Naturalism In Jack London's Short Stories

In this essay, we will explore the comparisons and contrasts of “To Build a Fire”, and “The Interlopers.” In “The Interlopers”, two men in a feud over land, fighting it out in nature, who will win? What will happen? Just like that “The Interlopers”, “To Build a Fire” is a story in which a man and his dog companion are out in nature, battling the cold, soon to have conflict just trying to get back home. These short stories both have characters who are outside and nature is against the characters. Both stories, the Interlopers and “To build a fire” do have their differences, and are alike in the character’s conflict with nature, but both stories have a major conflict.

Crane’s short story “The Blue Hotel” is an example of naturalism because of the way he intertwines nature with his characters. For example Crane gives the wind human characteristics by descriptions like “huge arms” that were making attempts to “embrace the flakes as they sped.” He was able to stimulate emotions and human-like qualities for the raging snow storm outside. As I was reading my attention was brought to these traits while I was imagining the “long mellow cry of the blizzard” and the snow wailing as it “flung to its grave in the south”. Here he transforms the storm outside is into a chilling graveyard. I enjoyed Crane’s style of naturalistic writing because he really does an amazing job of making the reader truly get into each character

“To Build a Fire” has regionalism, naturalism, and realism has many examples. The regionalism for To Build a Fire starts with the beginning of the story when London described the “day as broken and gray” and the main character “climbs a high earth-bank” and the “Yukon is hidden under three feet of ice”. “London”. The naturalism in the story has multiple examples but the overall theme of it is that natural doesn 't care about the man in the story with the temperature being colder then he thought and when he walks on the ice and gets his feet and then you got the men building his finally fire in which he pulls to much twigs and sticks from the tree so the consequence is that the tree drops all its snow on him and the fire. The final example of

In Barry Lopez’s story “A Literature of Place” he talks about how literature is affected by your surroundings. Lopez attempts to explain about him growing up in California and traveling around the world seeing indigenous people, specifically talking about his different experiences. Lopezs ideas of how place affects you and your imagination also is presenting in Jack London’s “To Build A Fire.” His use of voice, emotion, and logic he bring to his story gives you a better understanding and better relationship with the text.

All over the world books are getting banned with the intention of protecting people, but most importantly protecting children from inappropriate things. People such as librarians, parents, teachers, and others give their opinions about the content in books, which leads to the banning of a book or titled as challenged. Jack London 's book The Call of the Wild got banned between the 1920 's and 1930 's in Yugoslavia and Italy. Besides being banned, it also was burned in Nazi Germany. They said that the socialism in the book angered and threatened them. Also, the animal cruelty made them think that London was accepting of it (Banned Books). Due to this book London was called a "nature faker" by President Theodore

They both were willing to put their lives in danger in order to examine nature closer or to get the full experience of nature. Both of them were under the assumption that they were basically immortal and that their only purpose was to be free. However maybe it is better that they both had roamed free- it is never a good idea to keep a wandering spirit cooped up. McCandless and Ruess had both felt that they were drawn to nature and meant to be there and that beauty was all that mattered. They were drawn to it and it eventually cost both of them their

He wrote this story during the Klondike gold rush. This is why this story has the setting and the plot line it has. In this time thieves were a problem for miners. London probably focused more on the human vs. nature due to the fact that this shows the resolve of the miner over the land and not over the thief. This is a more difficult battle due to the fact that it takes more resolve and determination to overcome nature. However, the conflict of human vs. human was also difficult due to the fact that the thief had a gun. What drove the miner was passion to defend his gold that he earned by overcoming the challenges that nature presented to him. What is really surprising is that after he was shot twice and he left the canyon happy and joyful. This shows that over his own pain, the joy of finding gold took his mind to his happy place. This shows that he is willing to put his life on the line for his

Naturalism was a philosophical belief that human character was shaping by a natural environment, which stating any superstition did not exist, such as gods, spirits. Naturalism literary movement began in late nineteenth century in art, film, and literature. It was about showing human character for surviving in a naturalistic environment.

San Francisco, California has experienced fourteen earthquakes above a magnitude above 5.1 since 1836. The earthquakes of 1865 and 1906 both brought on varying forms of destruction. Twain, writing about the earthquake of 1865, found amusement and humor in the devastating event; while London only saw the destruction and loss in the earthquake of 1906.

In her paper “American Literary Naturalism: Critical Perspectives,” Donna Campbell writes that “the history of American naturalism is far from a completed chapter in literary history” (511). Naturalism has indeed come a long way since its emergence in the late nineteenth century. As a movement initially dominated by men, it has grown to include women and their versions of naturalism and continues to expand by including African, Native, and Ethnic Americans. Still more impressively, recent scholarship has helped “to shape a new and more inclusive conception of naturalism,” with some works focusing on “naturalism as a theme rather than as a time-defined movement (thereby extending the possible range of texts that could be considered as naturalistic)”

In the short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “To Build a Fire”, the overarching theme is insiders versus outsiders, which is brought to light by the contrast of Romanticism and Naturalism. This theme can be shown through various pieces of evidence from each of the short stories. The theme, even though it is underlying, is extremely vital to the understanding of the two stories. In the “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “To Build a Fire”, the underlying theme of insiders versus outsiders allows a specific contrast of the two literary periods of Romanticism and Naturalism.

Arrogance, cockiness, and yearning are all examples of things that can kill you in a glimpse of an eye. This story is set in the Yukon during the great “Klondike Gold Rush.” Many people traveled to Yukon in Canada in search of a great fortune. However the cost was unknown to many; with degrees below zero, many people would die. With all this, eventually the bearded man of the story decided he would join in on this. He traveled many many miles to come across an older man who warned him of the icy cold unforgiving mountains. The man ignored his warning and went on with his adventure. In doing this the man displayed not only cockiness but arrogance and yearning.

The word natural sounds healthy but in reality it 's the same thing as artificial. The text to Build a Fire had similar themes to the other two sources but the reality is slightly different. In the other two sources it showed you the reality of a certain situation in this text it shows you how a person can be so idealistic they miss out on the reality. The author London in the text to Build a Fire shows you the man 's lack of imagination and his unwillingness to listen to other peoples advice. The man takes too much pride in his abilities and it doesn 't look at the realistic ways of nature. In the text to Build a Fire the author London says, "Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature

In her paper “American Literary Naturalism: Critical Perspectives,” Donna Campbell writes that “the history of American naturalism is far from a completed chapter in literary history” (511). As a movement initially dominated by white men beginning in the late nineteenth-century, it has grown to include women as well as African, Native, and Ethnic Americans. Still more impressively, recent scholarship has helped “to shape a new and more inclusive conception of naturalism,” (Campbell 508). As a result, current forms of naturalism incorporate “theories of race and gender, economics, cultural critique, and postcolonialism” (Campbell 500). This in turn has led to new areas of study which include the ideas of “space and place, or encounters with the environment” and “corporeality, or coming to terms with the body” (Campbell 508). It is within this context of recent scholarly work that naturalism is seen in the novel Tracks , written by Native American author, Louise Erdrich. A characteristic of naturalism, determinism manifests itself in Tracks through depictions of the “brute”, quests for power and wealth, and the portrayals of deterioration and violence.

To Build A Fire is a short tragic tale by Jack London that narrates about a man’s last days on the earth. The story’s protagonist is passing through the sub-freezing land of the Yukon when he becomes the victims of an unforgiving and harsh force of nature. Before embarking on the journey, the man is warned against walking alone on such severe weather conditions and even if his instincts also warn him, he decides to ignore all the signs and his conscience and to follow his ego. He makes several attempts to light a fire but does not make it. It is after several attempts that the man finally gives in to the forces of nature and awaits his now evident death. This paper asserts that in the story To Build A Fire, Jack London compares the man 's ego and powers to the forces of nature by depicting a contest between these two initiated by the man but one that nature always wins.