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Essay on "To Build a Fire" by Jack London
Essay on "To Build a Fire" by Jack London
Essay on "To Build a Fire" by Jack London
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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.
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. Jack London brings man versus nature discussion into his story. The environment, however doesn't play against him for say, but does warn him from the very beginning. The audience can conclude that just like “the man” everyone is alone in the world - fighting for ourselves and the things we wish to acquire. The character created by London is isolated from the universe and fooli...
They say to “always be prepared for unexpected situations,” this represents the man in the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. The man is unprepared because he does not
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
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.
London, Jack. "To Build a Fire, by Jack London." The World of Jack London 2012®. Web. 02
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."
...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.
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.”
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.
In his report, “Keeping His Head”: Repetition and Responsibility in London’s “To Build a Fire,” Lee Clark Mitchell shares that most naturalist aficionado quiver at the style. This is in part because the enthusiasts thought London’s plot was “childish” and speed was sluggish (76). Mitchell suggests that these readers are ignoring the style and viewing it as irrelevant but he believes the style should be paid attention to because London does not write in the standard naturalist way. He finds London's style rather “compelling” and “curious” and believes other will too if repetition and tenses are accounted for (80, 78).
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.
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".
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.
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.
Jack London starts early in the story to set a foreboding feeling: "Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little traveled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland." (London) It is this feeling of doom and gloom that accompanies us throughout the reading of the story, and also is typical of the wonderful language of the story. With this London is foreshadowing the ending of the story where the man dies, a victim of his own pride and stupidity. Also creating the dark and dreary theme is London's "ability to create a gripping narrative based on realistic detail and on a sense of atmospheric gloom reminiscent on the work of Edgar Allan Poe." (Hogge) The manner in which London tells his story is what makes the story great.
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.