To Build A Fire Romanticism

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Realism is broadly defined as “the faithful representation of reality” or “verisimilitude.” In the short story To Build a Fire by Jack London, the romantic ideal that is being countered by the reality is nature. As a realist writer, Jack London shows in the short story how in reality nature does not care for people and how it can kill a man easily. To show how romanticism is portrayed in nature, two sources were chosen to prove the existence of a 19th century romantic ideal that is being debunked by the London’s realist point of view. The primary source is a poem written by Robert Frost in 1922 called Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening and the secondary source was an analysis written on romanticism by Catherine Peck in 2014 called Nature…show more content…
This poem portrays the romantic point of view of nature during winter. In contrast to the short story, this poem states nature in the winter is quiet and lovely. Once read, this poem clarifies its own stance on nature. The speaker is going through some woods on a snowy evening. The speaker takes in the lovely scene and is enticed to stay longer in the woods, but realizes he or she has other duties that they promised to keep and must continue on their journey for they must travel a distance before resting for the night. Frost seemed to take his time to describe nature with sensitivity and care while using good poetic technique, such as using a specific mood, tone, and imagery continuously throughout his poem. In his poem Frost writes, “The only other sound’s the sweep, Of easy wind and downy flake” (Frost). This quote shows that the speaker is taking the time to take in the sounds of nature, which are soft and…show more content…
Jack London, a realist, thinks of nature as a place that is not safe and has no mercy for humans. London’s opinion is seen straight away, for the first sentence of the story is, “Day has broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray” (London). This sentence really gives the reader a picture of a cold dark place, nothing like the beautiful picture painted in Frost’s poem. Then the reader is shown the brutality of nature. “At a place where there were no signs, where the soft, unbroken snow seemed to advertise solidity beneath, the man broke through” (London). This is the starting point of where the man’s luck starts to deteriorate. London shows that nature can get you when you least expect it. The man did not check to see if it was safe to walk on the path. It wasn’t safe so he fell through the ice, making him very cold. Then his bad luck continued, “It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out” (London)! This is the scene where the man tried getting warm by building a fire, and he did get one but it was soon put out because snow from the tree above fell on top of it. London portrays the evil of nature and how it has no mercy no matter the situation. Eventually the man dies because he freezes, which is the brutality of nature. London shows the brutality of nature because he is showing that not everything out in the world is easy, you
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