Description
POST 1 & 2: In separate 250 word posts, respond to two of the following:
A) How is nature presented in “To Build a Fire”? What role does it play in the narrative? In To Build a Fire what is the difference between knowledge and instinct?
B) In The Open Boat how are the characters described? How does their job affect how they are portrayed?
C) What is the difference between the role of nature in To Build a Fire and The Open Boat? How do the authors present this material similarly or differently? Why?
POST 3 & 4: Respond to at least two other student posts.
Each post should be a MINIMUM of 250 words.
Here is the link to the book: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sslEUxSf9GA3mVPAL…
To Build a Fire pg. 1113
The Open Boat pg. 1048
Respond to these two students:
Brendan Nelson
Post 1 Discussion A
In the short story “To Build A Fire” Nature is presented to be unforgiving, especially the cold weather. Nature does not seem to care about the mans existence, instead it seems to be more forgiving towards the animal who knows how to survive in such freezing temperatures. The man himself seems not to respect nature and instead is completely arrogant towards the dropping temperature and seems to be more focused on his survival. While the man seems to be knowledgeable about his situation and how to survive in the woods he did not bring a human companion or friend with him instead he went a quest to find ” the boys”. The man arrogance caused him to be caught up in temperatures well below what he was used too wich ultimately helped lead to his downfall. The dog however has natural instinct from its ancestors and is accustomed to the colder weather. The dog did not originally want to follow the man on his journey but reluctantly did so anyways. The dogs natural instinct of burrowing it itself in the snow helped keep its body temperatue up. While the man was more focused on building a fire in temperatures that very few people could have survided in, along with being very careless of his surroundings, such as falling I freezing water or causing all the snow off of the tree to collapse on his fire. The big difference between the mans knowledge and the dogs instinct is the man is very knowledgable but arrogant and caught up in himself, the dogs instinct seems to be based off of fear and being cautious which led overall led to the dogs survival over the man.
Michal Motyka
Discussion 1A
Nature in the story is presented as ruthless, uncaring and unemotional. It is an environment of natural causes in which the man has put himself in and soon learns that it has no mercy on him as he experiences the wrath of the cold. The fire is a symbol of life and death for the man and yet seems as though nature and the cold surroundings are unfavorable for the man. The man is arrogant to the facts that are presented in front of him and through his natural experiences with the cold – his hands numb and freezing, his face covered in ice, the heavly covered terrain of snow and temperartures well exceeding 50 below zero have no impact on the man and are plainly just that. His attempt of building a fire was succesful and seemed to be a sort of hope for the man and his companion the dog. Yet, the man again proved his ignorance and short-sightedness and was only interested in his reunion with the boys later that day at 6 o’clock. It seems as though the man due to his lack of imagination did not know cold and could not foresee the dangers that were ahead of him. He could not imagine being stuck in the freezing cold, with frozen hands and the simple fact of having all feeling in his hands and body leave him. Even after his succesful first attempt of building a fire and prtoecting himself from the cold he decided to keep on walking to meet his friends. The dog on the other hand was instinctial and knew that it should stay by the fire, stay curled up and be cautious of the extreme cold. The man’s inabiity to be open minded and listen to the old timer on Sulphur Creek that he should never travel without a human companion proved to be fatal as he lay dying in the cold. Not until his last dying moments did he seem to realize that the attempt of his journey was a foolish one and when warned by others that no one has traveled by foot and survived such conditions, he believed that his masculinity was more powerful than nature and those who doubted him. He only realized that there was some truth to the old timers words when lying down he started drifting and envisioned the old timer sitting comfortably smoking a pipe he started to mumble you were right, old huss; you were right. The difference between knowledge and instinct in the story is that knowledge is the man and the instincts is the dog. Yet, having the knowledge of building a fire and keeping himself warm from the cold meant nothing to the man. Where the dog instinctively knew that he should keep to the fire and stay burried in the snow and not keep ventuing out in the freezing cold.
