The Unnamed Man s Imminent Downfall - 1522 Words

Garrett Wight Prof. Ian Storey English 101 28 October 2015 The Unnamed Man’s Imminent Downfall Some people tend to not look at the entire picture when evaluating another person and depicting their personality and attitude. While evaluating the man in â€Å"To Build a Fire† that was traveling to â€Å"the boys†, it can be inferred that he had many flaws in his personality and in his attitude (London 549). Others might have been blinded by the other pieces of evidence suggesting he was a hero, an intelligent man, or a great outdoorsman. This unnamed man, who has no name for a purpose, is depicted as stubborn and unaffected by obvious warnings of danger in the very beginning of the story. It can be argued that this man is a fool because he†¦show more content†¦(London 548) Wight 2 The man was unaffected by the severity of his surroundings. He recognized them exactly for what they were and not for how they would affect him. His egotism masked the reality of human beings being frail in comparison to nature. London uses the concept of repetition to establish the fact of the cold in the reader’s mind and to also show how the cold â€Å"deprived him initially of a will, then of desires, and at last of life itself† (Mitchell 80). This repetition marks stupidity in the fact that the man does not learn from his mistakes; in fact, he rather continues to justify his decisions based on his egocentric mindset. Usually when a person is given advice from an older and wiser person, they accept and use the advice. This man refused the advice given to him by the man from Sulphur Creek. He recollected when the old man told him how cold it got sometimes, and the man laughed at the thought. Once again, after he fell into the freezing water, he remembered the old man telling him that no man should travel alone in 50 below 0 weather or colder. After escaping the cold water, he had made a fire to warm himself up; all was going well. This made him think how â€Å"womanish† the old man was and how much of a manly man he, himself was (London 553). Soon, thereafter, his fire was put out by the snow on a tree because of his recklessness when gathering sticks for the fire. After that he realized