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I am writing an essay on jack london and the setting my thesis is.. a forest is a vast space filled with a multitude of obstacles, course changes, and shows the strength of life much like how Jack London expressed through words with the immense travels of a young man. My english teacher said to change my thesis to where it talks more about the cold than the forest.. any help?
The cold as an obstacle? Physically as in temperature? Emotionally as in indifference? What would the thesis be?
My thesis is... a forest is a vast space filled with a multitude of obstacles, course changes, and shows the strength of life much like how Jack London expressed through words with the immense travels of a young man. I was just wondering how I could change that
Your teacher said focus on cold -- so write about both physical and emotional coldness in London's books.
Do you have any examples on how I can focus on cold.
Nature is the inscrutable force that must be fought against day and night for survival. And the beasts are part of a world which the naturalists called the “hostile environment” where pressures from every side dictate its creatures' survival. Fang's world in its frozen hostility and its cold indifference is pictured most poetically:
"A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness—a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild." (White Fang, p. 3)
"Day had broken cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little-travelled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o'clock. There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun. This fact did not worry the man. He was used to the lack of sun. It had been days since he had seen the sun, and he knew that a few more days must pass before that cheerful orb, due south, would just peep above the skyline and dip immediately from view." ("To Build a Fire," p. 1)
"To Build a Fire" is the best known of all his stories. It tells the story of a new arrival to the Klondike who stubbornly ignores warnings about the folly of travelling alone. He falls through the ice into a creek in seventy-below weather, and his survival depends on being able to build a fire and dry his clothes, which he is unable to do.
In Jack London's Northland short stories socks, warm moccasins, mittens and fire failed him. While the man could not survive without fire, the dog could. The dog was much closer to its ancestral way of being than the man is. It appreciated fire, but it was not a necessity for its survival. The man was not fit to survive in the cold, but the dog, which seemed to be a lower animal, could stay alive.
That was all copied and pasted from the Internet after a Google search on London and cold. Please don't plagiarize.
Living in the deserted Northland, humans can’t help dwelling on the eternity of the land and feeling their finiteness. As frequently on trail, what our characters saw and what they experienced soon taught them the first lesson to survive in the North: fear and respect for nature. Facing the mighty nature, humans understand that they are too small and effete to exercise their own will. The Northland wilderness was deadly cold and silent and full of hidden dangers. Humans shivered in the cold, felt lonely and frightened by the ghastly silence. These points were exactly what Jack London wanted to convey through “The White Silence,” the short story in which Nature...
Where did u get that from? The first part and who is fang? And the information under it is in the book correct?
That was all copied and pasted from the Internet after a Google search on London and cold. Please don't plagiarize.
Fang = White Fang
Have you read any of London's works?
And where did you get the part where you said nature is the inscrutable force that much be fought against... and all that.. and oh yeah I know I wasn't planning on writing all that word for word because I found that on Google as welll.. and yes I am writing my essay on how to build a fire.. that's why I am asking for help on my thesis
physical cold = Northland
cold indifference = Northland
Two kinds of cold, physical and emotional. Both are detrimental to men in all sorts of ways. Much of that was snippets from essays... wanted to show you how much can be written about both kinds of cold.
You're using only one London short story as the basis for your essay?
Yes I am just writing about how to build a fire and tallking about setting that is what I need help with my thesis
The setting is obvious. One builds a fire to warm his body, and one builds a fire also to warm his soul. Northland = cold temps and cold indifference/hostile landscape, so fire is necessary to give comfort to both body and soul.
Okay then.
You have not read "To Build a Fire" lately, have you? I suggest you read it again. I was born and raised in the sub-arctic, so the proagonist's troubles are instantly recognizable to me. Perhaps they are not to you.Quote:
Originally Posted by kari07
And, Wondergirl, I don't know that cold is a metaphor or not. Perhaps, I suppose. I never thought of it that way.
Yes I have read to build a fire...
So this was my idea to write in each of my paragraphs is this good... intro: talk about jack london his word choice a little summary of the story and my thesis... 1st paragraph go into detail on one aspect of the forest and how it relates to the characters... 2nd paragraph describe another characteristic of the forest and relate it to the story... 3rd paragraph describe the intensity that forest poses on the story... 4th paragraph make conclusion and tell whether or not the forest did its job in making the story more intense and if the characteristics provide the right story to tell the mans travels..
You're going to ignore what your teacher (and I) said to do about the cold?
I don't understand how you are finding such importance about the forest.
Your intro sounds much too long and complicated.
What is your thesis statement?
Well I don't have a thesis because the one I wanted to use was wrong.. but in my thesis I want to talk about how the cold pushes the man to extreme measures like when he wanted to kill the dog for warmth and how the cold can be a matter of life or death and how challenging it can be to survive... but I don't know how to put it in good sentence structure to make my thesis sound well. Can you help me with that?
You're using "To Build a Fire" as your jumping off point?
How long is the essay supposed to be?
Yes we only have to write about one story and I am going to write about to build a fire.. I am going to talk about setting.. where the story takes place.. analyze why the author chose that particular location, place, room, forest... how does it increase the impact of the story. And does the setting almost become a character.. w hat influence does it have over the characters..
If I were writing this, I would begin by talking about fire in general -- what it is and how it makes us feel. Then I would include a thesis statement about the importance of fire, especially in this Northland.
This sentence caught my eye: "There was the fire, snapping and crackling and promising life with every dancing flame."
Where did you get that sentence from? And okay in my first paragraph discuss the meaning of fire.
I got that sentence from the story --
All of which counted for little. There was the fire, snapping and crackling and promising life with every dancing flame. He started to untie his moccasins. They were coated with ice; the thick German socks were like sheaths of iron halfway to the knees; and the moccasin strings were like rods of steel all twisted and knotted as by some conflagration. For a moment he tugged with his numb fingers, then, realizing the folly of it, he drew his sheath-knife.
But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open. But it had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire. Now the tree under which he had done this carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind had blown for weeks, and each bough was fully freighted. Each time he had pulled a twig he had communicated a slight agitation to the tree—an imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, but an agitation sufficient to bring about the disaster. High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on the boughs beneath, capsizing them. This process continued, spreading out and involving the whole tree. It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out! Where it had burned was a mantle of fresh and disordered snow.
There are other pro-fire sentences when he first built the fire.
Do you know how the cold changed his consciousnous and made him want to kill the dog?
It says exactly why in the story!Quote:
Originally Posted by kari07
IS IT BECAUSE HE thought he could travel with the cold conditions but doesn't listen to the wise man or whatever and so he tries to kill the dog for warmth?
I forgot who told him he couldn't I can't find the page.
What wise man? There was no one else except the dog.
He can't travel and can't even walk. His hands and feet are frozen.
This?
The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. He remembered the tale of the man, caught in a blizzard, who killed a steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved. He would kill the dog and bury his hands in the warm body until the numbness went out of them. Then he could build another fire. He spoke to the dog, calling it to him; but in his voice was a strange note of fear that frightened the animal, who had never known the man to speak in such way before. Something was the matter, and its suspicious nature sensed danger—it knew not what danger, but somewhere, somehow, in its brain arose an apprehension of the man. It flattened its ears down at the sound of the man's voice, and its restless, hunching movements and the liftings and shiftings of its forefeet became more pronounced; but it would not come to the man. He got on his hands and knees and crawled toward the dog. This unusual posture again excited suspicion, and the animal sidled mincingly away.
Is there any way I can send you my essay and you correct it for me please?
How long is it? Can you post it here?
Yeah I will just copy and paste it..
The topic is.. Setting: Where the story or poem takes place. Analyze why the author chose that particular location, room, forest, etc. How does it increase the impact of the story or poem? Does the setting almost become a character? What influence does it have over the character(s)?
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