The document discusses several key themes in Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire":
1) It contrasts instinctual knowledge represented by the dog versus scientific knowledge relied on by the man, which ultimately leads to his demise.
2) It explores how the man's death is a result of both chance circumstances and human errors in judgment.
3) It examines the man's shifting emotions between fighting for survival and accepting his impending death as his condition deteriorates.
4) It analyzes how the man's lack of imagination and failure to envision potential outcomes contributes to his mistakes and inability to survive.
5) It describes how the story presents nature as indifferent to the man's fate,
The document discusses several key themes in Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire":
1) It contrasts instinctual knowledge represented by the dog versus scientific knowledge relied on by the man, which ultimately leads to his demise.
2) It explores how the man's death is a result of both chance circumstances and human errors in judgment.
3) It examines the man's shifting emotions between fighting for survival and accepting his impending death as his condition deteriorates.
4) It analyzes how the man's lack of imagination and failure to envision potential outcomes contributes to his mistakes and inability to survive.
5) It describes how the story presents nature as indifferent to the man's fate,
The document discusses several key themes in Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire":
1) It contrasts instinctual knowledge represented by the dog versus scientific knowledge relied on by the man, which ultimately leads to his demise.
2) It explores how the man's death is a result of both chance circumstances and human errors in judgment.
3) It examines the man's shifting emotions between fighting for survival and accepting his impending death as his condition deteriorates.
4) It analyzes how the man's lack of imagination and failure to envision potential outcomes contributes to his mistakes and inability to survive.
5) It describes how the story presents nature as indifferent to the man's fate,
example of Naturalism, a literary movement that focuses on the realism of human experiences, and often engages with the broad theme of “man versus nature.” London’s unique take on this larger literary idea is through the topic of knowledge. Two types of knowledge are discussed throughout the short story: instinctual knowledge and scientific knowledge. The first is associated with the dog and the second with the man. These two figures represent a larger distinction between nature and humans. The dog cannot understand or reason, but his instincts direct his survival throughout the story. The man, on the other hand, relies on information gained from others, on logic, and on tools and technologies (matches and a knife). This scientific or rational knowledge clouds the man’s instinctual knowledge, and gives him confidence in his ability to protect himself from the natural elements with the resource of fire. Because of this confidence, he ignores the dog’s instinctual knowledge that the weather is too cold to safely travel. In this way, the man is presented as separate from nature, and distant from his biological instinct for survival, because he understands the world scientifically rather than instinctually. Ultimately, the conclusion of the story shows a triumph of instinctual knowledge and trust in one’s nature over confidence in logic and reason, as do other Naturalist texts. Chance and Human Error: - The man’s initial mistake of traveling alone in weather that is far too cold for independent hiking does not ensure his fate of freezing to death. The gradual deterioration of the man’s conditions involves both chance and human error. The man is careful and prepared for the streams of water under the snow that will soak him and threaten his survival. Yet, he stumbles into an unexpected stream that was essentially invisible before he fell into it. This shows that even a prepared and observant person may fall prey to chance. When the man builds a fire, it is extinguished by snow falling from a pine tree, an devastating accident that is both human error and chance: the man could have been more cautious, but the snow might not have accumulated in that area, and might not have fallen in such a way as to put out the fire entirely. The interaction of chance and human error creates the chain of events leading to the man’s death. This theme demonstrates that London’s Naturalism does not prescribe “fault” to either nature or humans, only acknowledging the error in underestimating the power of chance to provide unaccounted for circumstances. Fight for Survival vs. Acceptance of Death: - As the man’s situation deteriorates, his emotional state oscillates between determination and acceptance. In certain moments, he seems to foresee his approaching death and in other moments he seems to have faith in his survival. These shifting reactions represent universal human themes of optimism and denial. When the snow falls on his fire, the man’s initial shock reflects his certainty of his death, but his calm reaction and productive response seem optimistic. As a living being, he instinctively wants to continue to live, and so he refuses to give up, and fights for his survival. As he repeatedly drops the matches, he attempts to innovate. When the matches fail, his thoughts quickly turn to the price he’d pay for survival: killing the dog to warm his hands. This thinking reflects a man in a desperate situation, forced to think quickly and willing to kill for his own survival. After he is unable to kill the dog, a “certain fear of death” comes over him. This fear causes him to panic and run, an act of desperation. His repeated running and falling shows the back-and-forth between his fight and his acceptance. His final fall triggers his acceptance of death and he sits in the snow, waiting. His final imaginative visions resemble accounts of near- death experiences by survivors of such situations. The shifts between the man’s perspective on his life and death, his need to struggle and his stages of acceptance, reflect the larger aspects of Realism in London’s work. The story traces the internal response of any human to a life-and-death situation, engaging with universal ideas of how humans react with fear and acceptance. The Power of Imagination” - Early in the story, the man is identified as not being a “thinker” and as “unimaginative.” He is aware of the world around him and of the terrible cold, but he does not imagine the possible outcomes of this cold. Because the man eventually dies due to his initial mistake of traveling on such a cold day, his failure to imagine possible outcomes of his choice is linked to his inability to survive. Imagination could have saved his life. This theme connects to the theme of Chance and Human Error, as several of the man’s errors seem linked to his inability to imagine the outcome, as when he builds a fire under a snowy tree, or strikes all the matches at once, with dreadful consequences. Had he been more imaginative, more open to the possibilities of what could result from his actions and from the terrible cold, he might have avoided these mistakes. At the end of the story, in the moments of the man’s death, his imagination suddenly flourishes. He imagines the boys finding his body in the snow, and he contemplates the certainty of his own death. These imaginative acts are linked to his acceptance of his death. Before, when the man was focused on survival, he considered only the resources at his disposal and what they could achieve. Once he accepts his death, he begins to imagine and to imaginatively apply the wisdom of the old man at Sulphur Creek (that no one should hike alone in weather below 50 degrees) to his own situation. Indifferent Nature: - Throughout the story, the natural world is presented as unemotional and unaware of the fate of the man. This literary depiction of nature reflects Naturalism’s understanding of a harsh, yet realistic natural world. Contrary to other literary movements, Naturalism views nature without sentiment and without projecting human characteristics of love, care, and agency onto the natural world. This understanding of nature is clearly embodied in the character of the dog that is indifferent to the man and his fate. To the dog, the man is a source of food and protection only, and not a companion. The dog cannot feel any emotion about the death of the man, and the dog quickly seeks out other humans who will provide the food and shelter it needs. One human is indistinguishable from another in the dog’s mind. Many people who emphasize a unique connection between a specific human and a specific animal view dogs and other pets sentimentally. Therefore, the relationship, or lack thereof, between the man and the dog in this story effectively communicates London’s theme of the indifference of nature. Naturalism rejects the literary movement Transcendentalism, an influential philosophy in American thought, which emphasized unique connections between nature and humanity and focused on the souls of humans as open to the influence of nature as a spiritual force.