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". As the plot unfolds, I feel the story's protagonist falls victim to several factors brought into play at once: his inexperience with the severity of the Klondike winters, his inability to envision the possible consequences of his decision to travel alone in such weather, a series of unfortunate events during his trip, and the misjudgment exercised in his attempts to survive those incidents. Though quick and alert, the man's lack of imagination renders him unable to visualize what might happen to a man traveling without a companion should adverse circumstances arise in such severe weather in an uninhabited landscape. When he indeed finds himself in dire straits as a result of getting wet in the brutal freezing weather, he once again fails to imagine how quickly the cold will threaten his life and consequently misjudges the severity of his situation. His poor judgment causes him to make one mistake after another until he finds himself incapable of extricating himself from his situation. It seems obvious that had he made himself more familiar with the culture of the land and paid attention to the warnings of the old-timer on Sulpher Creek, he might have chosen to delay his trip and live to travel another day. Had he understood the importance of fostering a relationship with the dog, a native Husky with inbred instincts regarding the native climate, the dog would have interacted differently with him, maybe warning him of the danger of the weather through its actions or perhaps providing help, either by sharing its body heat or by going for help. However, instead he held little regard for the dog and the dog reciprocated: "there was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man.
Elwood, J. (2006). Formative assessment: possibilities, boundaries and limitations. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 215-232, doi:10.1080/09695940600708653
He is very unprepared because he doesn’t have enough equipment to finish his trip because it’s too cold. The traveler does not have proper clothing to keep him warm in the cold weather. ”The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a fine powder of frost, and especially were its jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes whitened
Stiggins, R. J. (2006, November/December). Assessment for learning: A key to motivation and achievement. Edge, 2, 3-19.
Naturalism portrays humans' control over their actions and fate as limited and determined by the natural world, including their very humanity. The freedom described by Jean-Paul Sartre results in all individuals having the ability to make present choices independently. Despite the fatalism illustrated in naturalism, the characters in London's 'To Build a Fire' and Crane's 'The Open Boat' are ultimately responsible for their choices and consequences of their choices.
In the late 1800’s there was a bad financial crises, this lead to Jack London at one point not having too much money. London was born in 1876 in the city of San Francisco, California. Jack was focused on writing stories about the wild and the forces of nature, in the story “To Build a Fire”, it’s all about surviving the cold. In all the work is a great story about how human beings are at their knees when it comes to the elements. Jack London best exemplifies naturalism through his use of nature and how it is superior and showing how humans can’t fight it in “To Build a Fire.”
Providing the separation between survival and death. setting was the most important factor in "Building a Fire" by Jack London. Works Cited and Consulted Hendricks, King. Jack London: Master Craftsman of the Short Story. Logan: Utah State U P. 1966.
On page 6 in the 1st paragraph it also stated “The old-timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below.” This shows that the man was given advice by the old-timer to never travel alone in the Klondike when the temperature is below -50°C. The man was well aware of how low the temperature was. However, the man still disregarded the advice given by the old-timer and went on a journey alone.
The fourth resource in the category of formative assessment was a book written by Connie Moss and Susan M. Brookhart titled, Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom published in 2009. This text focused specifically on classroom lead practices aimed at building strategies to improve the formative assessment process. Like many other collected sources, this book stresses the idea that formative assessment improves student achievement and raises teacher quality as well. Besides explaining the formative assessment
After viewing the panel discussion about how our local school districts have implemented English Language Learning in their school, I am very intrigued. From what I gathered the field of ELL is a growing industry in education, especially in Colorado Springs. We have ELL’s students coming from all over the world. Here in Colorado Springs alone, school districts have to accommodate for over fifty different languages spoken by ELL’s. I can only imagine the challenge that comes with such a diverse group of non- English speakers in our community schools.
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).
Overtime, the ELL population of students has been overlooked and have not been given the amount of help they have needed to be able to become successful in the United States. Literacy is not the only thing ELLs have to deal with, but also assimilating to the American culture and just trying to survive economically. According to the NEA (2008), “two-thirds come from low-income families and three out of four ELLs are Spanish-speaking” (para. 3). Many immigrant families come to America to have a better life, but many end up struggling even more because of the lack of financial support and their language barrier. By sending their children to American schools and having them in English Learning programs, parents hope their children will have a better
Assessments have always been a tool for teachers to assess mastery and for a long time it was just to provide a grade and enter it into the grade book or report card. Through resources in and out of the course, there has been a breath of new life into the research on how to use assessments. They take many forms and fall within the summative or formative assessment category. Sloan (2016) addresses how formative assessments has traditionally been used by teachers to modify instruction, but when we focus on a classroom that is learner-centered “it becomes assessment for learning as opposed to assessment of learning” (slide 4). The fact is, the students are the ones that should be and are the ones using the data we collect through assessments, since it is our way of providing feedback in order
In conclusion the story is about a man’s struggle to make it in 75 below temp and making a fire is the only way for him to survive. London shows the theme of ruggedness by how the man seems to have no fear of a temperature of fifty below zero. The story teaches the readers that even though we may want to travel alone in the outdoors, we should always travel with some friends or stay within our limits. The man in the story is making a nine-hour trek across the frozen Yukon with only his dog in the biting cold, but after many calamities he freezes to death. He knew he was going to die if he didn’t get warm soon enough, but the cold got the best of him by freezing his arms.
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.
For more than 20 years, formative assessment has been highly researched and even accredited as a critical part of a teacher’s pedagogy. In the last decade it (formative assessment has become something of a buzzword and in some cases a mandate in k-12 schools across the country. Formative assessment can be defined as a part of the instructional process intended to gather information and provide feedback for both students and teachers that allow for needed