Use Of Instinct In To Build A Fire

412 Words2 Pages
Was it The Lack of Instinct or Knowledge? In the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London the main charter has to use instinct and knowledge to get through the cold ridged Yukon. He is new to the land and as London writes, “The trouble with him was that he was without imagination,” and in the long run that is what hurt him (629). He thought he knows everything he needs to know about the land and how cold it was going to be; he thought his instincts would help him. At the end of the story though the main characters instincts are not strong enough and that is what ends up killing him. In reality he is unaware of the many things waiting ahead for him in that freezing forest. An elder man tried to tell him that it is dangerous to go alone