Comparing The Writing Style Of London's To Build A Fire

An additional example of London’s style devices that support his vivid writing style is the repetitive use of number, measurement, counting and time. While reading the two stories the numbers help creative pictures of how much further the men had to go or helped to put more emphasis on a specific topic. In “To Build A Fire” the first page is filled with examples of London using numbers or measurements. A few examples would be, “The Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of snow,” “This dark hairline was the trail-that lead south five hundred miles to the Chilcoot Pass, Dyea, and salt water; and that led north seventy miles to Dawson…” are just a few examples right from the beginning. As mentioned before the use of specific numbers in this case really helps to put into perspective how long this man actually has to go to get back to his group. It really emphasizes the idea of the length and helps us create an idea of what the man is feeling. “Love Of Life” also has many examples of repetitive use of number, counting, measurements and time. “He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he did was to count his matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to make sure” is just one

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