Jack Londons Perspective of a Current Event

With spring time finally rolling in all the usual season thunderstorms are hitting. Most people think of taking cover when bad storms hit to avoid and possible casualties or injuries. What most people don’t think about though is the people working for the storm. That is the people identifying its actual forte and publicizing it for us viewers to see. This team includes of the weather man, meteorologists, and storm chasers. The Discovery Channel on television has a fairly new series called Storm Chasers. On this show a team of men set out to do some of the most dangerous unthinkable tasks. The goal of the “storm chasers” is to track down the largest tornadoes in Tornado Alley and then to go inside the core of the tornado and survive. Unfortunately one of the storm chasers, Matt Hughes, passed away recently from a fatal accident at home. While we viewed him as heroic and strong for doing what he did Jack London would probable perceive him as foolish and irrational. London would have believed in his right to death just because death simply happens. He would have believed that in the end the stronger force would come out on top. Even though Matt Hughes didn’t die because of environmental causes he still worked on the line of extreme danger and played with fate all the time. If Hughes were to be a character in one of Jack London’s naturalistic stories he would have died chasing down one of the tornados. It would have been a man versus nature event between Hughes and his prey and where normally Hughes would win something would go wrong and he would pass away. Jack London would have exposed all the jeopardies to the extreme giving Hughes more of a humorous unwise view rather than the actual courageous gallant man he actually was.

Jack London - Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis: To Build A Fire

            To Build A Fire is a story about a man and a dog fighting for survival in the bitter cold temperatures of the Yukon territory. The man in “To Build a Fire” is fighting for survival in an indifferent universe. He was a newcomer, or a chechaquo, to the Alaskan land. He was advised by an old-timer to not travel alone in this kind of weather but did so anyways. His ignorance kicks in and at seventy five degrees below zero he fights for survival and protection from vital body parts going numb and eventually freezing. His first mistake was being oblivious of the freezing cold temperatures and traveling alone. The second was when he fell through the spring and failed to make a fire multiple times for re-warmth of vital body parts. The man fights for survival under the circumstances until he finally freezes to death.

            The man in “To Build a Fire” is the main character. He comes from a generation of foolish and imprudent people that do not completely understand the actual danger in traveling across Alaska and the Yukon especially alone. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was very serious in laying down the law about no man traveling alone in the Klondike particularly after it being fifty degrees below zero. The man thought that the wise old-timers were ‘womanish’, he thought any man could travel alone if he just kept his head on straight. Unfortunately for him there was a difference between having your head on straight and having a high ego. Traveling in the seventy five degree below zero atmospheres comes into effect when the man started to lose the battle with the frost and realizes that he has no choice but to soon freeze to death. This proves that nature is a stronger force than human beings, we can out smart her but unconditionally she is the stronger force. The man in the story is an example of expressing free will but ironically it is an illusion of what he thinks he is possibly capable of doing. The man thought he would achieve some kind of freedom and liberty with traveling across the Yukon with freezing temperatures but when he realized he would freeze to death that freedom was more of an illusion than reality. The man was ignorant of trying to achieve this, in the end only the wise survived.

The dog traveling with him plays a very important and significant role. The dog instinct tells him how to strive for warmth and life in such difficult extremities. When the man and dog come across a suspected spring the man forces the dog to go across first to check for any possible cracks. The dog suspects what is going to happen and attempts to refuse to go across. The man forced the dog across and out of loyalty he went but the dogs’ assumptions were correct as he partly fell into the freezing cold spring. The dog also knew it was way too cold to be hiking across the Yukon; he wanted to just stay close to the fire or crawl up in a hole and snuggle. The dogs’ thoughts on this reinforce the idea of nature as an indifferent force.

            The story To Build a Fire proves to be a fine example of a Naturalistic text. It consists of all the consistent themes that define naturalism and realism. Jack London is a fine writer and opened many doors for current authors with this piece of work and achievement.

Jack London - Literary Movement

Jack London was a huge influence on Naturalism. Naturalism itself is a type of literature that tries to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings. London used a scientific way to create his stories. He studied humans and how they are governed by their passions and instincts as well as forces such as heredity and environment. Jack London was one of the primary practitioners of Naturalism. His first story, The Sea Wolf, made his introduction as a naturalistic author in America. People viewed it as rude and cruel, it was a type of story the general public wasn’t use to. The fact that someone wanted to write about a shipwrecked sailor that was rescued only to be enslaved and tortured was unreal to people. It started Jack London’s career of naturalism. In To Build a Fire, London wrote a detailed story of a foolish man freezing to death in the Yukon. This type of writing was his signature style. One of the most known stories from London is Call of the Wild. It is about a dog who either has to fight or die while being kidnapped and then escaping to live among the wolves. Jack London became an icon in literature history. He started a milestone of naturalistic texts soon to be followed by many others including Ernest Hemmingway, John Steinbeck, and Upton Sinclair. They all claimed him as their influence and branched off helping naturalism grow. Jack London was a man of many mysteries. People only know him for his stories, which do reflect his lifestyle, and concluded that he was a very troubled man. Jack London left something behind more important that his publishing’s though. His view of life such as Socialism and Naturalism opened a door to many current philosophies and viewpoints. More so Jack London will remain a part of American literature forever.

Jack London Biography

            Jack London was born in San Francisco in 1876. (3.) Before he was even born his mother had tried to commit suicide with a bullet to the head, luckily it didn’t work. He grew up in the slums of the city and his mother left him to be raised by an ex-slave named Virginia.(1.) He finished primary school then worked around from relaxed job to job until the depression of 1929 hit. London became depressed like a majority of Americans and tried to commit suicide but failed. His career first began when he noticed that Socialism was creating social classes and he was at the very bottom. He started preaching this idea on street corners and became known as “the boy socialist”. He tried to further his education but dropped out of prep school and kicked out of a boarding school for accomplishing the curriculum in two years in advance. He then went to Canada in search for gold but when he realized he was on the brink of dying he vowed to himself he would become a writer before that happened. His most popular works were The Sea-Wolf, The Iron Heel, To Build a Fire, and Call of the Wild. His work was thought of as crude and rude disrupting readers all over the country. It was mostly the truth though. While most literates wrote about fantasies and love London wrote about death in an honest way.  (2.) He was the first to write something like this leading to Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, and Ernest Hemingway to soon follow along. Most of the public however still disapproved of his work of “art”.  A critique in a magazine assumed he would end up in jail for it sooner or later. London soon turned into an alcoholic. His constant drinking caused pain in his kidneys and liver which he tried to cover up with morphine slowly killing him. Almost 40 years later his mother’s suicide attempt finally hit him. Jack London left behind a completely new style of writing, naturalism. (1.)

·         1. Hari, Johann. “Jack London’s many sides emerge in James L. Haley’s Wolf. – By Johann Hari – Slate Magazine. “Slate Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. http://www.slate.com/id/2261928/pagenum/2

·         2. Baym, Nina. ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7th ed. Vols. C, D and E. New York: Norton, 2007.

·         3. Stasz, Dr. Clarice. “Jack London: Biography.” The Jack London Online Collection. N.p., n.d Web. 21 Mar. 2011. http://london.sonoma.edu/jackbio.html