To Build A Fire character study The Man

A detailed Summary of To Build A Fire character study The Man

In "To Build a Fire," Jack London expresses his perspective of the multitude of greenhorns who flocked to the yukon in a rush for gold. It is evident that he believed that these newcomers were too inexperienced and blinded by gold fever to survive the trip. Like many of them, "the Man" is driven by his own foolish ego to act irrationally and to not follow wise advice. Though his consience continually nags at him, his ego-driven way of thought keeps pushing him blindly forward. The Man is not only representative of other fortune hunters like himself, but he also repersents every person on this planet. All of us, at some point in time, pushed our own consience aside and followed our own selfish ego.

The Man was a newcomer to the land, yet when he was offered advice on how to survive the harsh conditions of the Yukon, he just laughed at it:

It certainly was cold, was his thought. That man from Sulphur Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in the country. And he had laughed at him at the time! That showed that one must not be too sure of things.

This shows that he is driven by his ego, and like many other young men, he thinks that he is so much better than everybody else that he does not even l

He goes on to say, "All a man had to do was to keep his head, and he was al right. Any man could travel alone." He still has not learned his lesson. Unfortunately for him, the Man does not realize his faults until his eleventh hour:

The Man in "To Build a Fire" is a victim of his own self, which was transformed into his worst enemy by his selfish ego. He pays the highest price for his actions; his life. He could have saved himself had he heeded the old-timer's advice and waited for the temperature to rise or for a traveling companion. But, he let his ego take control of himself and pushed all of the wise advise which he had been given out of his head. The Man is symbolic of every living person in that we all usually learn things best the hard way. Fortunately for us, we often get another chance. We should cherish the advice and wisdom of others and blend them with our own knowledge to create our view of the world. If we could succeed at this, we would probably live much happier lives.

isten to the advice of an old man who has proably been living in the Yukon longer than the Man has been alive.

The fire was a success. He was safe. He remembered the advice of the old-timer on Sulphur Creeek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious about laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself.

Fifty degrees bleow zero st

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 988
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English