Tragedy in the Real World Compared to Literature

To know how to survive is a great component to have on the resume of life but it is not something one can learn.  It is a natural given ability that not too many have.  It is when you are in a life altering situation and knowing what to do when it happens.  People need to know how to survive when they are out in the real world even though there is an extraordinary slim chance something really scary could happen to them.  When someone or something gets into a scenario where they have to survive it is a tragedy since you never want to have to have someone need to survive. One would want the world to be perfect but that isn’t reality.  The reality is that things happen and things happen for a reason and it is all part of God’s plan for each and every one of us.  When someone has the need to survive it is truly a tragedy.

In the story  ”To Build a Fire” by Jack London there are many reasons why this story is a tragedy, one being the plotline.  The plotline for a tragedy shows that the main character's life is in conflict which is where the man is walking in -75 degree weather and traveling to a camp to meet his buddies.  This is an extremely stupid move any way that anyone can think because you could die.  I would have understood it more if he was with another person since even children at age 10 know the buddy system and that would be the perfect time to do so.  The man’s stupidity in this situation is one reason he died, since if he never left he never would have died.

Next came his rise to power where he is making unbelievable time and builds his fire to stay warm.  Everything is good at this point and he is able to think nothing bad is going to happen but you can never think you are going to be living at the end of a trenching trip like that so he was to confident.  Then his journey, life, and world fell apart completely after that.  His one tragic character flaw was he forgot his imagination in his skinny jeans that he had worn 2 days before.  That led to his tragic fall when he build his great fire under a tree with branches full of snow and then something bad happens, again.  The snow fell on his fire and it went out.  What most people don’t get is why he would make a fire under a tree with snow when you have 183,163 square miles of open land and he chooses to build his fire under a tree.  Most people would say “not smart dude”.  Well only in this decade.

Lastly “literally” lastly the man dies due to freezing to death, but I respect him because he never gave up until his last drop energy he had he gave to making another fire to stay warm.  He even thought he should kill the dog.  He thought this because he had his mind on one thing and would not think of anything else that would work to get him to camp warm and cozy.  It was almost as if he was a cat and he had a ball of yarn and you can see nothing but the yarn he could see nothing but one idea.  You always have to keep an open mind kind of like professional sports programs.
Every tragedy has a lesson and there were two of them in this well-written story.  The first one being that you should always take advice from people who know better and may have been in the same situation in their life that you are in now.  Secondly you always remember the cub scouts motto “be prepared”.  If he would have realized that something bad could happen he would have done better and prevented him dying by surviving.