To Build A Fire

I chose the story 'To Build a Fire' by Jack London. I chose this story because it was the one that caught my attention the most. As I was reading it, I really wanted to know the fate of the man at the end of the tale. This short story is about a man who sets out on a journey through the Yukon trail. He goes on the trip all alone, only accompanied by a dog despite the warnings of the locals that going alone on a journey with such freezing weather is dangerous. At the end, the man realizes he should have heeded the warnings as he slowly dies of hypothermia from the cold weather.

Within To Build a Fire, the gold-seeker or man who is portrayed as the main character in the story is appearing to have difficulties with what nature or the landscape was throwing at him. Alike in both reality and the story, the freezing cold temperatures were a constant threat to the gold-seekers who may have been unprepared for what they might have expected. The reality part of the extreme cold is adequate to how the extreme cold was described in the story because in both references it was in the negatives somewhere between -20 degrees Fahrenheit in temperature and well below -50 degrees Fahrenheit. Besides the extreme cold, both the reality and the story comparison can be

Sometimes everyone feels like giving up, and the only thing a person can rely on is his will to survive. Giving up is admitting defeat, in every circumstance. In the story by Jack London, To Build a Fire, the main character learns a hard lesson of reality, when he meets his fate. The result came about because of many factors, mainly the man’s lack of psychological perserverance on the journey, as well as the harsh temperature and surroundings. If there was any hope for the man to survive these conditions, it would rely wholey on his persistance and motivation. The man expected his fate after it was too late to change it, weighing all the variables and realizing there was no probable way to escape his prediciment. The man’s fate was

The short story "To build a Fire" by Jack London, tells about the relationship between man and nature. The story takes place in the Yukon during one of the long night. The main character who is unnamed travels with a dog along a small trail to a mining camp. The man leaves against the advice of a local and after a short time realizes that he should have waited. The temperature is extremely cold because the mans spit freezes before it hits the ground. The main obstacle of his journey is the many covered springs that mean death to whoever falls into them. The man sends his dog in front of him to make sure that the trail is safe. Eventually the dog falls into one of the springs and gets his paws wet.

If developed the right way, the setting can play an important role in a story like this. London builds his setting up quickly, within the first words of this story. The story is set in the wintertime with no sign of the sun, at the Yukon Trail. A deadly and extremely cold area in the country of Canada. In the story, the narrator states, “Day had dawned cold and gray when the man turned aside

We all have hidden inner conflicts that we have buried deep within our souls. In the story “Hunters in the Snow written” by Tobias Wolff he gives us greater understanding of what adults experience and the extreme limits that people will go through just to be accepted, the author stimulates our senses with the use of very descriptive examples using figurative language. The writer uses weather for the overall setting of the story “Tub waited for an hour in the falling snow”. The setting which the author obviously uses weather takes place during the winter; this determines that there is some darkness and cold death possibly being present.

On an extremely cold winter day (−75 °F or −59 °C), a man, who remains unnamed throughout the story, and his native wolf-dog go on the Yukon Trail after being warned of the dangers of traveling alone in extreme weather conditions by an old man from Sulfur Creek. With nine hours of hiking ahead of him, the man is expecting to meet his associates ("the boys") at a camp in Henderson Creek by that evening. The man is accompanied only by his dog, whose instincts tell it that the weather is too cold for traveling. However, the weather does not deter the man, a relative newcomer to the Yukon, even though the water vapor in the man's exhaled breaths and the saliva from the tobacco he is chewing have frozen his mouth shut. It is here where London's use of symbolism of "heat (sun-fire-life) and cold (darkness-depression-death)" immediately

In 'To Build a Fire,' the man's antagonist is nature: London displays the man's journey as restricted by external forces. First, the temperature of the tundra is seventy-five-below zero

The story To Build a Fire demonstrates possible dangers of traveling in the Yukon under extreme cold. Through a young man, Jack London depicts the consequences of ignoring instinct and survival advice. The man travels with a dog, who can perceive the dangers of the freezing wilderness. The reader learns of the man's personality through descriptive words and phrases while journeying through the story.

With the kind of setting in the story it caused many bad things to happen such as freezing in water. Through out the story the man is always aware of the dangers he has to face. The dog also knew what she had to do in order to stay alive. And With that said what do you think you would do in a situation like the mans where he needed to build a

Imagery is another important element which London uses to illustrate and emphasize his theme. In “To Build a Fire” Earl Labor sees the “mood and atmosphere, which is conveyed through repetitive imagery of cold and gloom and whiteness,” as being “the key to the story’s impact” (63). London does rely heavily on imagery to set the mood of the story, and in this way he draws a picture of the harsh environment that his character must endure. London uses imagery with such skill that the reader can almost feel the deadly cold of the environment and can almost hear the “sharp, explosive crackle” when the man’s spit would freeze in mid-air (119). Through the use of such vivid imagery, London guides the reader toward the realization of the story’s theme; the reader can visualize the man “losing in his battle with the frost” and therefor can picture man in his conflict with a cruel and uncaring universe (128). Symbolism is also an important element in “To Build a Fire”. David Mike Hamilton’s criticism, he says “the fire symbolizes life as does the white snow that falls at the beginning of the story.” He also views “the dark point in the midst of the stamped snow, foretelling the end of the fire, and thus of life” (2). I strongly agree with Hamilton’s criticism; “the dark point in the midst of the stamped snow” because it not only foretells the end of the fire but of the end of life itself.

The man knows the temperature is colder than 50 below; he has no experience traveling in such weather yet continues absentmindedly to meet ‘the boys’ at their camp in Henderson Creek. A dog followed at his heels, “It’s instinct told it a truer tale than was told to the man by the man’s judgement” (Anderson 28). The man was aware of the dangers of his trip, including thin ice skin hidden beneath pockets of sunken snow. Several times he avoids these traps wishing not to be delayed and even compels the dog to lead when he is unsure himself. The dog’s instinct screams no but the man shoves it forward anyway and the dog’s legs are soaked briefly before turning to ice. The dog quickly bites and licks at the ice to remove it from its fur. After a swift lunch and a small fire the dog again reminds the man of the dangers that lie ahead, “…it knew that it was not good to walk abroad in such fearful cold” (Anderson 30). Regretfully, the man saw no signs before falling through a pocket of snow and ice which left his feet wet. “He was angry and cursed his luck aloud. He had hoped to get into camp with the boys at six o’clock, and this would delay him an hour, for he would have to build a fire and dry out his footgear” (Anderson 31). Ignorant to his surroundings, the man’s fire is put out when snow falls from the boughs of the spruce above his fire. He finally acknowledged

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.

“To Build a Fire” is a short story written by Jack London. It is viewed as a masterpiece of naturalist fiction. “To Build a Fire” features a miner who is traveling to the Yukon Territory with a dog as his companion. The miner is the protagonist and the dog companion is called the foil. The dog plays off of the traits of the protagonist. “The central motif of “To Build a Fire” concerns the struggle of man versus nature.” (Short Story Criticism) The most argued point in the short story is the reason of the protagonist death. “Some critics believe that it was his lack of intuition and imagination that lead to his death, while others say that he dies because of panic.” (Short Story Criticism) The protagonist in “To Build a Fire” struggles in

“It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of the sun.” Throughout Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” there is a sense of slow burning dread as readers are introduced to the man and his gradual, but inevitable death, brought upon by himself. London’s short story opens with the main character, a man, foolishly embarking on the long journey back to camp in the freezing Yukon, accompanied only by a husky mix. It is in this unforgivingly harsh weather that the man meets his fate, at his own hand. From the beginning of the story, the man displays flawed behaviors and personality traits that render him unable to survive on his solo journey in the Yukon, becoming his own worst enemy.