The Wisdom Of Old Timers In Jack London's To Build A Fire

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.

The warnings of elders are not to be neglected. The man from Sulphur Creek in “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, just happened to be right. The man did not heed the warnings of the wise and experienced. This arrogance led to his ultimate death and removed him from the world. The man’s desire for wealth and egotistical attitude draws him to the freezing temperatures of the Yukon.

“He was quick and ready in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in their meanings..” “From there, it did not lead him to thoughts of heaven and the meaning of a man’s life..” The short story “How to Build A Fire” by Jack London and the movie are alike in many ways, but are different in others.

Do you love a good furtive? In To Build a Fire, Jack London gives students a short-term look inside the strong external view. Man and the Natural World, Foolishness, and Pride is a big take in this short story. In the third paragraph of this story, the speaker tells us all about the suffering with the man that he is disadvantaged of the mind. The absence of his imagination is an important fragility that will lead the man to create silly choices. The speaker marks a huge deal out of the point that the man has no imagination. The Yukon desert couldn’t care less. He’s just another kindly figure it can freeze. Some individuals may debate that each person has imagination. That everyone holds an assured mark of imagination capability. Out in the cold Yukon, you probably don’t think that having an imagination is going to help you much, but it will. As a reader, we must think about what good it would do the man to think enormously about the huge wilderness around the man. After all he is not a writer or a storyteller. He just want to go get some bacon. LOL. So why recommend he’s foolish for not having imagination?

Always when I was a little kid people always asked me what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do in life and I always told them I’m not sure. Now over the past couple months people have kept asking me more and more but I always say I am not sure. My goals in life are to go to college and get a good paying job, and maybe a family and nice house. Now I've decided I would like to be an x-ray technician.

Jack London's To Build a fire begins with a hiker in the Yukon, setting out to test his abilities with his large loyal dog at his side. At the start of the story there is a hint that things will not go as planned because it mentions how clear the day was, and the lack of sun and lack of worry on the man's part seems to be a foreshadowing of events to come, the man was experienced and should have known better to take nature for granted like he was doing. The hiker also had been warned by an old native man that hiking in negative 50 degree weather could have dangerous consequences and yet the man chose to ignore the old man's warning. In the whole story the man brushes off the cold temperatures even when he begins to feel symptoms of frostbite, like his face becoming numb, his fingers and toes start to freeze and he even doesn't have anything to protect his face from the harshness of the arctic temperatures.

Imagine this: a hiker has found himself lost in the woods because he didn’t think to bring a map. A few miles away in a nearby town, a mother tiptoes into her bedroom to check on her newborn baby and finds that she not moving in her crib. She assumes that it is sleeping, but when she goes to wake it up, it remains still. She starts panicking. She checks the pulse, and feels nothing. She runs to the phone and calls 911 before returning to try and resuscitate her child. Back in the forest, the hiker realizes he is lost, and also calls 911, guess who calls first?

A writer named Jack London was born on January 12, 1876 (Verde). He has written many stories, "he wrote about 200 short stories"(Werlock). For example, "The Cruise of the Snark," "White Silence" and the one we will be talking about "To Build a Fire." According to Robert Evan, Jack London eventually became one of the most popular American writers in the world. In the story "To Build a Fire," written by Jack London. He uses two characters, a man and dog to express the theme of arrogance throughout the story, the author Jack London was able to use his experience with him getting lost while the temperature were dropping to help give himself a idea to write this story.

We are reminded at this point of the cold as London dwells on the fact. London seems to constantly reiterate the fact the man is underprepared, unknowledgeable of his surroundings, and appears to lack basic instincts which all keeps the air tense and waiting. “This man did not know the cold… But the dog knew” (London 131). London directly compares the man to his wolf dog, who is accustomed to the weather, and instantly knows more than the man and is on edge the entire time we see him.

Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire,” tells of a man who decides upon traveling in the acutely cold and unforgiving Yukon environment alone to regroup with his friends at a distant camp. Along the trip, the man walks across a hot spring which he perceives to be safe and breaks through the ice instantly getting his feet wet. The man knows what he must do to stay alive in such a situation, to build a fire, the only challenge is keeping the fire alive in such horrid conditions. The man tries desperately to cling onto life as he is attempting to start a fire, however his multiple attempts all fail and leave him in a desperate panicked state vulnerable to nature's firm grasp pulling him closer to an untimely death. He fights with every bit of power available as the fire plan proved no worth in such extreme situations, becoming so desperate as to attempt killing his own dog to warm himself with its carcass. After many attempts at preserving his life the man finally “grows calm and decides to meet death with dignity.” This eerily human story may leave some readers uncomfortable as it conveys such a brief but close up view of death. Some questions that may remain are, why was this story written? What was the mindset behind it? And, how accurate is this depiction for the time?

Survival of the Instinct: “To Build a Fire”, Jack London Jack London’s, “To Build a Fire”, depicts a Naturalistic world where instinct is intrinsic to survival, and where reason alone does not suffice. The story’s plot is seemingly simple, where a nameless character and his dog walk in an extremely cold environment. But the story intensifies when the man accidently wets his foot and is in desperate need of building a fire, an act which he does not accomplish, and therefore meets his death. Since Naturalism does not accept free will, the fate of London’s character is deterministic and doomed to begin with. I will argue that imagination for London is linked to instinct rather than to reason, and that there is no transcendental tool for survival.

The man argues against the truth even when he has the opportunity to know the truth from the beginning; there were a lot of things going on in his mind. At first, the unnamed character does not appreciate the old timer’s advice. “Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them, he thought” (London). However, when the cold intensified and after several attempts of try and error to build a fire, the man becomes vulnerable and recognizes the fact that the old timer’s advice is right. According to Jack London, American author best known for writing the call of the wild, “The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner” (London).

The Anglo-Saxons and What They Valued The Anglo-Saxons originally emigrated from Germany in the beginning of the 5th century, and brought alluring culture and ideas with them that most “barbaric” people wouldn’t have. Many people view the Anglo-Saxons as a barbaric tribe who came into countries, pillage and eradicate, then leave, but they were really a lot more. When the Anglo-Saxons came to England in 400CE, they drove the current inhabitants, the Old Britons, out of the country. Though, they did do some things barbaric, but they did have civilized values. The Anglo-Saxons valued many things, some of which are: Common welfare and strong positive ethics, the love of arts and literature, and the great value for all religions within their country.

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