The Importance Of Setting In Jack London's To Build A Fire

But, we realize almost immediately, the man has only a superficial knowledge of the Arctic. As he stands on a bank of the Yukon about to plunge into an almost absolute wilderness, he has little or no understanding either of his immense isolation relative to his surroundings or of the extreme danger posed by the cold snap. But all of this, London comments at the beginning of the third paragraph, "The mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all, made no impression on the man." Thus, the man also knows, in addition to the fact the sun will reappear, that it is fifty degrees below zero, but he does not know the meaning of this fact, it portends death for anyone who makes himself vulnerable to its ability to kill. "Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head."

The man knew that his only hope for survival was based around thawing out his icebound legs. This meant that he must build a fire in order reach his intended destination and outlast the Yukon cold. With his fingers and toes on the verge of being frostbitten the man got a fire started. But then it happened. Packs of snow cascaded down the branches of the powdered spruce.

It is a tragic tale of a man who chooses to brave the hostile winter environment of Yukon and travel in sub-zero temperatures. Even though he is advised by an old man (London, p.72) not to travel since it is too cold the man decides to brave the cold and get to his destination. That decision and hubris, in the end, becomes his undoing and causes him to die. There is a sense of irony in the story since even though the man was observant (London, p.68) he falls through the ice "At a place where there were no signs, the man broke through." (London, p.71). After that, the man tries to start a fire but does it under a snow filled tree that dumps snow on his fire and extinguishes it "The

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

lead his readers to believe that the man will suffer a tragedy in the end

Introduction "To Build a Fire," is a deplorable short story and film by Jack London. It centers on a man who made a choice to travel and explore Yukon alone. The environments of the place was not good as the temperatures were subfreezing. The forces of nature are not favorable and friendly at all. During his adventure, the man’s feet become wet when he falls into the water of a hot spring through the ice (London 122).

When I was, little I didn’t listen to my parents that I should put gloves on when it was -2 degrees outside and so, consequently I acquired a small case of frostbite and it hurts and itches horribly. In the story the man has to stay focused on the trail or he will die. Some of the minor side effects of frostbite are numbness of the area, tingling, blood filled blisters, skin turns different colors and so on. If you were walking in a foot or more of snow you would not want to have these side effects as a distraction. These side effects are just some of the beginning side effects of being in cold temperatures. I’m guessing this wasn’t in the 21st century due to he didn’t have something to his destination him there like a dog sled team or a snowmobile. Back then they didn’t make as warm clothes as they do now so if someone did the long hike in the snow with modern clothes they would get moderately cold. The person with the modern clothes may not get as cold as the other guy but will eventually get cold. These are just some of many reasons why I believe this man had the hardest

“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.

The setting of a story may have a great effect on the meaning of the story, as show in “To Build a Fire.” Lines 1-2 state, “Day had broken, cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey.” By reading this quote, readers may tell that this setting would not be a favorable place to live. Another example of the setting would be in line 14, “The Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice.” From reading these examples of the setting, readers can tell more or less that this man must trust his instincts greatly because he went out in condtitions like these. The Elders of the village warned the man about going out into these kinds of conditions, nevertheless, the man chose to trust his instincts and go anyway. Jack London most likely used

Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” is a story that follows a man’s journey through Yukon trail as he fights to survive. The man ended up finding out that being alone was not the way to survive in minus seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit weather. The battle between man and nature was the theme throughout the story and nature won in the end. “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” (125). This was the first sign that the trip down the trail would be a difficult one. Even though there is only one main character the setting makes the man a dynamic character because it brings him challenges throughout the story.

The opening scene establishes our main character’s inability or lack of care towards his own survival. ‘To Build a Fire’ begins with our main character, a man, hiking the Yukon trail on a bitter cold day. He had no supplies and did not care. “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 sun. This fact did not worry the man.” The last sentence shows his state of mind and the reader what they will get into. ‘This fact…’ the last sentence of the quote begins this way to establish its’ dry and dark humor. “But all this—the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all—made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it.” The ‘absence’ of the sun is gone, leaving a dark dreary sky with a foreboding mood attached. Describing the cold as ‘tremendous’ and foreign to the man is a nod to the reader to how this character sees the environment. It seemed as the

The narrator described the surroundings to the reader in quite a detailed manner. From another point of view this would not have been as effective. For example, when simply describing the temperature the man and the dog both felt, then contrasting it with the real temperature helped the readers grasp an understanding on three things. First, how familiar the man was with his surroundings, second, how the dog felt, and lastly, how accurate they were. At the beginning of the short story London writes “He knew that at fifty below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubtedly it was colder than fifty below—how much colder he did not know. But the temperature did not matter.” (par. 4) This shows that the man was had already had experience with the cold, since he knew spit froze on the ground, but didn’t have experience with cold lower then negative fifty. This quote also shows that he felt equipped to survive

To build a fire is a short story written by Jack London. It is a story about an individual’s choice. The main character’s self-centeredness overcomes him, as he tries to survive the wintery weather in his travel in the Yukon Trail. He made a choice of ignoring the weather warnings, which evidenced danger in his journey. There were warnings like the absence of fellow travelers due to the cold season, but his egoism made him still embark on the journey alone, despite the warnings. The protagonist’s pride and arrogance leads to a regrettable outcome, as it leads to his downfall. The protagonist made the wrong choices because of his egotism, and arrogance and they led to his downfall. He defied nature due to his lack of logical judgment, and

No matter what type of story you are reading, setting always plays a key element in producing the desired effect. Jack London's short story To Build A Fire provides an excellent example of this. In this story, a man hikes across a snow and ice covered plane towards the encampment where he is supposed to meet up with more travelers like himself. The setting of this story is one of the northernmost most areas of the earth, the Yukon. The man must hike across this area for approximately thirty-six miles before he reaches the camp at which he is expected. The constantly dropping temperature further complicates the man's hike. When he begins his journey at nine o'clock in the morning it is