English 101 Essay

Submitted By jeanha21
Words: 400
Pages: 2

Hannah Jean
Erdmann
English 101
28 September 2010

In Jack London’s, “To Build a Fire”, the protagonist, who is not named, is hiking in the Yukon trying to make his way to a campsite where his friends are located. He is put through several different challenging situations that risk and end up taking his life in the end. The man, as the main character is referred to in this story, doesn’t survive in the end because of his lack of experience with his surroundings, his stubbornness when it comes to listening to an old man who tries to help him and because of his panic that makes him lose focus. The man made several mistakes because of his ignorance towards the situation that caused him to lose his life. After breaking through the ice and getting his foot wet, he went to make a fire to warm it up. The temperatures were unbearable at seventy five below zero so it was important for the man to quickly make a fire. He had started the fire under a spruce tree not thinking of the consequences of doing in this place. Because the man had plucked branches from the tree that was fully covered in snow, the placement of the snow was agitated.
“High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on the boughs beneath, capsizing them. This process continued, spreading out and involving the whole tree. It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out!” (London 4).
The man was obviously not thinking