Jack London Survival
During the late 1800s finding gold became a quick way to get wealth quickly. Many young men took the trip up to Alaska in order to find it. This was a misleading journey, as many of the men didn’t know what they were getting into. Jack London is a well-known author who based a couple of his stories in the Yukon near Alaska. The main theme in both stories is man’s struggle for survival. In “Love of Life” and “To Build a Fire”, both men are lost in the Yukon wilderness. London’s style is a steraight-forward; he describes the men’s circumstances in lifelike detail. The vividness of these details sets London apart from other authors in this time period.
Jack London’s life was more like one of his stories than reality. He was born in San Francisco in 1876. In his early life his family was in poverty, London had to drop out of school at a young age to support his family. Considering the amount of time spent …show more content…
at these jobs he decided to read whatever he could. All of this reading creates a sense of wonder and curiosity. Later he travels to feed this curiosity and even sails to Japan on a sailing expedition. He decides to complete high school and attend the University of California. Only after one semester of college, he is enticed by the gold rush happening in Alaska. He goes to the Yukon to become a gold miner in 1897. His search for wealth was short lived, as he was not very successful in his hunt for gold. But these expirencises helped shape the author we now study. As he came back to California he is determined to become an author he enters a writing contests and wins, this is the first time he writes a story for money and wins one hundred and twenty dollars. He then continues to write stories, which include the Yukon to explain his experiences earlier in his life, like: “The Call of The Wild”, “White Fang”, “Love of Life”, and “To Build a Fire”. These books listed go on to become some of London’s greatest achievements in his writing.
"To Build a Fire" is a story about a man who is traveling alone in the frozen Yukon. He knows that it is not safe to be traveling when it is so cold, but keeps moving on. He builds a fire with relative ease firm the match pack he bought from the old man at the store. He then falls through a crack in the ice, in which he gets his feet soaked in the extremely cold water. In order to stay alive, he must build a fire. Despite several attempts, the man fails. He then turns his attention to the dog and tries to kill the animal for its warm fur coat. This was his final chance at life. He begins running in a desperate attempt to survive. He becomes much too tired to move on and sits with his dog and passes slowly. But as he thinks his final thoughts he thinks of himself finding his body.
“Love of life” is another story about mans survival in the cold barren Alaskan wilderness.
In this story, two men are traveling through the Yukon carrying sacks of gold form their mining. The man gets injured, but Billie, ignores his partner and keeps moving on without him. The man's injures his ankle. This will cause him to get rid of some weight. In an ironic turn of events he needs to get rid of some of the gold, which brought him out here in the frost place. Eventually he needs food in order to survive, he tries to hunt for many creatures deemed unfit for society like worms in the dirt or minnows in small ponds. He turns his back on society in order to survive. To prove his whole transformation, London portrays the man killing a sick wolf by biting its neck. The man is unwilling to give up unlike the main character of “To Build a Fire”. He is discovered by a group of scientists who nurse him back to life. But when he reverts back into society he becomes somewhat of an outcast. He hides food and becomes extremely paranoid about certain aspects of civilized
life.
Jack London has a unique and invigorating style; it is filled with many style devices. One key type of style London uses is being straight forward with his stories. For example in "Love of Life", Jack London gives details for the reader.
“He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he did was to count his matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to make sure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in oil paper, disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch in the inside band of his battered hat, of a third bunch under his shirt on the chest. This accomplished, a panic came upon him, and he unwrapped them all and counted them again. There were still sixty-seven.” “Love of Life” pg
He was very descriptive when it came to numbers. He loved to be straight-forward with the details he wrote for the readers. Another example is the amount of detail he put into the story to allow the reader to picture the story in their mind nearly perfectly. He uses similes to keep the reader picturing the story in their mind. For example in “love of life”, “He stalks ptarmigan 'as a cat stalks a sparrow”. When I read this I think of a character who’s desperate to survive and will resort to hunting tactics of a wild animal to get food. I think of a man on all fours trying to be as stealthy as possible in order for a chance to catch his prey, a ptarmigan. A third example of his straight-forward style is his use of the Third person Omnisient point of view. For example in “To Build a Fire” pg.559, “… once suspecting danger, he compelled the dog to go in front. The dog did not want to go. It hung back until the man shoved it forward, and then it went across the white, unbroken aurface.” And again, “ But the man knew, having achiveved a judgemnet of the subject, and he removed the mitten from his right hand”. London chose this point of view to include the reader on both what the dog and man were thinking as they went through this tough wilderness together.
Jack London’s life was more like one of his stories than reality. He was born in San Francisco in 1876. In his early life his family was in poverty, London had to drop out of school at a young age to support his family. Considering the amount of time spent …show more content…
at these jobs he decided to read whatever he could. All of this reading creates a sense of wonder and curiosity. Later he travels to feed this curiosity and even sails to Japan on a sailing expedition. He decides to complete high school and attend the University of California. Only after one semester of college, he is enticed by the gold rush happening in Alaska. He goes to the Yukon to become a gold miner in 1897. His search for wealth was short lived, as he was not very successful in his hunt for gold. But these expirencises helped shape the author we now study. As he came back to California he is determined to become an author he enters a writing contests and wins, this is the first time he writes a story for money and wins one hundred and twenty dollars. He then continues to write stories, which include the Yukon to explain his experiences earlier in his life, like: “The Call of The Wild”, “White Fang”, “Love of Life”, and “To Build a Fire”. These books listed go on to become some of London’s greatest achievements in his writing.
"To Build a Fire" is a story about a man who is traveling alone in the frozen Yukon. He knows that it is not safe to be traveling when it is so cold, but keeps moving on. He builds a fire with relative ease firm the match pack he bought from the old man at the store. He then falls through a crack in the ice, in which he gets his feet soaked in the extremely cold water. In order to stay alive, he must build a fire. Despite several attempts, the man fails. He then turns his attention to the dog and tries to kill the animal for its warm fur coat. This was his final chance at life. He begins running in a desperate attempt to survive. He becomes much too tired to move on and sits with his dog and passes slowly. But as he thinks his final thoughts he thinks of himself finding his body.
“Love of life” is another story about mans survival in the cold barren Alaskan wilderness.
In this story, two men are traveling through the Yukon carrying sacks of gold form their mining. The man gets injured, but Billie, ignores his partner and keeps moving on without him. The man's injures his ankle. This will cause him to get rid of some weight. In an ironic turn of events he needs to get rid of some of the gold, which brought him out here in the frost place. Eventually he needs food in order to survive, he tries to hunt for many creatures deemed unfit for society like worms in the dirt or minnows in small ponds. He turns his back on society in order to survive. To prove his whole transformation, London portrays the man killing a sick wolf by biting its neck. The man is unwilling to give up unlike the main character of “To Build a Fire”. He is discovered by a group of scientists who nurse him back to life. But when he reverts back into society he becomes somewhat of an outcast. He hides food and becomes extremely paranoid about certain aspects of civilized
life.
Jack London has a unique and invigorating style; it is filled with many style devices. One key type of style London uses is being straight forward with his stories. For example in "Love of Life", Jack London gives details for the reader.
“He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he did was to count his matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to make sure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in oil paper, disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch in the inside band of his battered hat, of a third bunch under his shirt on the chest. This accomplished, a panic came upon him, and he unwrapped them all and counted them again. There were still sixty-seven.” “Love of Life” pg
He was very descriptive when it came to numbers. He loved to be straight-forward with the details he wrote for the readers. Another example is the amount of detail he put into the story to allow the reader to picture the story in their mind nearly perfectly. He uses similes to keep the reader picturing the story in their mind. For example in “love of life”, “He stalks ptarmigan 'as a cat stalks a sparrow”. When I read this I think of a character who’s desperate to survive and will resort to hunting tactics of a wild animal to get food. I think of a man on all fours trying to be as stealthy as possible in order for a chance to catch his prey, a ptarmigan. A third example of his straight-forward style is his use of the Third person Omnisient point of view. For example in “To Build a Fire” pg.559, “… once suspecting danger, he compelled the dog to go in front. The dog did not want to go. It hung back until the man shoved it forward, and then it went across the white, unbroken aurface.” And again, “ But the man knew, having achiveved a judgemnet of the subject, and he removed the mitten from his right hand”. London chose this point of view to include the reader on both what the dog and man were thinking as they went through this tough wilderness together.