The White Heron

When creating a story, every writer has different motivations and goals. Some writers describe psychological changes within the characters, others bring up different styles relating to what is occurring in the real world, and some discuss the region surrounding the area of the characters that they are creating. Through the analyzation of different naturalist’s texts, one can find different portrayals of nature and human interaction with the natural surroundings. Though the story The White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett and To Build a Fire by Jack London, two different interactions of humans and their natural environment are portrayed. One of these interactions is where human fits into the natural world and the other where the natural world is far

But, in other stories, the main character underestimates the abilities of nature and the power that the natural world has upon humans. When this underestimation occurs, the human that is exposed to nature’s elements gets put in danger. The danger that this exhibits is seen with the main character in Jack London’s, To Build a Fire. The man within this story did not hold the same respect for nature that the previous character, Sylvia, did. He was not mesmerized by what nature and its power had to offer as illustrated in, “But all this—the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of the sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all – made no impression on the man” (1048). This statement shows how the man did not have any regard for the forces that nature was imposing upon him. When he looked out on the landscape on this particular day he did not notice all the power that nature was exhibiting upon him, which ultimately led to his death. Unlike the small girl, this man did not truly see the natural world. This disconnect lead to nature overpowering him and by the time he noticed how powerful nature can be, it was too late. In this text, the man has a dog with him, but unlike the dog, the man has no natural instincts on weather or direction. But, since the man does not express any honor or respect for the natural world that the two are experiencing, the dog doesn’t contribute his natural instinct to the man as he is lost in the wilderness. The lack of connection between the natural dog and the man is expressed by, “And still later it [the dog] crept close to the man and caught the scent of death… Then it turned up and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it know, where there were the other food providers- and fire-providers” (1058). During the time of the man’s journey,