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To Build A Fire By Jack London Analysis

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Imagine Lack of Imagination One would not think that imagination would be vital in the numbing Yukon, however in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”, the narrator proves just how much even a puny amount of imagination will help a man in the extreme cold; through ignoring old advice, lack of common sense, and inexperience with nature’s instinct, one man will face death’s door in the cool dark depths of the Yukon. Before the man departed for his journey, he had visited a wise old man (who had taken the journey across the Yukon before) for advice about the trip. The man had said to travel with a partner and to not underestimate the cold, but the man had laughed at his advice; now that he was in the Yukon he was literally freezing to death: “Perhaps …show more content…

The man did not listen the the elder’s advice, and once he realized, dumbfounded, that the old man was right, he realized how foolish he was not to bring a partner because he thought he could be independent, and the journey would be a walk in a (moderately cold) park. As the man walks through the Yukon, he decides to peel off his mittens and unzip his jacket to eat a quick lunch and quickly realizes that was a bad idea: “That man from Sulfur Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in the country. And he had laughed at him at the time”(10). The man does not realize the significance of cold, and just how dangerous it can be when mixed with stupidity and absolutely no common sense. After the man builds his second fire (the first fire was for comfort, this fire is for survival), his only companion, the fluffy dog, wants to stay by the fire and not start to walk again because he knows exactly how deadly the frigid cold can be: “But the dog knew [about the cold]; and all its ancestory knew, and it had inherited the knowledge. And it now that it was not good to walk abroad in such fearful cold”(11). The man ignores the dog’s earnest motions to stay by the fire and moves on anyway, even though any man with a bit of knowledgeable mind would stay by the fire with the dog for

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