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Compare And Contrast To Build A Fire And The Cremation Of Sam Mcgee

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Throughout history man has had countless deadly interactions with nature, but man will never be able to defeat nature. In the literature by Jack London, the article, by University of Washington and Robert Service we can learn about some of the few times that man has lost against nature. In all of these stories the Man vs. Nature conflict is apparent to anyone reading these stories. In “To Build a Fire,” Klondike Gold Rush, and “The Cremation of Sam McGee” these writings have many similarities in its treatment of conflict as well as the differences. In all of these readings the weather is harsh and very cold. The weather is complete torture and extremely deadly. In the poem Sam McGee dies from being exposed to the cold for so long. As Sam McGee …show more content…

Out in the Yukon with sled dogs and his buddy , the narrator's friend is beginning to die due to the snow and extreme weather conditions. When the narrator is asked by Sam McGee to cremate him when he dies, the narrator is very hesitant to do so because that’s his friend and nobody wants to have to cremate their friend. Sam’s reasoning for this is because he has been cold and sick for so long that the thought of lying in a frozen-icy grave is too awful for him to think about. Sam would rather be in a warm hot place where his body can be in eternal warmth. Eventually Sam McGee dies and the narrator has to fulfil his friends dying wish, which is to cremate him. The narrator find a boat that has a furnace in it which he places Sam McGee’s body in. As he lights up the furnace and places coal into it, he feels so bad about burning his friend, but then again, it is his last dying wish. After Sam McGee is placed in the furnace and the narrator leaves he begins to feel a little lightheaded and feels sad about Sam, so he goes to check on him in the furnace. He can see the black smoke arising from the boat where the furnace is burning Sam’s body. By this point the cold has gotten to him to and is most likely going a little crazy. When he opens the furnace he sees Sam McGee sit up and ask him to close the door because it is nice and cold in there and he doesn’t want any cold getting in. By the end of the story the narrator sets off on his own but he starts feeling really tired and sweaty, which is unlikely to do in such

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Is nature here to help or harm humans? The short stories “To Build a Fire” and “The Outcast of Poker Flat”, written by Jack London and Bret Harte respectively, explore this idea. Both authors portray nature as apathetic and indifferent towards human beings and use literary devices such as imagery to accomplish this goal. In the short story “To Build a Fire,” Jack London shows the reader how cold and unforgiving nature can be to humans.

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The poem's structure creates a sense of uncertainty and surprise, as readers are unsure of what will happen to Sam McGee and how his story will end. The poem's use of vivid imagery, such as the description of the frozen landscape and the burning of Sam McGee's body, creates a sense of unease and adds to the poem's overall mystery and tension. The repeated refrain, "and he would talk to the Arctic sun, and the things he'd say were queer," builds tension by suggesting that something strange and unsettling is going to

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The ice in this case represented the colder they were, the closer to death the person became. The snow that represented hatred did not only surround him, it became a part of him. But after he felt that coldness, it was described as “a small red flame” and coupled with the poem, “Fire and Ice”, where fire represents desire. The flame in this case represented the want to die. With death quite literally getting closer by the second.

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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.

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In the non-fiction book Into the wild by Jon Krakauer and the short story “to build a fire” by Jack London, two authors describe “similar” lives “in the wild” with the worst ending. However,same process could lead to various answers, through comparing and contrasting the Into the Wild and To build a fire, readers could comprehend the homologous but different views for the nature lives from two authors. First of all, Chris McCandless in Into the wild and The man in “to build a fire” have similar but different motives for being out “in the wild”. McCandless is a talented young man who born in a relatively wealthy family, he never need to worries about money and life. But because of his desires for nature and some conflicts with his parents,McCandless

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Jack London’s To Build a Fire teaches how the wilderness is stubborn and unforgiving through the actions of the man, the struggle between the individual versus nature, and the symbolic structure of fire. Being prideful, unimaginative, and close minded can eventually lead to one’s downfall. The battle between the individual versus nature teaches that is it necessary to have respect for the earth in order to survive. The main image of fire, which is seen as a variety of objects, symbolizes life, death, hope, knowledge, and lack thereof. Too much self-confidence in a person has the ability to block them from thinking rationally.

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Jack London’s back ground and personal beliefs are reflected in his short story To Build a Fire. In this short story, the narrator is traveling through the harsh environment of the Yukon but due to his lack of imagination and experience he finds himself in a life threating situation. As the man navigates a frozen river, he is in high alert of streams flowing beneath the snow that could cause the ice to give way beneath him. After avoiding patches of the streams, he sits down to eat his lunch but forgets to build a fire. When they start back down the trail, the dog has to be forcefully called to the man’s heals because the instincts in the animal are telling it to burrow down in the snow.

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