Analysis Of Christopher Mccandless In Jack London's To Build A Fire

In the book “Into the Wild” written by John Krakauer, and the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, both represent and differ similarities within these stories. These two stories represent a selfish man thinking they can tackle an adventure in the wild. The two main characters live and experience identical deaths. The similarities between these two characters are nothing more than that both men travelled in similar harsh winter weather conditions, despite the fact both men were informed before their travels it would not be a simple journey to survive. Why would people face harsh weather conditions with little to no aid for them to survive?

Throughout the novel “Into the Wild” the character Mccandless had planned to leave off on his own to explore the forest of Alaska. Mccandless was the son of a wealthy parents, he left them with the intention to show or prove something to himself and his family, after he left without telling them. He had donated all his money he had earned and gave it all to charity and practically gave up all his possessions. This young man was not prepared to be out in the wild since he did not have the right equipment and food supplies to survive out in the wild. He was later found dead inside of a school bus that had been sitting in the wild for years.

When Chris reached Alaska, he had ended up burning all of his money he had previously earned working for Wayne. McCandless has a mind set to take close to no supplies and live in the Alaskian wilderness on his own without any plan. Adam Shepard had a similar, but yet a very different story than Chris McCandless. Shepard decided to choose a random city and see if he could make it starting with close to nothing with him. In the beginning he had no plan or anywhere to go, until he ran into a man who showed him to a nice shelter close by that he could stay at until he figured out his plan.

Have you ever felt like you just needed an escape from any situation or you house for a while or have you ever felt like you were being neglected? In the short story “The Ascent” by Ron Rash, the story follows the life of a boy named Jared. Who is in a household where both of his parents are drug users and though to their best efforts do not do the best at watching or raising their kid. Jared has make-believe time in the woods to escape home as he does he stumbles across a crash plane the cops have been looking for and inside he finds a man and woman dead. He steals the woman’s ring and the man’s watch.

Chris was incredibly careless with some of the most important things a man has in life including life itself. Chris lacked the skill to correctly extract and preserve the meat of the moose that he poached while staying at the bus. The man that gave Chris a ride to the Stampede Trail realized how underprepared Chris was and gave him a pair of boots and even his lunch. Chris’ gear was cheap and otherwise improper. The knowledge that Chris had of the Alaskan wilderness is represented by his simple blunder concerning the change in the river crossing from spring to summer.

Turning from a prideful boy to being merciful toward his dead brother. In fact, it all began when his brother was born, “with a tiny body which was red and shriveled like an old man’s” (595). Doodle is weakened and incapable of doing activities normal kids do at his age. The narrator encourages Doodle to keep on pushing, but no sooner does the narrator learn that pushing Doddle over his limitations will sooner or later kill him. The narrator kills Doodle indirectly, as a consequence of the lack of knowledge he has about Doodle’s medical issues, and as said before, being enveloped in pride.

In "To Build a Fire" the protagonist makes bad decisions because he is far from civilization, and he wants to reach it. For example, before he stops to build the first fire, he realizes that it is colder than he has ever experienced before, but he does not do anything because he is only thinking about the fact that “at six o’clock he would be in camp with the boys.” This shows that the protagonist is not thinking about his well being, he is just thinking about reaching his friends. Another example is when he builds the second fire under the spruce tree then snow fell from the tree, and “the fire was blotted out." This example shows that the protagonist is not thinking straight because he built his fire in a bad place because he was focusing on getting to civilization, not surviving. In "An Episode of War", the protagonist is treated differently because of his injury.

In both stories an example of determinism would be that both of the men’s outcomes were determined by nature. In “Love of Life” nature really did decide his fate, because he was forced to struggle through the frigid weather without shelter, and in the search food. However bleak it may have seemed nature did show him mercy by allowing him to find the ship and allowing the reachers come to his rescue. In “To Build A Fire” nature forced the man through all of the hardships of being cold and hungry for so long that there could only one outcome, his demise at the end of the story by the freezing cold. All in all we can see London’s use of regionalism and naturalism did infact impacted the outcome of the stories he

He might have spoken but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out seemingly to detain me but I escaped and rushed downstairs". (Shelly 56-57)Although the monster had a mind of a newborn child at the time since it was just created it did not realise it was being rejected when Victor tried escaping the grasp of it, instead the monster was trying to seek acceptance from Victor as a son to a father would. The monster eventually fled into the wilderness since no one was around. It learns basic survival skills by eating berries from bushes and off the ground, drinking water from nearby streams,keeping warm with clothes and lastly surprisingly learns pretty quickly how to keep a fire going which a wandering beggar had left. Eventually winter set in and food became very scarce, wood was wet meaning no fire which made the monster have to move.

Jack London’s short story, “To Build a Fire,” is the tragic tale of a man "who, against the advice of an old timer, ventures out into the harsh environment if the Yukon with only the company of a wolf-like dog. Due to his failure to heed the Old Timer's advice, the man is unprepared for the below freezing temperatures and becomes a victim of the harsh terrain. Towards the beginning of his journey, the man gets his feet wet as he falls through the ice into the water of a spring. The extremely low temperature means that the man needs to quickly build a fire to prevent his feet from freezing. Frantically, the man attempts to create a fire, however, his efforts prove to be ineffective.