In 18-19th
century, people certainly achieved a lot of goals like doing a massive
production in their life stocks or making a giant airplane for traveling. As
they developed, and discovered new, astonishing things, people became confident
about their abilities. They thought that they could achieve everything with
their "free will" and their scientific, logical reasoning. (This can
be the mixture of Enlightenment and Romanticism)
However, when time reached to 20th
century, people started to experience several crises like Great Depression or
two World Wars. And as people found out the malfunction in the system which
they used to think to be stable and firm (economic system or technology used to
aim for helping people), they got confused. This period is called as "Age
of Anxiety", compared to the prior period "Age of Discovery".
They started to look things what they achieved skeptically, and in a long run,
actually lead to a far more development of human.
And to interpret the story "To
build a fire" in a historical context, I think what Jack London tried to
do is to boost people's awareness about the potential danger that might happen by their actions
done under the name of free will and scientific reasoning. This story was
published in 1908, definitely before the "Age of Anxiety", and I
think Jack London was one of those who were already aware of people's
overconfidence in their free will and logic.
Although the
man in the story was too stupid to be the representative of the people at that
time, Jack London was quite effective in portraying the overconfident man who
after all failed. In the story, the man was able to get a sign of danger, the
extreme cold. He felt his red beard and mustache “likewise frosted, but more
solidly, the deposit taking the form of ice and increasing with every warm,
moist breath he exhaled”. However, he held steadily on, just thinking that he
would eat lunch at the forks and that at six o'clock he would be in camp with
the boys. And when he succeeded making a fire, he was very pleased to refute
the old-timers who said that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after
fifty below. However, after all, he died alone because of extreme cold, failing
to make a fire.
Overall, this
portrayal can be thought as a warning to the people at that time. At that time,
people were very confident about their logic or free will, and they enjoyed to
debunk the absurdness or timidity their ancestors had. By writing a story of a
man who failed because of his overconfidence on his ability, Jack London might
have intended to make the people aware of the consequence of their attitude.
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Comments!
Rhee Jiyoon: I like your analysis of "Age of Anxiety" that appeared after "Age of Discovery". You introduce the term after some explanation, and this is effective and more interesting. However, what I thought was that you are being a bit conclusive about Jack London's intention of writing "To build a fire". How do you know that his original intention was "to boost people's awareness"? I think it is more right to say that people were boosted by his piece of writing. You know, some writers write only because they love the beauty of language while others want to change the world!
Anyway, I loved your analysis. I look forward to your final essay!
Nuri: First off, I loved how you wrote about the historical background-the link between the 19th and 20th century was very smooth and it flowed well throughout your essay, and I liked how you made use of this to explain what you thought throughout your essay. However, because you wrote such an astonishing intro, your body paragraph were somewhat weaker.
1) You wrote "Although the man is too stupid~". I think you should change this part. He is the representative of 'the people' you mentioned in your essay, and thus even this 'stupidness' can be the characteristic.
2) Boost people's awareness of their actions by free will&scientific reasoning.-> There's a lack of info here so it was confusing for me to understand what you were trying to say. (Although this idea itself is very interesting) I think if you develop this point further, you could make your essay more awesome!
Sol Kim: Nice ideas:) I liked your historical background also. But it would have been better, I think. It you included more specific example or directly from the plot...but I understand the lack of time so. Awesome~
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