Jack londons apparent conflict
Jack londons apparent conflictIn history, many extraordinary authors have written about struggles among two or more forces. Even in the earliest times, Homer, one of history’s greatest writer and philosophers, has written such pieces as The Odyssey, the fable of a common man who challenges elements he has no control over, and successfully overcomes them to achieve glory. Jack London, while a great philosopher in his own way, does not write about common mortal men overcoming fate, but instead focuses on many different categories of struggles, including man versus man, man versus nature, and man versus society. Examples of London’s intertwining of struggles can be seen in such stories as White Fang, The Call of the Wild, and “To Build a Fire”.
Jack London, whose life symbolized the power of will, was the most successful writer in America in the early 20th Century. His vigorous stories of men and animals against the environment, and survival against hardships were drawn mainly from his own experience. An illegitimate child, London passed his childhood in poverty in the Oakland slums. (Walcutt 8) At the age of 17, he ventured to sea on a sealing ship. The turning point of his life was a thirty-day imprisonment that was so degrading it made him decide to turn to education and pursue a career in writing. His years in the Klondike searching for gold left their mark in his best short stories; among them, The Call of the Wild, and White Fang. His novel, The Sea-Wolf, was based on his experiences at sea. His work embraced the concepts of unconfined individualism and Darwinism in its exploration of the laws of nature. (Walcutt 1-2) He retired to his ranch near Sonoma, where he died at age 40 of various diseases and drug treatments.
“To Build a Fire” has often been called London’s greatest masterpiece. It is based on the struggle of the intelligence of man versus the intuition of animal (Magill Survey 1810). "To Build a Fire" continuously expresses the man's dwindling warmth and bad luck in his journey along the Yukon trail to meet "the boys" at camp. London associates dying with the man's diminishing ability to stay warm in the frigid Alaskan climate. The main characters predicament slowly worsens one level at a time finally resulting in death.
The irony of “To build a Fire” is that man, with all the benefits and luxuries of society and civilization, fails in his attempt to overcome his creator, nature, and instead falls victim to it, while the hound, equipped with only his natural born instincts, survives. (Boone 25) This is clearly a conflict between Man and Nature, where nature prevails.
Another of London’s famous story, where the reader again sees the conflict of mankind versus nature, is White Fang. White Fang is a novel based on the concept of a wolf becoming domesticated and part of civilization (Walcutt 22) London describes White Fang as a strong, quick, and agile...
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