In the story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, there are three principal themes. They are respecting nature, and considering results of actions. The main theme, or universal truth, is heeding warnings. The themes are shown through the character and his actions. The main character in the story had an attitude that prevented him from heeding internal and external warnings. He did not respect nature's power, and therefore he paid with his life.His attitude was arrogant and careless.
The man had no imagination and only understood facts. He knew it was very cold and his body was numb, but he failed to realize the danger. A newcomer with no experience, he thought he was invincible. Neither the "absence of sun from the sky," nor "the tremendous cold" made any effect on him.
For example, the temperature was less than -50 degrees. He did not care about how much colder it was. To him, it was just a number. He did not think of his "frailty as a creature of temperature." When the "old-timer at Sulphur Creek" warned him not to travel alone in such cold, the man laughed at him.
The old-timer had experience and knowledge, yet the man called him "womanish." Even when the man knew he was about to die, he thought, "freezing was not so bad as people thought," and "When he got back to the States he could tell folks what real cold was." These quotes show that the man did not take his situation seriously. Instea...
Archibald Lampman’s “Winter Evening” and P.K. Page’s “Stories of Snow” both initially describe winter to be delicate and blissful, yet, as one delves deeper into the poem, it is revealed that the speakers believe winter to be harsh and forceful. Archibald Lampman’s “Winter Evening,” starts describing an evening
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
...ple know an excellent deal less about why a summer day might be freezing cold. In this book it focuses on people who are outliers, in men and women who are so talented and so astonishing and so outer part of a normal experience that they are as mystifying to the rest of us as a cold day in the summer.”
As a chechaquo, or newcomer to the land, and this being his first winter, he should have listened to the advice of the old-timer at Sulphur Creek, who told him men should not travel without other men when the temperature is seventy-five below zero. When man is seemingly successful and boldly thinks, “Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them” (London 553). This shows that the man is trying to challenge nature simply by defying the word of more experienced men. In such harsh climates, men truly adapt to nature out of the necesitity to survive.By defying the word of an experienced traveler, the man is attempting to challenge nature by changing the ways men have adapted to it. Next, the man ignores his only traveling companion, a dog. While the man regards the dog to be inferior in every way, he overlooks a crucial piece of evidence- the dog is naturally suited to the environment. The dog’s survival instinct is shown to be of value when the man misjudges the temperature to be fifty below zero, a cold but normal temperature to be outside, when in reality it is seventy-five below zero, a temperature where travelling should not occur. London expresses the misguided superiority by stating, “This man did not know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant
James Baldwin is one of the premier essayists of his time. He draws on his experiences in a straightforward, unapologetic manner, which helps achieve his purpose in The Fire Next Time. His style elucidates his arguments for racial harmony and for the understanding of other religions.
When first being introduced to the man in “To Build a Fire,” it is evident that he might not be up to par when it comes to dealing with the fierce chill in the Yukon mountains. “It was a steep bank, and he paused for a breath at the top” (518) After one steep hill the man is already having to catch his breath. That should have been his first clue, showing that he would
After hearing of her diagnosis, the narrator travels from his residence in “California to New York” where his mother lives (3). Staring out of his airplane window, he noticed a change in the scenery. The “mountains giving away to flatlands” is used to not only describe the scenery, but how his life is changing (3). He will no longer be living a lavish life in California, but a depressing one that would “bring tears to his eyes” (22-23). He got a “sense of slippage” at the thought of losing his mother (3). When he finally arrived to his parent’s residence, the narrator was greeted with “brittleness and frost” (4). The author uses these two words with a cold denotation to describe more than just the weather on Long Island (4). Brittleness and frost are utilized to display the narrator’s feeling, as well as the theme of the book. The weather wasn’t the only thing the narrator noticed when he entered his parent’s town. His mother's actions caught his attention as well. When she held his hand, he again felt a sense of slippage (9). It mirrored the sensation he experienced on the airplane. His mom is slipping out of his hands, while life
The sanity of his storytelling discontinues when he explained to the readers that he loved the old man, but his mind went against him; deciding to stalk and kill the old man. The description of the narrator’s thoughts the eighth day he stalked the aged man where… “Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has
The external conflict of man against nature and the internal conflict of man against himself play a huge role in the whole story, leading to the fateful outcome of the man. The man fell victim to the struggles the conflicts presented, majorly impacting the story. "To Build a Fire" encompasses the idea of man becoming his own enemy and people remaining insignificant to forces of natures. The conflicts presented in the story embody the aspect of nature as an unstoppable, unpredictable, and powerful force that easily overtakes man. That thought shows how one man has little effect on nature, and in the end, does the most harm by subjecting oneself to nature's fury. The story, "To Build a Fire" by Jack London truly shows how weak an unprepared person compares to the unruly forces of nature.
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.
There was no mistake about it, it was cold.” This shows that when the man had met the old-timer from Sulphur Creek last fall, he was warned about how cold it can get in the area, yet the man was ignorant and neglected the helpful warning. 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 man was very ignorant towards the advice and warnings given by the old-timer from Sulphur Creek. Another example of this is when the man was ignorant towards all of his surroundings. There were many hints in nature and in the trail that warned the man to not continue to travel in the Klondike that day, yet he let his
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).
The unidentified man in the short story has a lot perseverance and determination to reach his final destination, which are two qualities found in heroes. In the exposition of the story, it is known that he steps away from the main trail and wanders off in the Yukon to meet the other miners on a fork of Henderson creek. On his nine-hour walk in the brutal weather, he hopes to find logs in the springs from the islands. The man is a chechaquo, which means that he is a new-comer to the land and does not know what to expect because it is his first winter. During his trip, he is well aware that it is cold out, but he underestimates the weather and does not think much of it. In the short story, the narrator states, “But all of this – the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of the sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, the strangeness and the weirdness of it all – made no impression on the man” (Kass, et al. 68). No matter what the conditions were, the man did not let it distract him and he decided to persist through it all. A hero will take any situation and work with it, all of t...
Every story has a theme: a major message shown throughout the story. These themes can be vast and some stories have multiple themes. Most of the time, the theme of a story isn’t clearly stated in the story and you often have to look for it. Because of this, different people are often able to come up with different themes for one story. Many critics question the themes that have been found by other people and even argue why those themes are or are not legit themes for that story. There are many different elements in a story that can be used to prove whether or not the themes given really fit the story. One of the themes commonly believed fit for To Build a Fire, by Jack London is that instinct triumphs over intellect. In To Build a Fire, by Jack London, the theme instinct over intellect is expressed through characters, plot, and point of view.
Jack London uses nature as an obstacle to depict a witless human. Nature can be very restricting and limits expose an individual's character when they react to surpass the limit. This is seen in "To Build a Fire". A man was traveling on a trail in the hostile environment of Yukon to mine for gold. He decided to travel even though it was "75 degrees below zero"(483), which shows that he is overconfident in his survival skills. His actions lead him to severe consequences. This man thinks of this journey as easy and makes fun of the guys who advise him to not go. "It 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; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe”(482). This quote explicitly presents the fooli...