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To Build A Fire Literary Analysis

Decent Essays

Intellect and Instinct in To Build a Fire To Build a Fire is a story about a man and his dog trying to travel over the Yukon in snowy weather conditions. It follows the choices the man makes for him and his dog, some of those choices are life threatening. The man whose name is not mentioned starts out on a snowy hike with his dog as a companion. As they continue to walk the man realizes that it is much colder than he originally thought and much darker of a day because of the lack of sunshine, this makes the dog reluctant to continue the hike. The man knows he needs to make it to the campfire where he is meeting companions that have taken a different trail so he makes a fatal decision to continue. The themes detailing their hike are intellect and instinct. The dog has instincts to turn around for shelter while the man is stubborn and …show more content…

He also realizes the dangers of continuing because of his instincts but chooses to ignore them. This is not to say the man does not have intellect, he knows it is not smart to continue in this type of weather but does so anyway because he is determined to make it. Instinct was shown in To Build a Fire because the man did not have the instinct to realize how cold it was outside while the dog understood immediately that it was too dangerous to trek that far in the cold but the man insisted that they travel on. The man also realized that his spit was supposed to crackle when it hit the ground at fifty below but his spit was crackling in the air before it even reached the ground. This was another sign that it was too cold for him to be out in this weather but the man deemed that the temperature was not going to stop him for completing his mission. Another red flag that the man

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