Chris Mccandless And Jack London Essay

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“What were frosted cheeks? A bit painful, that as all; they were never serious” (London 37). In Into the Wild, Chris McCandless was very inspired by Jack London’s work, like “To Build A Fire”, and this quote proves that. Chris’s thoughts and opinions on many things were quite different from many others. Chris tended not to put his safety and well-being first and that ended up hurting him in the end. Throughout the book Into the Wild and the short story “To Build A Fire” both characters felt that they would beat the odds and that what happened to everyone else wouldn’t happen to them. However, unfortunately, neither of them did beat the odds, instead they became just another statistic. In both stories, the main characters were both warned about …show more content…

The man in “To Build A Fire” was very similar. He had met a man in Sulfur Creek before going beginning his journey. The man warmed him that where he was going was extremely cold and told him that has should bring a partner that would be able to help him in case of an emergency. However, the man ignored him and went into the 75 below conditions and eventually froze to death (London 39). Another similarity the two shared was the fact that both men deemed pretty serious things as not that big of a deal. In “To Build A Fire” the man considers getting frostbite in his cheeks a minor inconvenience. “What were cheeks? A bit painful, that was all; they were never serious”(London 37). Chris had similar views. For example, while Chris was driving he decided to go off the road into a forbidden area where he decided to set up camp. However, there was an unexpected thunderstorm that flooded the area he was camped in and the engine of his car was soaked. Chris was now unable to get his car out of the forbidden area and would have to go tell the ranger everything that happened and risk getting in more trouble. Most people would consider this a pretty stressful and upsetting situation,but not Chris, he was taking this chance to get rid of