To Build A fire
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
The clash between man and the natural world is exhibited in the narrative "To Build a Fire". At the end of the narrative, the man is defeated by nature. His perish at the hands of nature is represented by his sad death.
The plot of the narrative portrays the clash between the man, who represents civilization, and the dog, who symbolizes nature. In this case civilization loses at the hand of nature. As we know, the battle starts in the very beginning of the story when the man has to get used to the very cold weather in the Yukon. Despite the wise words given to him by an old man from Sulphur Creek who warned him that it can get very cold in this part of the country, the narrator remains persistent and determined in this journey because he thinks that he'll probably reach his "boys" camp by six o'clock. The plot takes a sudden twist when the narrator accidentally falls through the ice while crossing the creek. At this point in time, the man really starts to feel the agony of the cold weather. In a desperate move, he tried to kill his only companion, the dog, because he envied its fur coating that had kept it isolated from the cold and eventually warm...