. Jack London often depicted men as being controlled by their environment and being unable to withstand any heavy circumstances. He depicted themes about the frailty of man and man’s inability to overcome nature. But McCandless clearly did not take away any of the valuable lessons from these stories. He hailed London as “king” but never truly learned from London’s stories, dying in a tragically ironic way when he came to meet the same fate as the protagonist in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”. Christopher McCandless

    Read More

  • Figurative Language In The Song Firework

    391 Words  | 1 Pages

    Figurative language can be found all around us including music. The famous line “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind wanting to start again?” is a figurative language in the song Firework by Katy Perry. This simile was used to compare a real life emotion, how people can feel so worthless and insignificant like a plastic bag at times. Sometimes you just feel so worthless and insignificant in life, you just want to start all over again. You feel the need to start a new life and move away from people, and places you currently know. Your life starts to feel like a waste, like a plastic bag so insignificant and worthless. You start think that you don’t belong in the life you live in. But like Katy Perry says, “You don’t

    Read More

  • Comparing the Two Versions of To Build a Fire

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    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."

    Read More

  • Jack London’s Use of Repetition in “To Build a Fire”

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Stephen Crane's The Open Boat and Jack London's To Build A Fire

    2312 Words  | 5 Pages

    Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Open Boat” speaks directly to Jack London’s own story, “To Build A Fire” in their applications of naturalism and views on humanity. Both writers are pessimistic in their views of humanity and are acutely aware of the natural world. The representations of their characters show humans who believe that they are strong and can ably survive, but these characters many times overestimate themselves which can lead to an understanding of their own mortality as they face down death.

    Read More

  • To Build A Fire: Naturalism

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    “To Build A Fire” is a clear example of naturalism and follows many of its conventions. Some of the characteristics of naturalism are being conditioned or controlled by the environment, having the world understood only through objective science, conflicts which bring out the instincts of man, pessimism, and presenting a viewpoint which is detached from the reader.

    Read More

  • To Build A Fire By Jack London

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Naturalism In The Open Boat And To Build A Fire

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • Conflicts of "To Build a Fire" by Jack London

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    The great and disastrous impact of nature against man proves to play a central role as an external conflict in London's short story. The extreme cold and immense amount of snow has a powerful and dangerous hold against the man. The numbing cold proved so chilling that the man could not even spit without the spit freezing. “He knew that at fifty below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air."(604). That deadly force of nature goes on to further challenge the man, preventing him from continuing his goal. "At a place where there were no signs, where the soft unbroken snow seemed to advertise solidity beneath, the man broke through."(608). At this point in the story, nature overtakes the man, a conflict that directly stops him from achieving his goal, establishing nature as an external conflict providing the man with a struggle.

    Read More

  • The Role of Setting in To Build a Fire by Jack London

    577 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jack London creates a setting that is hostile and “cold”. The story is set in the wilderness of the frozen Yukon, during the harsh winter months, when “there was no sun nor hint of sun” in the sky. The character that London introduces is isolated from the world. “The man” doesn't have a companion; only the dog that follows him.

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Jack London's To Build a Fire

    474 Words  | 1 Pages

    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".

    Read More

  • Jack London's Impact in the Writing World

    1427 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.”

    Read More

  • Martin Eden by Jack London

    839 Words  | 2 Pages

    Finally the novel is considered to be London’s autobiography this is because it is a narration of his own life by his own self in the person of Martin Eden it should therefore not be confused for a biography. Jack London successfully expresses his sentiments to the wider scope of parties interested he notes and emphatically asserts that great writers get to the brim of their career and for this to be sure, they must resort to the same spirit as him.

    Read More

  • A Critique of Jack London's To Build a Fire

    513 Words  | 2 Pages

    Karen Rhodes analyzed to build a fire in a cultural context. He believed "London's works were written so that he could survive in a world he increasingly came to see as "red in tooth and claw""(1). It is obviously the story of a man fighting the stresses of Nature. According to Rhodes, to build a fire was drawn from the year London spent in Canada's Yukon Territory. London depicted arctic and very cold conditions throughout the story. Rhodes believed to build a fire represented London's Naturalistic Flavor. "It pits one man alone against the overwhelming forces of nature"(Karen Rhodes, 1). He also believed to build a fire can either be interpreted as the Pioneer American experience or can be read as an allegory for the journey of human existence (Karen Rhodes, 1). According to Rhodes, there are two versions of to build a fire; the first one was written in 1902 while the second one was written in 1908. We are studying the 1908 version." It has come to be known as everyman trekking through the Naturalistic Universe"(Karen Rhodes, 1). To build a fire is indeed the story of a man trekking through the universe alone except for his dog. The man's death at the end was the culmination of the story. " His death came through no lapse of observation, no lack of diligence, no real folly but the nature of himself and his environment" (Karen Rhodes, 2). I think his is a fine criticism of London's to build a fire. London had made use of his life experiences in writing the story.

    Read More

More about To Build A Fire Figurative Language

Open Document