Imelda Daniel Mooneyham/3 September 28, 2012 Character is usually reflected by the way one reacts or acts upon a certain situation. Pride and ignorance can affect ones fate and get them into sticky situations, where instinct may become the best choice. With no imagination and miles of snow, one can lose patience and end up giving in just as the man did in “To build a fire” by Jack London. The man was so sure he could survive the extraordinary temperatures of Alaska, but ends up dead at the story’s end. The man was also warned at the beginning of the story, that when it gets too cold, one must be accompanied with a partner.
To Build a Fire In the short story “To Build a Fire,” by Jack London, there are several instances in which the dog and the man show their different outlooks on the nature of the weather. The man, full of pride and unable to admit to the extreme cold, can be considered the foil of the dog, because the dog’s instincts allow it to know just how cold it really is. As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that the dog’s natural instincts overpower the man’s pride, as the dog survives and the man does not. One instance in which the dog’s instincts are clearly superior to the man’s judgment is when “the animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for traveling.
How can reason lead you to your death? “To build a fire” is one of Jack London´s best known work. It is a short story that describes the struggle that a man suffers in order to survive extreme weather conditions. The main purpose of the fallowing paper is to discuss the fight between instinct and reason in London’s short story In this story “reason” is represented by the chechaquo man and instinct comes in the shape of a dog. London uses this story to criticize the arrogance of man.
To build a fire In the short story, “To Build a Fire,” by Jack London person versus nature dominates the events. First, this being the man’s first winter he is inexperienced and lacking imagination with regard to the extreme obstacles that lay before him on his journey to camp. “But all this—the mysterious, far reaching hairline 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,” (London,126). If he had more experience, it may have warned him that it is too cold to travel further and to make camp and a fire for the night. He could also imagine himself in predicaments that could affect his life and perhaps make wiser choices.
The signal fire thus functions as a kind of measurement of the strength of the civilized instinct remaining on the island. Ironically, at the end of the novel, a fire finally summons a ship to the island, but not the signal fire. Instead, it is the fire of savagery—the forest fire Jack’s gang starts as part of his quest to hunt and kill Ralph. In Lord of the Flies, the fire is a main symbol throughout the story. It represents amount of civilized strength left within the boys.
Yet, in the New World the father and son have to search for new locations to sleep and hide in so they don’t get attacked. They find dark, cold, caves and have to make fires to stay warm. However, the father and son come across the father’s old house and he remembers, “On cold winter nights when the electricity was out in a storm we would sit at the fire here, me and my sisters, doing our homework.” (McCarthy 26) In the Old World he wasn’t worrying about electricity if it went out, they would just light a fire. However, in the New World they have to camp in the mountain passes or caves and they have to be very careful where they sleep, because, they do not want to draw attention to them. Drawing attention to them could get them killed, farmed, and most likely eaten.
Mike Tapia “To Build a Fire” Jack London, an American writer in the early twentieth century, wrote one of his many short stories, “To Build a Fire” (1902), that is based on his own experiences and events he witnessed while visiting the Yukon. In the story, “To Build a Fire”, London develops a theme of Man vs. Nature with a panicky tone of concern toward to the male character and his dog while they both face the harsh environment traveling the Klondike to return to camp, which is miles away. London describes the characteristics and actions in the setting to paint a picture of the naturalism in the imagery inside the reader’s mind. This story shows how common sense takes place through tough times and the matter of life and death.
First Writing Assignment The interesting American short stories that are Jack London’s “To build a fire”, it is about the man who travel with his dog in the freezing temperatures and danger part of the world. John Updike’s “A&P”, a young man who chose to defend the honor of an anonymous customer and stood up for what he thought was right. Both stories refer to naturalism of human. In this essay, comparing for theme these two stories have similar theme. Also, there are different points in the similar theme.
Hobbes named this condition as ‘war’ which also meant that every man is enemy to every man. Hobbes exposed that man in the state of nature lived with an authoritarian logic of fear and man has always been on the defensive side to protect himself and his position in the society. Hobbes said that man has always wanted to escape from the state of nature and war by following the path towards safety which allocates man to soften feelings of fear. A social contract is an agreement where people gave up their evil state and entered an organized society, which was controlled by the powerful government to preserve safety. Locke viewed human as innately good.
And although “The Open Boat” and “To Build a Fire” are written in different styles, they equally exemplify the power of nature set against man through the characters struggles for survival in addition to lose of hope. The stories express how nature never chooses sides, therefore is always apathetic to man. In Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” the character is traveling along the Yukon trail with the weather below zero degrees. On his journey he encounters an old timer who warns him about traveling any father if the weather was below fifty, yet he ignores his warnings and chooses to continue. He could have easily avoided the situation unlike the crew in “The Open Boat” who were already in that situation.