Jack London Analysis

Many people tend to overlook the style in writing, not focusing on its impact on meaning. All authors have developed their own type of style which is deeply shown through their personal writing. Jack London was an author who uses a specific style of writing in his stories. Through London's stories "Love of Life" and "To Build a Fire", he uses vivid style, multiple literary movements of his time, and numerous themes. London's writings were deeply inspired by his personal experiences and the life he lived. According to http://london.sonoma.edu/jackbio.html, London became a writer as a way to escape his horrible experiences as a factory worker. By studying other writers, London was inspired to begin submitting stories of his own, including all
His stories "Love of Life" and "To Build a Fire" have a large naturalistic style throughout the entire story where there is an interaction between man and the environment. In both stories, the man's behavior is constantly being shaped by the environment, for example, in "Love of Life" there isn't much food in the nature around the man, causing him to become starved which makes him delusional and in "To Build a Fire" it was extremely cold which made the man want to build a fire. Realism is shown throughout both stories, in "Love of Life" the most realistic point was that it was based off of the gold rush; furthermore, in both stories the men both think, behave, then react as an ordinary person would. Multiple elements of determinism are shown, in "Love of Life" it was predetermined that Bill would die since he was being greedy, only caring about the gold instead of survival. The man in "To Build a Fire" was predetermined to die because he didn't have any experience about being in the Yukon alone, traveling on an extremely cold day with temperatures that no one should be exposed to. Both stories are both based in the Yukon and represent real places which is a main regionalism aspect, but the nature of each story also builds onto the regionalism features. For Example, the land of the little sticks, ptarmigans, wolf, fox, and muskeg berries that are
The main theme that London presents in his stories is that nature is indifferent to man at all times; therefore, nature is relentless and unchangeable. This was shown multiple times in both stories, for example, in "Love of Life", the man was trying to capture a ptarmigan to eat, but was never fast enough to get it. Then a fox showed up and captured it easily; therefore, nature in its own habitat is relentless. In "To Build a Fire", the weather continues to be extremely cold and doesn't change for the man's good because nature isn't in favor of the man. A theme specific to "Love of Life" is that in order to survive, one must work hard for it. For example, Bill was being greedy by hoarding his gold which led to his death, but the other man was fighting for survival and doing everything he could to stay alive by leaving all of his gear including the gold behind. A theme specific to "To Build a Fire" is that all advice should be taken seriously because it could save a life. For example, the man was given advice from the old timer, but he didn't listen to the advice given to him; therefore, dies for not following the old timers guidance. To leave a lasting impact on his readers, London gave meaning to his story by including