The Crow
...uasively because it sets up conflict in the form of a contest between nature and man, with man eventually overwhelmed by nature, a force definitely beyond his control."This paper examines Jack London's story "To Build a Fire," with emphasis on elements of naturalism and realism. The paper illustrates the use that London makes of the dog as a character in the story. The story is outlined, depicting a lone man fighting the cold of Alaska and struggling to build a fire that may save him. The theme of conflict in the form of a contest between nature and man is prevalent in this paper, with man eventually overwhelmed by nature, a force obviously beyond his control.was quick and alert in the things in life, but only in the things, and not in the significant things. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immorality and man’s place in the universe. Fif...