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To Build a Fire
The literary movement known as naturalism takes a step back from the world and examines human beings from an almost scientific standpoint. This is why, in naturalistic works such as London's "To...
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To Build a Fire
The natural setting of the brutal arctic conditions of the Klondike, conditions which are indifferent to the presence of a man, express Naturalism, a literary movement among novelists who viewed...
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To Build a Fire
Jack London often employed a naturalistic approach in his writing. “To Build a Fire” falls into this category. Naturalism bases its theory on scientific laws. The naturalistic writer focuses on...
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To Build a Fire
The famous short story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London is a tale of survival in the Far North. A man and a dog journey on foot through a frozen wasteland in the Yukon. Their objective is a claim...
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To Build a Fire
The narrator portrays the newcomer as an inexperienced, overconfident man who does not recognize or respect the treacherous environment of the Yukon. At the beginning of the story, the narrator...
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To Build a Fire
In Jack London's short story, "To Build a Fire," there are many details provided to show how cold it is over the course of the text. Perhaps the most indirect detail to the cold is the fact that...
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To Build a Fire
No one is prepared for seventy-five degrees below zero. The unnamed protagonist of the story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London was warned not to go into this kind of weather by himself if at all....
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To Build a Fire
The unnamed newcomer attempting to travel ten miles across Yukon wilderness in temperatures dropping to seventy-five degrees below zero is portrayed as an inexperienced, overconfident man. London...
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To Build a Fire
Jack London spent time in the Yukon looking for gold. These experiences enabled London to write his classic stories like “To Build a Fire.” The setting of the story includes temperatures that...
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To Build a Fire
Transcendentalism had become a major philosophical field of thought during the 1830s, and despite no less a figure than Ralph Waldo Emerson himself claiming that it had died out by the 1840s, it...
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To Build a Fire
Jack London doesn't give his protagonist a name because he wants to address his cautionary tale to human beings in general. The man in question could be just about anyone, and what happens to him...
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To Build a Fire
I think author Jack London repeatedly mentions the cold for a couple of reasons. First, I think that London continuously calls attention to the cold in order to further build the cold into an...
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To Build a Fire
Jack London is a poster boy for naturalism, and his short story, "To Build a Fire," is a good example of why. Naturalism is an extreme form of realism, with a heightened attention to nature and its...
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To Build a Fire
In Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire," the protagonist is depicted as a rather unsympathetic newcomer, who decides to foolishly venture into the Yukon Territory in temperatures dropping to...
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To Build a Fire
The dawn weather is narrated for readers in the story's opening line. We are told that the day had dawned "cold and gray." If a reader is reading this story for the very first time, that opening...
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To Build a Fire
After the man (the writer doesn't give the main character a name) builds a fire to warm himself up, he thinks back to some advice an old-timer gave him at Sulphur Creek. The old-timer had told him...
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To Build a Fire
In Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire," the newcomer displays his foolishness by dismissing the old man from Sulphur Creek's advice regarding traveling in extreme conditions. The old man...
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To Build a Fire
Along with setting, a story's characters, plot, conflict, and resolution are generally regarded as its essential elements. In some stories, the setting operates as a picture frame to enhance the...
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To Build a Fire
When the newcomer takes off his mittens, his fingers immediately go numb, and he accidentally drops the entire pack of matches into the snow. Tragically, the man is unable to pick up the matches...
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To Build a Fire
The relationship of the unnamed main character to the setting is the heart of Jack London's "To Build a Fire." A man sets out on a journey in the hostile climate of the Yukon territory accompanied...
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To Build a Fire
Situational and dramatic irony are both present in "To Build a Fire." Dramatic irony occurs when a reader has more information or knowledge about a character or situation than a particular...
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To Build a Fire
The main character of Jack London's "To Build a Fire" is travelling the "main Yukon trail" in the opening line of the story. The Yukon Territory is the smallest of Canada's three national...
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To Build a Fire
At first, the man is very complacent. As the writer states, "the trouble with him was that he was without imagination." He knew it was cold,\ but didn't consider how the cold would affect him. He...
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To Build a Fire
The man in “To Build a Fire” is a young and inexperienced traveler who dies at the end of the story due to his hubris. He thinks, mistakenly, that he knows better than others what it takes to...
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To Build a Fire
In Jack London's short story, the unnamed narrator is a newcomer to the Yukon territory, who attempts to travel ten miles across the unforgiving wilderness in temperatures dropping to seventy-five...
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To Build a Fire
"To Build a Fire" is a short story of survival in the wilderness written by Jack London. London had traveled to the far north, to Yukon Territory, and learned much about how to survive (or die) in...
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To Build a Fire
Throughout the story, London compares the man's knowledge to the dog's instincts, and the dog's instincts seem to be superior. The man knows that it is cold. Unlike the dog, he can read a...
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To Build a Fire
In the short story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, a man accompanied by a large husky dog takes a seldom-used trail through the Yukon while the temperature is 75 degrees below zero and dropping....
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To Build a Fire
This question has been asked and answered before on enotes. Please click on the links below.
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To Build a Fire
Physically, the dog and the man are both dying from the cold. It is so cold that they are caked with ice. The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a fine powder of frost, and...
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To Build a Fire
As the man comes to severe difficulty after falling in the water and struggling to light a fire, he thinks back repeatedly to the old man at Sulphur Creek. He had had a conversation with them man...
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To Build a Fire
I don't believe that the dog has a name. It is always referred to as "the dog." Even when, towards the end, the man is trying to get it to come to him so that he can kill it and warm his hands...
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To Build a Fire
The omniscient third-person narrator of Jack London's "To Build a Fire" explains why the area around the creeks were particularly dangerous, although the creeks themselves were frozen solid. The...
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To Build a Fire
Jack London spent time as a young man in the unforgiving cold of the Yukon. He was in search of gold as a prospector. After his experiences in the wilderness, London wanted his readers to...
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To Build a Fire
Enotes does not allow you to ask multiple questions, so I have been forced to edit down your original questions to just focus on the first one that you asked. As in the majority of works of...
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To Build a Fire
The newcomer worries consistently about falling through the ice. He knows that if his feet get wet that he must warm them immediately in order to avoid frostbite, hypothermia, and death....
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To Build a Fire
The little blurb with which the grim story begins, is all the foreshadowing you need: "He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances." Yes,...
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To Build a Fire
One of the simplest is well known by Boy Scouts the world over, be prepared. His lack of understanding about certain aspects of life in the wild, particularly in the Arctic, get him into serious...
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To Build a Fire
As the previous post points out, the story is set in the Yukon and in this case the man leaving town is a newcomer, someone not accustomed to the Yukon and its dangers. he is confident and brash...
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To Build a Fire
When the story opens, it is morning and the man and his dog are in the Yukon. The Yukon is the northwestern part of Canada and lies east of Alaska. London describes the sky as "cold and grey,...
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To Build a Fire
The main character's feelings are revealed through the third-person narrator. Through the narrator's description of the main character's actions, etc., the reader learns about his feelings. The...
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To Build a Fire
The climax, or point of highest emotional intensity, in "To Build a Fire" occurs after the man's first fire is extinguished and he is unable to start a second. In Jack London's story that...
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To Build a Fire
One very good example of cause-and-effect in "To Build a Fire" is the protagonist's lack of preparation. He receives explicit advice from an experienced man who has traveled the Yukon for years:...
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To Build a Fire
You might receive a range of responses to this question, and it is always interesting to debate alternative endings to texts. However, my own feeling is that the rather pessimistic ending we have...
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To Build a Fire
The short story "To Build A Fire" by Jack London takes place in Alaska. Here are five details that allow the reader to experience the "cold" in the story. 1. The man in the story spits into the...
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To Build a Fire
The use of light as a symbol is a crucial element in "To Build a Fire." The story is set during twilight, that time between the daylight hours and night-time. The absence of the sun is essential to...
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To Build a Fire
In Jack London's story "To Build a Fire," the setting does function as a kind of character in the story. The weather is too cold to be out as he could truly freeze in these temperatures. He...
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To Build a Fire
In the short story, "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, the newcomer heads out for his camp and ignores the advice of the old timers that it is too cold to travel alone. He is sure that he will be...
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To Build a Fire
Naturalism states that the role and effect of Humans in Nature is dependent more on Nature's effect on Humans, not the other way around. In this sense, it is somewhat deterministic, but more in the...
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To Build a Fire
I think it was sad that the man had to die; however, this story teaches us a very valuable lesson about animal instincts and how animals sometimes are smarter than humans. If the man had simply...
