To Build A Fire Unsympathetic Human Essay

Unsympathetic Human Beings Human beings can be unsympathetic, selfish, and “realistic”. These human beings die unwisely, not realizing the keys to life until their last few breaths. In “To Build A Fire” by Jack London, a man whom is a newcomer to Alaska fails to take an “old timer’s” advice about the Klondike and travels the seventy-five below zero degree freezing Yukon for nine hours with his Huskey heading for a mining camp where all his buddies are waiting with “a warm fire and tasty bacon.” In “To Build A Fire”, author Jack London uses Imagery and Characteristics to develop the moral that no sympathy and no imagination leads man towards failure of a journey in which man believed he could survive with little knowledge, stubbornness and carelessness leading him to relinquishment.

London shows that the newcomer’s reckon to defeat is beyond his power. His stubborn way of life leads his body to numbness after walking a few ways in the freezing snowed out Yukon; his unrealistic perspectives lead him suffering to get warmth. “Once in a while the thought reiterated itself that it was very cold and that he had never experienced such cold.” (129) Knowing that a man had “never experienced such cold” leaves the readers visualizing how cold this newcomer may be. “He would kill the dog and bury his hands in the warm body until the numbness went out of them. Then he could build another fire.” “He sat down in the snow, and in this fashion held the dog, while it snarled and whined and struggled.” (135) With the use of imagery, readers can envision the newcomer struggling to kill his own dog for sake of his own life. This shows how careless this man is and how unsympathetic human beings tend to think when in