Comparing The Open Boat And To Build A Fire

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In both stories, The Open Boat by Stephen Crane and To Build a Fire by Jack London, the protagonist are not prepared for their struggle against nature and pays the consequences. Since both books open up in similar ways, the struggles of the main characters, survival is the hardest part of their journey when they tried to defeat death but failed their attempts of doing so. It’s human nature to want to survive when the odds are against you. In the in story “To Build a Fire” the author states the main character is the Protagonist. From viewers point of view the author clearly states that The Man was in weather “seventy-five degrees below zero. (London 116).” The man is incompetent and persistent through out the story after he is warned by the…show more content…
The trouble with The Man was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in things and not in the significances. (London 115)”. Once The Man adventured out into the brutal cold temperature he started to realize that the temperature was colder than he imagined it to be. In fact he only carried nothing but the lunch wrapped in a handkerchief. (London 115). In “To build a fire” London is confident that to survive the harsh Klondike winter “all a man to do was to keep his head. (Widdicombe par.13).” “Indeed, the cold itself functions as an invisible antagonist in “To Build a Fire”. He meets the man as soon as he goes outside into the brutal Klondike winter, stays close by him throughout the story, and finally kills himself through the effects of hypothermia. (Widdicombe par.9).” In the story “The Open Boat” each of the men in the dinghy is faced with the likelihood of his own death. While they row and wait to be rescued, the realization sets in that they are largely helpless in the face of nature's awesome power. The sea serves as a powerful reminder of the forces of nature: their lives could be lost at any moment. (Elliot par.4)”. “Noting that the lifeboat itself becomes a danger to the men in their final attempt to reach the shore,”(Hilfer…show more content…
According to the story, the “trouble” with the man is that he is “without imagination” and therefore never speculates about “man’s place in the universe,” his “frailty in general,” or the fact that people are “able only to live within certain narrow limits of temperature.” Yet during his trek the man is confronted again and again by his weakness as a lone individual against the formidable power of nature in the form of the brutal cold. Each time he removes his gloves, the man is surprised at how quickly his fingers are numbed. He is also startled at how fast his nose and cheeks freeze, and he is amazed when his spittle freezes in midair before it ever hits the snow. When the man stops for lunch, his feet go numb almost as soon as he sits still, a fact that finally begins to frighten him. Even the dog—who is half-wild and thus closer to nature—feels “depressed” by the cold. Thanks to its natural instincts and its dense winter coat, the dog survives the extreme temperature long enough to head for camp; where it knows it will find food and warmth. Without fur or instinct, The Man is too frail on his own to withstand nature— or “the cold of space”—as it presents itself in the Klondike: “The cold of space smote the unprotected tip of the planet, and he, being on that unprotected tip, received the full force of the blow. (Milne
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