Comparison Of To Build A Fire And Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets

Alice Walker juxtaposes Maggie with her sister, Dee, to demonstrate how society denigrates not only African-American women but women in general in the 1970s. Early on in the story, Maggie is described as nervous, hopelessly standing in the corner. Later she is described as nearly hidden from view. On a metaphorical level, Maggie is the symbol of the lack of power women held in the 1970s. She is the epitome of the silent female homemaker. On the other hand, Dee is assertive, “will look you right in the eye.” She serves as a symbol of the free, successful modern woman. However, her assertiveness might come off as cockiness, and too much pride. By contrasting Maggie and Dee, Alice Walker is expressing both sides of the female role during that time.

Maggie doesn’t get involved in the life around her like her sister Dee does. Although Mama mentions that Maggie is going to marry John Thomas, it is doubtful that even a marriage will help Maggie become a strong and clearly defined individual. Mama, protective as she is of Maggie, is frank about her shortcomings and problems. Maggie’s relationship with Dee is filled with jealousy and awe. Mama recalls how Maggie had always thought Dee had been gifted with an easy life in which her hopes and desires were rarely, if ever, frustrated.

In “To Build a Fire,” Jack London presents the story of a man against nature as he tries to survive in the harsh winter of the Yukon in the early 1900’s. He begins a nine-hour hike through, temperatures as low as -75 degrees Fahrenheit, and he plans to meet up with friends in the area. With him is a local husky, with whom he has little companionship. The narrator builds a fire to warm himself. However, as the fire starts to reach a good warming point, snow falls and douses the fire. Finally realizing that things are getting drastic, the man starts running for the camp in desperation, with hopes of warming his body and possibly getting help. Eventually though he falls from exhaustion. While on the ground, he falls asleep and

During his journey, the man gets his feet wet as he falls through the ice into the water of a hot spring. Because of the severity of the cold, the man’s life depends upon his ability to adapt to his surroundings. After one, half-successful fire-starting endeavor, and several other pitiful attempts, the hopelessness of the man’s lone struggle

In Jack London's “To Build A Fire” the story follows a man and his dog in the Klondike and their obstacles of trying to get to the boys which are his compatriots. The story revolves around the winter and how mankind reacts to the wild. The author uses nature to illustrate the poem’s tone by vilifying nature and using it as an obstacle.

In the end, it is clear that while the loss of innocence suffered from losing a first love may have played a role in Maggie's descent into prostitution, the effects were exasperated by her abusive childhood. Maggie's home life from a young age was full of violence and alcohol. Her mother was the primary abuser of the children, but Jimmie also got in his share of abuse towards Maggie. This damaged her, making her more gullible and easily manipulated as she sought anyone that seemed even remotely different than the rest of her life. That person, to Maggie, was Pete. Yet, she was simply seeing Pete through the eyes of abuse and of a first love. She didn't truly know who Pete was until she was abandoned by him after running into an old lover.

Maggie and her mother are waiting for Dee’s arrival from college and is bringing her new husband to visit. The mother always reflects on how the two sisters are so different. “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand... (Walker, 423). Maggie has always been a nervous and hesitant person. She never looks anyone in the eye and act very different from Dee. Maggie is intimidated by Dee. Dee has never been scared to speak up, “Hesitation was no part of her nature (Walker, 424). Dee is a bold and selfish woman. Always trying to get whatever she wants and she succeed at it. Dee turns on her charm for everyone and she does not appreciate what her mother has done or

The novel, Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets, by Stephen Crane, takes place in the slums of New York City during the 1890’s. It is about a girl, Maggie Johnson, who is forced to grow up in a tenement house. She had a brother, Jimmie, an abusive mother, Mary, and a father who died when Maggie was young. When Maggie grew up, she met her boyfriend, Pete. In Maggie’s eyes, Pete was a sophisticated young man who impressed Maggie because he treated her better than she had been treated to all of her life. Once Maggie’s mother and brother found out that Maggie was sleeping with this man, Mary threw Maggie out into the streets, condemning her to a life of evil. Eventually, Pete decided he no longer wished to see Maggie.

Naturalism and Realism both played key parts in both “To Build a Fire” and “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”. With themes of survival, determination, heredity, and instinct, “To Build a Fire” obviously

Stephen Crane wrote many short stories, one of which was Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. His stories contained various aspects of Naturalism, a literary movement that sought to replicate a believable everyday reality, as opposed to Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment. Poverty, abuse and a survival of the fittest way of life created an environment which Maggie was negatively influenced by. Her environment is made up of many circumstances that affect her, one of which is poverty.

To begin, London utilizes naturalism to give explicit details of the character’s limitations. For example, “The man’s red beard and moustache were likewise frosted… If he fell down it would shatter itself like glass… But he did not mind the appendage” (London, 91-98). The man seems to overlook the warnings of the cold and proceeds to keep traveling with no fire that escalates his safety. His limited abilities against nature are further shown in the following lines, “... though he could not feel it with his fingers… ,in his consciousness, was the knowledge that each instant his feet were freezing...:” (London, 351-355). The man’s disregard of the old man’s advice and his failed estimation resulted in the numbness in his

“To Build a Fire” by Jack London is a short story about a man traveling through the Alaskan Yukon to meet up with his friends for lunch. The author keeps the character nameless and refers to him only as “The Man” which is used to show a connection between humanity and nature. The story shows the hardships the man goes through to get to his destination through the Alaskan Yukon, yet unfortunately doesn’t make it. The conflict is a man versus nature theme which contrasts strong and direct relations of the hardships in nature. Throughout this analysis, I am going to explore the conflict between the man and the merciless nature he has to go through before his death.

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

In Stephen Crane’s book Maggie: A Girl of the Streets there are various themes, one of them is the impact of the social environment. The impact of social environment is how people are products of their own environment and people are who they grew up to be due to the conditions, people, and environment that surrounds them. The Bowery is 14 blocks and has 82 bars there that make alcohol very accessible to the residents, including children. The Bowery has a negative impact on people and even children that live there. The Bowery is a concrete jungle where only the strong survive. The living conditions are unquestionably poor and the tenements where they live is full of immigrants. The kids in the Bowery live with alcoholic and abusive parents, pregnant women who are not married, and finally prostitutes. Maggie, Jimmie, and Pete are all characters that deserve forgiveness due to Stephen Crane message, people are products of their own environment and deserve forgiveness.

These types of tinder were perfect for constructing a fire, which was necessary for the man 's survival. On the other side, "man's frailty" and his ability "only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold" were both put to the test as nature tormented the man as he made his journey across the Yukon (London 118). It is this kind of action, which makes the setting an adversary and a companion for the protagonist of the story.