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Animal Instinct In Jack London's To Build A Fire

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Did you know that animal instinct is better for survival than human judgment. In “To Build a Fire” by Jack London a man decides to travel alone through the Klondike with only his dog for company. The man ignores the dog’s and old-timer’s warnings from the dog’s instinct about the dangerously cold weather. The man later on regrets the warnings from the old man and dog due to the harsh condition he was in, then later on he dies of hypothermia. The author develops the theme that animals’ instinct is better for survival than human judgment, because the man ignores the warning signs of the dangerously cold weather environment by using his judgment and not thinking much from the weather . The man also ignores the signs the dog gave him in the very …show more content…

The man is walking on the trail and find a husky trotting on the trail and the dog gave emotion signs about the cold to the man “The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that there was no time for traveling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told to the man by the man's judgment. In reality, it was not merely colder than fifty below zero … (London 6)” The man continues to disregard these warning signs from the dog until his fingers go numb and then he feels envy from the dog has warmth while he is facing the harsh conditions “ dog sat in the snow, its wolf-brush of a tail curled around warmly over its forefeet, its sharp wolf-ears pricked forward intently as it watched the man. And the man as he beat and threshed with his arms and hands, felt a great surge of envy as he regarded the creature that was warm and secure in its natural covering. (26)” The man should’ve used the resources he has like the dog to stay by the fire and get warmth but instead his judgment takes over him and he continues to experience the effect of the harsh

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(Tobias Wolff) One quote that exceptionally explains my claims on the man and the dog's relationship is, "Once, sensing danger, he made the dog go ahead. The dog did not want to go. It hesitated until the man

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Was it The Lack of Instinct or Knowledge? In the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London the main charter has to use instinct and knowledge to get through the cold ridged Yukon. He is new to the land and as London writes, “The trouble with him was that he was without imagination,” and in the long run that is what hurt him (629). He thought he knows everything he needs to know about the land and how cold it was going to be; he thought his instincts would help him.

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It was 75 below zero, he set off to go to the camp to meet the boy. Eventually the old man on Sulphur creek had told him not to travel alone but with someone and many advice did he give him. But this guy ignored them,now he faced dilemma along his journey, the dog new that it was extremely cold but it could do nothing jut observing, the man through several danger in which he mange to survive, however the man fell through. And was wet to the knees and got angry for what happened to him because I thought to arrived to the camp around six. Now he will be late,he will have to build a fire and dry off his moccasins

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Paulsen was constantly learning their ways; how they thought, moved, acted. The bond between man and dog is truly understood and explained through this novel.

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There was no real bond between the dog and the man. The one was the slave of the other. The dog made no effort to indicate its fears to the man. It was not concerned with the well-being of the man. It was for its own sake that it looked toward the fire.

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In the novel The Red Badge of Courage, psychological effects of war are further dealt with and examined than the aspect of physical war tactics. The book primarily focuses on one character and struggle: the protagonist Henry’s, constant battle with himself to be courageous. As the story moves forward, Henry is somewhat fighting two battles, one physical and one mentally as he strives to prove his bravery and manhood. It is commonly debated whether or whether not Henry finally succeeds and completes his pursuit for maturity and adulthood by the end of the novel. I think that although at first Henry notions of what it means to be a courageous man are inadequate to reality, he grows through experience and reaches maturity at the novel’s conclusion.

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Finally it discusses,“in a dog 's life, some plaster would fall, some cushions would open, some rugs would shred. Like any relationship, this one had its costs. They were costs we came to accept and balance against the joy and amusement and protection and companionship he gave us.” At the end he realized although training his dog would have made his life less stressful he loved his crazy

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Throughout, the dog acted strictly on instinct, whether it was fear of the man or the need to be near a fire, it represented how nature acts with or without the involvement of mankind. Another thing to mention is the dog’s ability to understand the impact of the cold weather versus the man. Mankind’s downfall in the story was the habit of underestimating events that could hurt them. The dog, acting as nature, cared about surviving in the wilderness, and it did whatever it could to live. When the man dies by the end, the dog walks away from his cold corpse to go find another “fire and food-provider” for it to survive with.

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In Jack London's classic novel "The Call of the Wild," the theme of loss and grief is a prevalent theme throughout the story. The main character, Buck, experiences the loss of his home, his family, and his identity. This paper will examine the ways in which London portrays loss and grief through Buck's experiences, as well as how he copes with these emotions. At the beginning of the novel, Buck is living a comfortable life as a domesticated dog in the Santa Clara Valley. However, when he is stolen and sold into the brutal world of the Yukon, he experiences a profound loss of his home and family.

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In “To Build a Fire”, author Jack London enhances Darwinistic doctrines that survival of the fittest is dominant in all forms of life and ridicules the idea that we alone determine the future through free will. The creatures that are best able to adapt will outlive those who cannot and will survive the hostile trials of natural selection. The survival of the dog rather than the man displays the dog’s ability to learn and use what he has learned to accommodate according to the situation. While the dog longed for fire because he “had learned about fire” the man saw fire as a burden because “it meant delay [and] he would be forced to stop”. This demonstrates the dog’s ability to identify when it is not safe to travel, accelerating his change

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The man plans to meet a group of boys at a mining camp and he does not let the cold keep him from traveling to his destination. The narrator contrasts the man’s thoughts with the dog’s thoughts. Unlike the man, the dog “knew that it was not time for traveling,” (630). The omniscient point of view allows us to get into the dog’s mind to see what he is thinking. We are also clearly able to see the main difference between the man and the dog.

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They may think that the man and dog never think the same because in the text it said “The man did not know the cold; But the dog knew” This is showing that the man and dog had different perspective on the coldness. Some people may think that the man and dog always think the same. They may think this because in the film it showed the man and dog getting along, especially when they were having to cross rivers. This is showing, that when the man and dog had to cross the river they were both smart enough not to walk over it until the man pushed the dog on to the river. Although some people may think this, it is not true because the man and dog show think differently in some situations like when the man was trying to kill the dog and similarly in other situations like warm fires.

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If man were to face nature, man will always lose if not accompanied by another. The powers of nature are much stronger than a single human body. Sometimes nature can be cruel, and other times it can be beautiful. In the story of, “To Build a Fire”, the character faces nature head on, alone. He had no company other than the dog that followed him around.

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Mark Twain believes that dogs are superior to man because out of all animals, man is the only one that is cruel enough to inflict pain on others just for the pleasure of doing it. Twain’s short story “A Dog’s Tale”, written in 1903, displays these beliefs and is done so from a dog’s point of view. This unusual take on the story is used to help convey the theme that one shouldn’t assume the others will do the same for them. The story includes literary elements such as characterisation, structural irony and a plot and conflict. It is a story of a loyal and heroic dog which unfortunately ends in an ironic twist of fate.

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He believes that the dog made him appreciate the little things in life and now that he is gone, he is left alone in the world. The dog gives the owner a sense of hope and optimism until it reaches the end of its life. The author no longer has the same happiness and excitement that he used to have. He lost the one thing that he shared

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