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To build a fire by jack london english literature essay
To build a fire by jack london english literature essay
To build a fire by jack london english literature essay
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“To Build a Fire” written by Jack London can truly be considered as a work of art. With themes anyone can relate to, such as survival and man versus nature, it is a great short story for anyone looking for something to read. Everyone knows a dog is a man’s best friend, but what happens when it is man versus dog. When survival of the fittest kicks in, the fittest truly shows. In “To Build a Fire”, Jack London expresses various elements of literature to really get the reader involved in the story.
The unnamed man in this story is the protagonist. He does not portray numerous personalities, which makes him a flat character as shown in the line,"The trouble with him was that he lacked imagination..."(london) and "He was quick and alert on the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances"(london). The beginning of the story sets the scene as being a very cold, dark, and harsh environment. The unnamed man travels along the Yukon trail in fifty drees below zero weather. To anyone else, they would bundle up or don't go outside. However, to the unnamed man, this means nothing. He has no imagination, which means he does not see the significance in things. He could be staring death in the face and show no emotion. As the story progresses, the unnamed man is revealed as a dynamic character. He soon realizes he is in a life or death situation, "The fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death, with the chances against him"(london). With that, he realizes the reality of death, and that the way he responded to the environment, he knows that he was wrong...
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...mention the “limit” on the man. Anyone can relate to the story, be it through limitations or the theme of survival. This is true when the story came out and will continue to be true till survival its self is gone.
Works Cited
-Joan D. Hedrick “To Build a Fire.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale Group, 200.335-358 Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Web. 13 Jan. 2015.
-Jack London. “To Build a Fire”
-James I. McClintock “To Build a Fire.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale Group, 200.335-358 Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Web. 13 Jan. 2015.
-Jill Widdicombe “To Build a Fire.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale Group, 200.335-358 Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Web. 13 Jan. 2015.
2. This introduction goes against conventional wisdom and signal to the reader because instead of putting out the fires, the firemen are the people actually burning the books.
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
In high school, it is important to read stories that teach the students lessons, teach them different literary devices, and allow them to discuss the story among peers to gain different views. Kevin A. González’s “Wake” and Laura van den Berg’s “Volcano House” are two stories that teach valuable lessons and offer new information for those trying to learn through stories. Both authors wrote short stories that were meant to entertain students while offering them a valuable lesson as well. Kevin A. González’s “Wake” and Laura van den Berg’s “Volcano House” are both short stories that should be taught in high school classes because of their lessons, the use of literary devices, and what can be gained from class discussion.
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.
In “To Build A Fire”, the main conflict throughout is man versus nature although it would be inaccurate to say that nature goes out of its way to assault the man. The fact of the matter is, nature would be just as cold without the man's presence regardless of him being there .The environment as a whole is completely indifferent to the man, as it frequently is in naturalist literature. The bitter environment does not aid him in any way, and it will not notice if he perishes. In the same way, the dog does not care about the man, only about itself. Ironically enough though, as the man was dying he was getting upset toward the dog because of its natural warmth, the instincts that it had, and its survival skills and those were the elements that the man lacked for survival. It is ironic that the man had to die in order to find out that man's fragile body cannot survive in nature's harsh elements, regardless of a human’s natural over-confidence and psychological strength.
Fire played a very important role in the lives of the early Fond du Lac pioneers. It provided people with heat, light, and a means to cook. Almost every home in Fond du Lac had some sort of stove or fireplace. If a fire got out of control, that house and surrounding homes were in danger of burning down. As the town’s population grew larger and larger, the number of fire sources went up as well. The chances of a fire getting out of control were growing quickly. People soon began to fear the inevitable.
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."
Victor, a reservation Indian, needs to go to collect the body of his father in Phoenix, Arizona. He was unemployed and with no money to make that trip. The reservation tribal council only could afford to give him only one hundred bucks, not enough for a round trip. He found Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who offers his saving with on the condition that he accompany Victor to Phoenix. Thomas has always been a storyteller that no one wants to listen. Nobody talk to Thomas because he says the same stories over and over again. Victor decides to take Thomas offer because there was no other
Baase, S. (2013) A Gift of Fire. 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
... Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 1. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1997. 105-107.
Providing the separation between survival and death. setting was the most important factor in "Building a Fire" by Jack London. Works Cited and Consulted Hendricks, King. Jack London: Master Craftsman of the Short Story. Logan: Utah State U P. 1966.
Foremost, the theme of this story is that ignorance can lead to poor decisions because the man ignores his surroundings. An example of this is when the man ignored the advice and warnings given by the old-timer from Sulphur Creek. It stated on page 4 in the 3rd paragraph “It certainly was cold, was his thought. That man from Sulphur Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes gets in the country. And he laughed at him at the time.
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).
Obviously that was not the situation which was meant to occur. The cold served as a lesson to be taught to all explorers who would set foot into the never-ending winter from that day on. The continuous efforts that the man made to start a fire symbolize his will to survive. No will however is match for mother nature. The suffering man took on the role as a great teacher and hopefully preserver of life for generations to come.
I agree with Karen Rhodes observation that to build afirecan be interpreted as the story of a man in the journey of human existence. However, I think her view of to build a fire as an American experience comes from the fact that she is an American. I agree with her theory that the Man's death in the end was due to the nature of the man and his environment. The protagonist in to build a fire did nor have any grasp of the danger he was in. he tried to reason himself through it all. He thought, " Maybe, if he ran on, his feet will thaw out; and anyway if he ran far enough, he would reach camp and the boys. (Jack London, 157).