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Ignorance In Jack London's To Build A Fire

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The Limitations of Ignorance Ignorance is a flaw that is engraved in the human psyche. This trait is exemplified in Jack London's short story “Building a Fire”. The protagonist's ignorance is his final grave mistake, other things were involved in his death, yet, his demise was encapsulated by his ignorance. By underestimating the uninviting and ferocious nature of the desolate Alaskan Tundra, the protagonist is faced with his imminent demise. London proves living in a state of ignorance and not using available resources is only going to be harmful. In the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, the protagonist, who remains nameless, is trekking the Alaskan wilderness with his companion, a lone dog. The man is traveling by himself against …show more content…

It was at this point that he decided to be a writer, he started writing about everything: Horror, adventure, jokes, and more. He found immediate success with his adventure stories, in part due to his ridiculous haste in writing. It was at this time that he started publishing works such as “White Fang”, “The Call of the Wild” and “To Build a Fire”. The Klondike Gold Rush started in the 1870s, almost 30 years before London's writing campaign. The area became extremely popular with men and women all over the Americas. Once news broke that there were riches in the Yukon, tens of thousands of men and women immediately dropped everything they were doing and began the long and dreary trip north. These men and women were called “stampeders”. The vast majority of the stampeders were fatally unprepared for the climate of northern Canada, this resulted in more than half of those who started the journey never arriving in the Yukon. To the stampeder's dismay, the quantity of gold was exaggerated and many were forced to return home in debt, or not have the funds to return home at all. The Yukon is the setting of the story. Known for its harsh climate and vast wilderness, the high-elevation forests have captured many lives. There are few towns and the towns that are

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Through the first 5 units of the course I read some inspiring well written stories, But I'm still impressed by that piece of art Jack London wrote. (To Build A Fire) is a kind of stories you cannot forget. Nice structured with a lot of mystery and meanings inside it. The author was talking about a man who decided to travel through Alaska, in a place called Yukon River.

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In additional, The Man is a completely layman for the life in the wild, he is keeping making mistakes. Jack London tells, “It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open. But it had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire”(605).

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Jack London is one of the most profound writers of all the time, with his precious fiction pieces being popular even today. One such of his stories is To Build A Fire (1908), a fictional story that is set in the Yukon, Canada that deals with an unnamed man carrying his life through the freezing-cold trail. The story explains how the man survives his journey on the trail and builds up tension on whether he lives or not. Even with a simplistic plot and not too many elements to play with, John London makes a strong point that it is common for humans to be subjected to illusory superiority, i.e. it is common for people to think themselves as more experienced and overestimate their abilities in a particular area. He also indirectly conveys the

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In Jack London's "To Build a Fire," the man's arrogance and ignorance lead him to face a series of conflicts that ultimately result in his demise. The man in "To Build a Fire" is a solitary and arrogant figure who believes he can conquer the harsh, sub-zero temperatures of the Yukon. He disregards the advice of an old-timer at Sulfur Creek, who warns him not to travel alone in such cold conditions. The man's ignorance and hubris are evident in his decision to ignore the advice and forge ahead.

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Did you know that when it is 75 below 0, it takes about 15 to 45 minutes for you to lose consciousness? In the short story “To Build a Fire”, by Jack London, this case is otherwise. In this book, hours went on before his death, but many things happened during these long, cold days. The three unfortunate ways that the man killed himself were ignoring advice from others, building a fire under a tree, and falling into an ice trap.

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The short story of a man wandering across the Yukon Territory in midwinter creates a multitude of feelings in the reader. However, no feeling is stronger than the suspense about the survival of the main character. The man sets out alone to cross the Yukon Territory alone, despite warnings about the dangers of doing so. These dangers as told to us through through the eyes of a narrator develop the anticipation that keeps the story entertaining. Jack London’s effective use of basic literary techniques such as narration and conflict in the short story “To Build a Fire” is successful in keeping the reader involved throughout the story.

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The family ties that this individual and I share creates a risk for me as a therapist to enter into an unethical dual relationship in which I could lose my objectivity in viewing this individual as a patient. Thus, creating more of a caretaking relationship in which I may feel responsible for providing for this client (food, shelter, childcare, finances). This situation would overlap into improper gift giving and receiving, as it is a custom within Latin communities to demonstrate thankfulness with gifts. Also, I would be prone to take away the patient’s autonomy by influencing the patient to attend my church or imposing my view on issues taking place within our families.

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The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.

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To Build A Fire is a short tragic tale by Jack London that narrates about a man’s last days on the earth. The story’s protagonist is passing through the sub-freezing land of the Yukon when he becomes the victims of an unforgiving and harsh force of nature. Before embarking on the journey, the man is warned against walking alone on such severe weather conditions and even if his instincts also warn him, he decides to ignore all the signs and his conscience and to follow his ego. He makes several attempts to light a fire but does not make it. It is after several attempts that the man finally gives in to the forces of nature and awaits his now evident death.

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In Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”, a man wanders alone through the Yukon with nobody else except his instinctive dog. The man, a survival rookie, after a fall through ice desperately tries to do what the title says. Failing to do so (multiple times), the man dies; his dog, being more intuitive, makes it to the camp his owner was struggling to arrive at. Almost a century later, Laurence Gonzales wrote “Deep Survival”, an article describing the similarities between survival stories Gonzalez had read over decades of extensive research and illuminates points for the reader to follow in a survival situation. Perhaps if the man in London’s story had read Gonzalez’s article, he might have swerved around mistakes that would eventually lead to his passing.

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