To Build A Fire Naturalism Analysis
Man. He the reasoning animal. A creature bestowed with the gift of rationality and ingenuity. As such, he is the only creature that fancies himself in control of his destiny. From the naturalistic viewpoint, life appoints nature as the final arbiter of the fate of all organisms, from the miniscule amoeba to the gargantuan whale to the overconfident human. Jack London's short story, "To Build a Fire", highlights the naturalistic belief that the human attempt at controlling destiny is ultimately futile, as human behavior is largely reigned in by their heredity and environment. The short story details the unsuccessful journey of an unnamed man who ventures out into the hibernal wilderness of Alaska to meet up with "the boys". From the very
…show more content…
beginning of his journey, the man's indifference to the extreme cold is made obvious, " Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all, It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and man's frailty in general…" (482). His nonchalant attitude to the temperature is indicative of his lack of hereditary instincts. However, his canine companion, who knows nothing of temperature and degrees, understands the deadly implications of venturing out in such frigid weather. "The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. it knew that it was no time for traveling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told by the man's judgement" (482). The dog possessed an innate sense of danger, a instinct that had accumulated from generations of hereditary experience. The man's untimely demise can partly be attributed to something he had no control over: the lack of hereditary instinct in dealing with the cold. No amount of book-learning can replace raw, wild instinct when it comes to surviving in a hostile environment. The hereditary factor makes itself more pronounced when the man tries to avoid the hidden springs under the snow.
He lacks necessary traits to sense the snow traps, so he brings along the dog to use as a living probe, "… the man compelled the dog to go on in front. The dog did not want to go. It hung back until the man shoved it forward" (484). In contrast to the man, the dog has the integrated senses that allow him to locate the hidden springs. The man is clueless until he is directly above a spring, and by that time, his fate has already been sealed, for wet legs spells imminent death. The man cannot be blamed for his ignorance as his ancestry had not an inkling of this cold, "… all of his generations or ancestry had been ignorant of the cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezing point./ but the dog knew; all its ancestry knew…" (488). Even if the man learned to adapt to this environment, no amount of experience can replace generations upon generations of accumulated instinct. The man is also limited by his physiological inheritance; humans were never designed to survive under such frigid conditions. They lack the necessary insulation that come with fur. The moment he removed his gloves he was, "… astonished at the swift numbness that smote them" (484). His body was not suited for this kind of environment, a fact that is reflected in his untimely
demise. Finally the environment itself was at odds with the man's survival. It hold no qualm towards taking lives; it operates on its own schedule, oblivious to the fate of the organisms that wobble on that precarious edge between life and death. At the turning point of the story, the man's survival is jeopardized when, "He wet himself halfway to the knees before he floundered out to the firm crust" (486). The random springs proved to be death traps for this lonesome traveler; they were environmental factors, random factors, completely beyond the man's control. Nature steps in again to seal his fate when, "…a bough capsized its load of snow… It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning… and the fire was blotted out!" (487). There are simply some aspects of nature that no man can control. The man is merely one of many helpless organism weeded out by the selective forces of heredity and environment. Man can never control those two factors; his inheritance cannot be chosen and nature will not bend to his whim. In conjunction, those two factors greatly limit the destiny of man. So in the end, it is man who buckles, submits, and is lulled into that eternal slumber by the slow dirge of the wild.
beginning of his journey, the man's indifference to the extreme cold is made obvious, " Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all, It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and man's frailty in general…" (482). His nonchalant attitude to the temperature is indicative of his lack of hereditary instincts. However, his canine companion, who knows nothing of temperature and degrees, understands the deadly implications of venturing out in such frigid weather. "The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. it knew that it was no time for traveling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told by the man's judgement" (482). The dog possessed an innate sense of danger, a instinct that had accumulated from generations of hereditary experience. The man's untimely demise can partly be attributed to something he had no control over: the lack of hereditary instinct in dealing with the cold. No amount of book-learning can replace raw, wild instinct when it comes to surviving in a hostile environment. The hereditary factor makes itself more pronounced when the man tries to avoid the hidden springs under the snow.
He lacks necessary traits to sense the snow traps, so he brings along the dog to use as a living probe, "… the man compelled the dog to go on in front. The dog did not want to go. It hung back until the man shoved it forward" (484). In contrast to the man, the dog has the integrated senses that allow him to locate the hidden springs. The man is clueless until he is directly above a spring, and by that time, his fate has already been sealed, for wet legs spells imminent death. The man cannot be blamed for his ignorance as his ancestry had not an inkling of this cold, "… all of his generations or ancestry had been ignorant of the cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezing point./ but the dog knew; all its ancestry knew…" (488). Even if the man learned to adapt to this environment, no amount of experience can replace generations upon generations of accumulated instinct. The man is also limited by his physiological inheritance; humans were never designed to survive under such frigid conditions. They lack the necessary insulation that come with fur. The moment he removed his gloves he was, "… astonished at the swift numbness that smote them" (484). His body was not suited for this kind of environment, a fact that is reflected in his untimely
demise. Finally the environment itself was at odds with the man's survival. It hold no qualm towards taking lives; it operates on its own schedule, oblivious to the fate of the organisms that wobble on that precarious edge between life and death. At the turning point of the story, the man's survival is jeopardized when, "He wet himself halfway to the knees before he floundered out to the firm crust" (486). The random springs proved to be death traps for this lonesome traveler; they were environmental factors, random factors, completely beyond the man's control. Nature steps in again to seal his fate when, "…a bough capsized its load of snow… It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning… and the fire was blotted out!" (487). There are simply some aspects of nature that no man can control. The man is merely one of many helpless organism weeded out by the selective forces of heredity and environment. Man can never control those two factors; his inheritance cannot be chosen and nature will not bend to his whim. In conjunction, those two factors greatly limit the destiny of man. So in the end, it is man who buckles, submits, and is lulled into that eternal slumber by the slow dirge of the wild.