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Pride In Jack London's To Build A Fire

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Human and Nature Pride According to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, naturalism is a theory that essentially states that everything in life is based on natural laws and causes. Jack London uses naturalism in To Build a Fire to convey the idea that nature is more powerful than man and that man should not be too conceited about dealing with it. Additionally, there were many who traveled to the Klondike River during the Yukon Gold Rush of 1896 to 1899 in hopes of getting rich, which is the setting for London's story. London's story tells the tale of a man who travels to Alaska hoping to strike it rich in the Yukon Gold Rush. However, the omniscient narrator tells the reader that The Man is too prideful, is led by his ego, and lacks the instinct …show more content…

The narrator discusses how ignorant The Man is to his situation throughout the duration of the story because he is led by his enormous ego. The Man doesn’t respect nature, believing that he can overpower it, but London’s naturalist perspective tells the reader otherwise. To show how ignorant The Man is, London writes that The Man thinks “the temperature did not matter” (65). This is false, however, because, in the end, The Man’s ignorance and ego ultimately led him to freeze to death. After all, nature always wins when paired with man. The Man is unable to accept the consequences of this ignorance and instead chooses to remain oblivious to his own foolishness, leading him further down a path of self-delusion and pride. Thus, emphasizing the theme of the story that nature is more powerful than …show more content…

The narrator tells us what the dog is thinking and how it contradicts what The Man is thinking. The Man seems to be unfazed by the extreme cold, but the dog “knew that this was no time for traveling” (66). Additionally, the narrator states, “Its [the dog's] own feeling was closer to the truth than the man’s judgment” (66). This shows that The Man doesn’t understand how dangerous this situation is due to his lack of judgment and instinct. Despite The Man's seemingly obliviousness to the extreme cold, the narrator proves that the dog's instincts are more reliable than the man's judgment, ultimately making the dog wiser than

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