Geography Matters By Thomas C. Foster: Chapter Summary

The narrator describes the Yukon Territory as 75-degrees below freezing and being a highly treacherous for anyone to travel alone (2). By introducing this hostile environment, London creates tension in the reader as they begin to question the man’s safety in the freezing cold temperatures, After the man falls into the river and starts to freeze to death, he builds a fire in order to survive. As the fire grows and the warmth spreads, the snow on a tree falls, knocking out his fire. Through struggles such as this one, suspense is created due to the severity of the danger the man faces and the risks involved in the

It evokes an image of stress and worry as well as a hope through faith for a better life. It goes on to say: “The ones who are lost to God and mothers/may take the fields/the dry fields” (20-21). The reference to “dry fields” emphasizes the heat and lack of rain and also illustrates the unpleasant working condition. This also symbolizes how they are bound to the island with no other options, trapped. The last two lines say: “where a man learns the danger of words/where even a curse can start a fire” (22-23).

While the dog "yearn[s] back toward the fire," the man foolishly decides to keep moving, as he is "ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezing point" (16). The fire symbolizes a comfort the man hopes to find when he makes it to "the boys" at camp, where "a fire [will] be going, and a hot supper [will] be ready" (4). The dog also yearns for this comfort, but does not think it is necessary to travel to the camp to get it. When the man’s second fire is put out by a shelf of snow from a spruce tree, he has a deep understanding that he is in extreme danger. His failure to build a new fire is completely dependent on the stiffening of his fingers: "When he touched a twig, he had to look and see whether or not he had hold of it.

He later arrives at a creek is familiar with and remembers the danger of the hidden springs that ran off from the hillside which left pools of water nearly three feet deep, covered by a thin sheet of ice hidden under the snowy ground. At this point, the man is very concerned about accidently falling into one of these pools. "And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant trouble and danger." (113) Getting wet would only delay him, "at the very least it meant delay, for he would be forced to stop and build a fire...." (113) Every time he thought he came across a frozen pool, he would force the dog to go first to see if it is safe or not. At this point and time, he begins to get more and more nervous about the

This job allows him to make money and the strength to carry on in his journey. Later on in his journey he is faced even greater adversity and the same thing happens he is dejected and lost but picks himself up and preservers. “ “he is going to transform himself into the wind, just to demonstrate his powers. If he cant we humbly offer our lives for the honor of the tribe.” … The boy was shaking with fear, but the alchemist helped him out of the tent. … the alchemist continued, “usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives.”” (Coelho 140 6 8, Coelho 142 2) Just like before Santiago is afraid and doesn't know what to do in a situation of adversity.

When the other farmers clubbed the cold and helpless pheasants, the boys took a different approach at the situation at hand. Heynen also conveys overcoming naivety when he writes “they saw dark spots along the fence”. (1) The fence is a symbol of a wall that the boys have to climb over in order free themselves of the weight of tradition and expectation. It is also evident that it is human nature follow in the footsteps of what someone did before us, but sometimes there comes a time when you have to make your own decisions, and that is ‘going on the path less traveled by.’ Another way the author imparted overcoming naivety is by making a

Are the berries he finds poisonous? Slowly, Brian learns to turn adversity to his advantage--an invading porcupine unexpectedly shows him how to make fire, a devastating tornado shows him how to retrieve supplies from the submerged airplane”(Paulsen). Unlike the man in To Build A Fire this boy was nowhere prepared to take on the journey of living in the woods alone, he had no background knowledge and everything he had to do was off of gut feeling, he was never sure. However, the boy was resourceful just like the man and was able to find ways to further prolong his living. The man in the short story made sure the dog went first so he would know when the ice was too thin, the boy in this story had things help him along the way like the tornado and porcupine.

In the story “To Build a Fire” the protagonist fails to recognize nature strength, almost in a disrespectful manner while traveling in the harsh Yukon environment. The down fall for him not listening and underestimating nature itself led him to his death. In this story you could find irony because he was also warned by a wise old man not travel alone in extreme conditions. The protagonist failed to listen to the old man that was his first mistake. The protagonist got lucky a couple times among his journey and came across many trial and errors, but the character’s luck started to run out.

Stephen King’s “The Running Man” is a very tough book to summarise. There are many things that happen throughout it, but due to the nature of the situation, in the end everything around Ben Richards gets destroyed, causing many things that may seem to be key events to have very little impact on the ending of the story. The basic story, removing all of these elements, is that a man named Ben Richards is living an impoverished life in some random town in the U.S., and signs up for a death game called The Running Man to make a whole bunch of money so he can get his daughter’s pneumonia treated. The whole idea of The Running Man is that a man goes on the run for 30 days from the authorities and a group of people called the hunters who are chasing

But fear takes hold of them and makes them help themselves and not each other. These two characters develop the theme by going through a bad situation. In the story Bruno gives Shmuel food another SS officer walks in and Shmuel says that Bruno gave him the food and that they were friends. But when the officer asks Bruno about it he isn’t able to say anything. This shows the theme because in that situation they were

He gave him water, his rations, and carried him throughout the camp even while he wanted to lay down like the other old men from the camp. Elie knew that all those men would get burned and killed because they were of no use to the Germans anymore. In conclusion there are several accounts in the novel Night by Elie Weizel where his faith in religion is tested. When he is separated from his family at the arrival of Auschwitz, When he and another turn against their fathers from the traumatization of the camp itself, and when his father is dying near the end of