To Build A Fire Figurative Language

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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

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