In "To Build a Fire," Jack London expresses his perspective of the multitude of greenhorns who flocked to the yukon in a rush for gold. It is evident that he believed that these newcomers were too inexperienced and blinded by gold fever to survive the trip. Like many of them, "the Man" is driven by his own foolish ego to act irrationally and to not follow wise advice. Though his consience continually nags at him, his ego-driven way of thought keeps pushing him blindly forward. The Man is not only representative of other fortune hunters like himself, but he also repersents every person on this planet. All of us, at some point in time, pushed our own consience aside and followed our own selfish ego.
The Man was a newcomer to the land, yet when he was offered advice on how to survive the harsh conditions of the Yukon, he just laughed at it:
It certainly was cold, was his thought. That man from Sulphur Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in the country. And he had laughed at him at the time! That showed that one must not be too sure of things.
This shows that he is driven by his ego, and like many other young men, he thinks that he is so much better than everybody else that he does not even listen to the advice of an old man who has proably been living in the Yukon longer than the Man has been alive.
Fifty degrees bleow zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the...
Although going up into the Alaskan bush alone is foolish, Chris is brave for doing it. He fought off the cold, walked miles a day, and even went days without food while snowed in a school bus. “McCandless had difficulty killing game, and the daily journal entries during his first week at the bus include ‘weakness,’ ‘snowed in,’ and ‘disaster.’ He saw but did not shoot a grizzly on May 2, shot at but missed some ducks on May 4, and finally killed and ate a spruce grouse on May 5. But he didn't kill any more game until May 9, when he bagged a single small squirrel, by which point he'd written ‘4th day famine’ in the journal.” (Krakauer 138). He is also brave when he is sick and knows he is going to die while stranded out in the middle of nowhere. “And then, on July 30, he made the mistake that pulled him down. His journal entry for that date reads, "Extremely weak. Fault of potato] seed. Much trouble just to stand up. Starving. Great jeopardy.’ McCandless had been digging and eating the root of the wild potato Hedysarum alpinum, a common area wildflower also known as
He ventures into merciless terrain of Alaska and unfortunately, as he was not adequately prepared for the life in
To start with, McCandless was not someone who gave up. Despite others trying to scare him out of continuing with his journey into the Alaskan wilderness, nothing deterred McCandless. He anxiously awaited to experience life off the land. The people McCandless encountered on his way to Alaska often commented on his determination. Jim Gallien, a man who drove McCandless into the Alaska interior, described McCandless as “real gung-ho”. McCandless's attempt to undertake such a risky endeavour is something to admire in itself. To travel two years, mostly on foot, is certainly not an easy task. However, McCandless still persevered through the hardships he faced throughout his journey. McCandles...
In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, he retells the story of a young man named Chris McCandless by putting together interviews, speaking with people who knew him, and using letters he writes to his companions. Chris McCandless also known as Alexander Supertramp is a bright young man and after graduating from Emory University with all honors, he abandons most of his possessions and travels around the west, making long lasting impact on whomever he meets. He then hitchhikes to Alaska where he is found dead. In chapter 14 and 15, both named “Stikine Ice Cap”, Jon Krakauer interrupts the boy's story and shares his anecdote of going to Alaska to climb a dangerous mountain called the Devils Thumb. Krakaure’s purpose is to refute the argument that McCandless is mentally ill because many others, like Krakauer have tried to “go into the wild” but they are lucky to survive unlike McCandless. While describing his climb, Krakauer exhibits through the descriptions of and uncertainty about personal relationships.
seem to be lacking common sense and was also unprepared for the wild. He made friends very
In the course of human history, man has managed to do some really dumb things. Whether it’s because we lack sufficient knowledge, make a mistake, or are just too stubborn to use sound judgement, dumb decisions are made every day by everyone. However, none have a greater level of stupidity than the choices made by the man in Jack London’s To Build a Fire. This is a story of pride, ignorance, and stupidity, which ultimately leads to the downfall of its main character. This short story is a caution against over confidence and unpreparedness, showing the harsh effects of both. Ultimately, it is an issue of man’s pride versus the harsh conditions of nature. It shows that one cannot simply overlook nature, because doing so can lead to the destruction
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
Chris McCandless was a graduate from college whose dream was to go into the Alaskan wilderness and live there to get an overall experience of living off the land. McCandless wanted to experience how to hunt and gather everything that he needed to live in the Alaskan Wilderness. However was it a good idea when Mccandless went into the wild. Many people on his adventure tried to help him by giving him some equipment or buy him some because he wasn't prepared for his adventure. After McCandless’s death to this date people would say that McCandless is an idiot or stupid for not being prepared for the Alaskan wilderness.
On Christmas day as they were traveling through the Dawson trail in the Arctic, Cap mentioned the cold. He says that sometimes it was so cold that your lashes froze. Cap describes it by saying, “Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail” (Service 709). It was so cold that your skin feels the pricking that is felt when jumping into a cold pool. Although Cap did not make his promise to Sam McGee, yet one can assumed that the weather would still be cold after the promise was made. He faces the bitter cold while finding a place to cremate his friend. Later on in the narrative poem, the body of Sam McGee that was tied to the sled caused more weight for the dogs to pull. The “ [...] dogs were spent and the grub was getting low” (Service 711). McGee’s promise caused the dogs to get tired faster having to pull the extra weight. The food was getting low and Cap couldn’t do anything about it, because he couldn’t get to a village or town quickly with the body of his friend weighing down the sled, and the meager amount of food cause him to have little energy. Set on keeping his promise, Cap refuses to leave the body of his comrade in the cold arctic, resulting in him having to face the severity of his
As he slouches in bed, a description of the bare trees and an old woman gathering coal are given to convey to the reader an idea of the times and the author's situation. "All groves are bare," and "unmarried women (are) sorting slate from arthracite." This image operates to tell the reader that it is a time of poverty, or a "yellow-bearded winter of depression." No one in the town has much to live for during this time. "Cold trees" along with deadness, through the image of "graves," help illustrate the author's impression of winter. Wright seems to be hibernating from this hard time of winter, "dreaming of green butterflies searching for diamonds in coal seams." This conveys a more colorful and happy image showing what he wishes was happening; however he knows that diamonds are not in coal seams and is brought back to the reality of winter. He talks of "hills of fresh graves" while dreaming, relating back to the reality of what is "beyond the streaked trees of (his) window," a dreary, povern-strucken, and cold winter.
He had no common sense, and he had no business going into Alaska with his romantic silliness. He made a lot of mistakes based on arrogance. I don’t admire him at all for his courage nor his noble ideas. Really, I think he was just plain crazy.” Essentially,
Tobias Wolff is framing his story Hunters in the Snow, in the countryside near Spokane, Washington, where three friends with three different personalities, decided to take a trip to the woods for hunting in a cold, snowy weather. The whole story follows the hunting trip of these three friends. The reader can easily observe that the cold, hostile environment is an outward expression of how the men behave towards one another. Kenny, with a heart made of ice is rather hostile to Tub, while Frank is cold and indifferent to Tub and his pleas for help.The environment is matching the characters themselves, being cold and uncaring as the author described the two from truck when they laughed at the look of Tub: “You ought to see yourself,” the driver said. “He looks just like a beach ball with a hat on, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he, Frank?”(48). Near the beginning of the story the cold and the waiting surely creates an impact in the mood of the character. Tub is restless from the wait and the cold adds on to it. He complains about being cold and Kenny and Frank, his friends tell him to stop complaining, which seems to be very unfriendly. Wolff builds up the story on the platform of cold weather and the impact of the cold on each character slowly builds up.
Jim Kellum, tells the story of when he was a teen in the Boy Scouts. He learned to survive in the wilderness and how to withstand the cold harsh temperatures. Later on when he was in the armed forces, he and another man were deployed to the Russian tundra to guard a downed bomber. Their instructions were to keep the plane secure from the Russians until help arrived to retrieve the bombs. During the night the weather became unbearably frigid. The wind whipped so hard it was like an icy knife through their bones. The two of them were all alone in this barren snow desert with a small amount of supplies and the continual threat of wolves that inhabited the area. Mr. Jim had to fire warning shots into the darkness to keep them away and to let their presence be made known to the Russians. He said that the only reason that the two of them survived the night was because of the wilderness survival training he was taught in Boy Scouts. Knowing these valuable skills of building a snow shelter, fire, and keeping warm in the worst climates gave me the pleasure of listening to his many exciting stories of the
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.
captive by a sheath of frost, as were the glacial branches that scraped at my windows, begging to get in. It is indeed the coldest year I can remember, with winds like barbs that caught and pulled at my skin. People ceaselessly searched for warmth, but my family found that this year, the warmth was searching for us.