Nature Trumps the Imperfections of Humanity In Jack London’s story, “To Build a Fire,” the main character is a man who ventures alone into the unforgiving Yukon territory where the temperature is 75 degrees below zero. Although a big native wolf dog travelled with him, the man was essentially alone as the dog didn’t contribute much to the man’s success since dogs are unable to build fires. An old man from Sulphur Creek explicitly told the man to not travel by himself, yet the man disregarded the advice because of his pride. After an impulsive decision to walk on the purportedly frozen water of Henderson Creek, the man broke through, drenching his legs from his knees down. Knowing the danger of getting his feet wet in this temperature, the …show more content…
man immediately attempted to build a fire. However, he failed to construct the fire because he didn’t notice a tree filled with snow directly above it, which continuously dropped snow, putting his flame out. Consequently, the man tried to build another fire, which proved futile; next, he unsuccessfully attempted to kill his dog for warmth. In his last effort, the man tried to run to the nearest campsite, but his lack of endurance caused him to collapse in the snow. Finally, the man calmly accepted death, admitting defeat to the overwhelming conditions of nature. The main theme of London’s story Chang 2 is that the devastating and unrelenting conditions of nature conquer man’s pride and recklessness. The man’s pride restricted him from recognizing the severe conditions in Yukon. In the beginning of the story, when the man was hiking in the morning, he noticed something peculiar. “There seemed to be an indescribable darkness over the face of things. That was because the sun was absent from the sky. This fact did not worry the man. He was not alarmed by the lack of sun” (64). The man’s unruffled attitude towards the darkness of Yukon shows his overconfidence in his abilities to withstand it. Most experienced backpackers know to stop hiking at night because they won’t be able to spot abnormalities in the trail, putting them in imminent danger. The man, however, recognizes the sunless environment around him and disparages it, continuing to hike with his ignorant attitude. Then, the man observed the frigidness of his surroundings when the water from his mouth froze before falling to the snow. “Undoubtedly it was colder than 50 below. But exactly how much colder he did not know. But the temperature did not matter” (65). The man recognized that he was in a subzero environment yet remained unperturbed. His pride likely obscured his ability to assess the ramifications of trekking in the frigid condition. At that time, the dog, who can survive colder temperatures than the man because of his fur, realized that the current temperature was dangerous even though it knew nothing about temperatures. This shows that hiking in the current temperature was indeed dangerous, yet the man continued his trek. Although the motive behind the man’s adventure in Yukon is unknown, it’s plausible that he wants to show he can survive these extreme conditions to boost his pride and masculinity. Chang 3 The man’s pride caused him to disrespect the advice from the old experienced man, which resulted in his downfall. After the man had fallen into the creek, he thought he successfully built a fire to dry off his wet feet. “He remembered the advice of the old man on Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The man had been very serious when he said that no man should travel alone in that country after 50 below zero. Well, here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old men were rather womanish, he thought” (72). The man knew that the old man from Sulphur Creek was more experienced than him, yet he deliberately chose to disregard his advice. He believed that he was capable of travelling alone because he was tougher and more macho than the old man. Moreover, his pride prevented him from seeking a companion, thereby acknowledging that he needed help, Then, the man’s ego was boosted after he ostensibly built a successful fire to avoid freezing, causing him to mock the old experienced man. He became so prideful from building the fire that he didn’t notice the tree filled with snow directly above his flame, distinguishing it and leaving him appalled. He then realized that if he had travelled with a companion, the companion could’ve built a fire for him because his hands and feet were almost completely numb. Nevertheless, since he was utterly alone, he froze to death. The man’s recklessness made him negligent to his surroundings, putting him in a perilous situation. As soon as the man finished lunch and continued trekking to the campsite, he fell inside the ice-cold water. “There did not seem to be so many pools of water under the snow on the left side of Henderson Creek…. And then it happened. At a place where there were no signs, the man broke through” (70-71). Then, he tried to construct a fire to dry off his wet Chang 4 feet, which proved fruitless due to his negligence of the surroundings. “But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault, or instead, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the pine tree. He should have built it in an open space. But it had been easier to pull the sticks from the bushes and drop them directly on the fire” (72-73). In the beginning of the story, the man used his dog to avoid falling into the water, forcefully pushing it across the ice. This method allowed him to safely cross the ice by scoping out the dangerous places where the dog fell in. Conversely, when the man became more focused on arriving to the campsite on time, he got careless and fell into the freezing cold water. The man then recklessly attempted to construct a fire without considering the surroundings due to his rush to provide warmth for his feet. Accordingly, the downpour of snow from a pine tree above distinguished his flame, and with no fire for warmth, the man froze to death. If he had taken his time, however, he would’ve seen the pine tree filled with snow above the spot where he planned to build his fire, allowing him to scope out a spot in the open. The unbearable conditions of Yukon broke the man down until he lost his machismo attitude.
After trying all possibilities to avoid freezing to death, the man realized he lost his pride. “When he had recovered his breath and his control, he sat and thought about meeting death with dignity. However, the idea did not come to him in exactly this manner. His idea was that he had been acting like a fool. He had been running around like a chicken with its head cut off” (78). Then, he calmly accepted death, contrasting the reckless way he dealt with death before. “He was certain to freeze in his present circumstances, and he should accept it calmly. With this newfound peace of mind came the first sleepiness. A good idea, he thought, to sleep his way to death” (78). In the beginning of the story, the man was prideful of his ability to survive in the severe conditions present. But, when he realized that he was in extreme danger of facing death, he began running like a chicken without a head, showing that nature had removed all his pride from him. Earlier in the story, the man would’ve considered it womanish to die in his sleep. He would’ve possibly thought a real man would die gloriously in battle, fighting for his own country. In contrast, by the end of the story, he accepts that he will perish in his sleep from his body freezing. Ultimately, this signifies that he accepts losing his masculinity to
nature. Chang 5 In the end, the man’s pride and recklessness caused him to fall victim to the devastating and unrelenting conditions of nature, ultimately resulting in his demise. Although this story focused on nature conquering man’s pride and recklessness, these qualities also prove to be a disadvantage in other scenarios such as school, work, and relationships. For instance, a man won’t succeed in school unless he is able to admit when he is wrong and in need of help. This task can often be hard as it demolishes his pride, yet is necessary to fully understand the material. Furthermore, a reckless man will rush through tests and submit crude, unrevised essays, earning him poor grades. London’s message that is applicable in circumstances not only involving nature is that men who are prideful and reckless will ultimately fail in life.
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.
Altho somewhat similar the two stories are very different in many ways. The first story is called “Mystery of Heroism” by Stephen Crane and the other one is “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. Both of the books are part of the short story genre and realism stories. The author's purpose for writing the “Mystery of Heroism” is to tell a story about a brave man who went to get water for a dying man. The purpose for writing “To Build a Fire” is to tell about a man and his dog and how he tried to fight the below freezing temperatures to stay alive. Both authors use realism because they want to tell real stories about people and how they had to overcome struggles in their lifetime. These two stories have similarities but they are way more different than anything else. One of the stories is about a man who has to overcome fear to get water for a man.
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".
In the short story, “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, a very descriptive third-person narrator describes the long and treacherous journey of an over-confident and non-instinctive man across the Yukon. The reader learns that the incautious man’s journey ends in death after he admits his mistake in not following the old-timer’s advice; finally considering the “old-timer” as wise (553). This plot, though progressively straightforward, leads the reader into a gripping experience of survival. The story’s setting and the main character’s reactions contribute greatly to this ever-increasing atmosphere of survival, as London’s detailed descriptions of the environment and the main character’s destruction cause the reader to dread and fear the grave
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.
Things are way different in Modern America then what they used to be like in the Ancient times. In this short story by Jack London a man struggles to face nature on the terms of trying to survive. Throughout his journey awaits many obstacles such as finding a place to sleep, building a fire, and searching for food all without freezing to death. When the man reaches Henderson Creek, he decides to follow it all the way to the camp. Instead of walking on solid ground he decides that walking on the ice would be the better choice. As the man continues his journey, he thinks back to the conversation he had with the old man from Sulphur Creek. He remembers the old-timer telling him that traveling alone is a bad idea with temperatures below minus
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).
...e of them fell through and got wet. Since both of these situations had consequences, the reader can foreshadow that this expedition is not going to end well for the man. The man not being on the dog’s side and listening to it got him in the last situation. He built his last fire underneath a tree and the snow melted and fell onto the fire and put it out. His ignorance and overconfidence in his survival skills and not trusting the instincts of the dog eventually led him to his death.
...at the men's heels trotted a dog” (London 498). A dog is nice and all, but you would still feel lonely especially in a rather frightening situation like this. The farther the man walked the colder he became. He eventually mention, “there was nobody to talk to; and, had there been, speech would have been impossible” (London 499) due to frozen ice around his mouth. In the end he fell and froze, and since he was alone no one was around to help. Isolation took his life.
The old-timer had warned the man by saying that a person should not hike alone in temperatures that are so far below zero. At on point the man thought to himself, “All this time the man knew. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek had told him about it the previous fall, and now he was appreciating the advice” (London 838). The mans dog had also gave the man hints that he should turn back. When the man built the first fire.
In 1908 Jack London published a tragic tale titled “To Build a Fire” in which the main character succumbs to the elements and passes away. Throughout the story Jack London shows the awe-inspiring power of nature with no regard to human life and the feebleness of man by pairing a dog and unnamed man together on a quest across the Yukon Trail. Throughout the story the man is ill-prepared, ill-informed, and unable to use the clues around him to survive. The dog is reluctant to follow the man throughout the story, but leaves his side only when it begins to smell the stench of death. Jack London opens the story by painting the picture of the Yukon Trail.
In the classic naturalism tale “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, a man travels alone on the perilous Yukon Trail of Alaska. The man is so headstrong, that he ignores the advice and help of others. He decides to venture out into the subzero temperatures with only his dog beside him. A man he met in Sulfur Creek who is wiser and knows the threat nature presents, warns him that no man should travel alone in temperatures below 50 degrees. Still, the man ignores this advice because he thinks that he can survive.
A: The film begins with a fire. It narrates the story of men running from a fire when, suddenly, one of the men stop and sets fire to the ground in front of him and the steps into the new safety zone he had just created. The term for his discovery became known as an escape fire. The directors used the idea of an escape fire as a metaphor for our health care system. Currently, our health care system is like a raging fire. The consuming flames of rising costs and a “disease maintenance” mind-set are about to consume our country and we must find a way out, an escape fire, before we perish. Like the men running away from the eminent death by the flames, we as a nation are sprinting towards
In the story, “To Build A Fire,” by Jack London, a man goes hiking on the Yukon trail in Alaska and a series of events sends him spiraling down on a path towards death. He was walking alongside some springs when he broke through the ice and into the water. More specifically, “...he wetted himself halfway to the knees.” He tried to make a fire but the snow ended up blowing the fire out and he tried to make the fire again in a different spot but his hands were too numb to get it started.. Eventually, he decided to try to make a run for it back to camp so his friends could help him
Obliterating everything in its path, a bushfire is a natural hazard, which can be defined as wild fires in scrublands and or bushlands, especially one that spreads rapidly and is hard to contain. They can be catastrophic, causing severe damage to properties, the environment and even deaths. And as a result there is an ever-increasing need to prepare for the potential impacts of bushfires.