To build a fire Essay Example For Students

To build a fire Essay In the short story, To build a fire Essay by Jack London shows how man vs. nature and how inexperienced traveler in the Yukon tries to travel alone with his dog, even though its advised not to. Yet he is stubborn and thinks he is right, and sets off for Henderson Creek to meet his friends. He faces many different conflicts of man verses man, and man verses nature. The traveler is advised not to make this trip with the lack of his inexperience in the Yukon due to the weather, the incoming storm, and its advisories. With the subzero freezing cold temperatures that came with the storm. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks.(561) He is book smart, lacking street smart, and nature humbled him during his travel to reach his friends. He was doomed from the beginning, by him being inexperienced in the sub-zero temperatures of the region. He was although able to surpass some of the things that nature threw at him because of his observation of things due to his determination. But, he ignored the old man and his words that came back to haunt him in the end. The confident main character thinks of the old-timer at Sulphur Creek as womanish. Along the trail, the man falls into a hidden spring and attempts to build a fire to dry his socks and keep warm. With his wet feet quickly growing numb, he realizes he has only one chance to successfully build a fire or face the harsh realities of the Yukon at one-hundred nine degrees below freezing. Falling snow from a tree blots out the fire and the character realizes he had just heard his own sentence of death. Jack London introduces death to the reader in this scene. The man realizes a second fire must be built without fail. The mans mind begins to run wild with thoughts of insecurity and death when the second fire fails. He recollects the story of a man who kills a steer to stay warm and envisions himself killing his dog and crawling into the carcass to warm up so he can build a fire to save himself. As the man slowly freezes, he realizes he is in serious trouble and can no longer make excuses for himself. Acknowledging he would never get to the camp and would soon be stiff and dead, he tries to clear this morbid thought from his mind by running down the trail in a last ditch effort to pump blood through his extremities. The climax of the story describes the man picturing his body completely frozen on the trail. He falls into the snow thinking, he is bound to freeze anyway and freezing was not as bad as people thought. There were a lot worse ways to die. The man drowsed off into the most comfortable and satisfying sleep he had ever known. The dog looked on creeping closer, filling his nostrils with the scent of death. Londons portrayal of the man does not initially give the reader the theme of dying, but slowly develops the theme as the story develops. The story doesnt mention death until the last several pages. The main character changes from an enthusiastic pioneer to a sad and desperate man. The conclusion of the story portrays the man accepting his fate and understands the old-timer at Sulphur Creek had been right; no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Typically, short stories written in the early 1900s often conclude the story with a death or tragedy. Londons story is no exception. This story follows the pattern by illustrating events leading up to and including death. Bibliography: .