When people are put in a life or death situation, they share uniformity in the steps they take in order to survive as mentioned in “Deep Survival,” by Laurence Gonzales. Yet when put in a life threating situation the protagonist in the short story, “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, failed to follow some of these steps which lead to his eventual death. These steps include staying calm, taking decisive action, and surrendering the fear of death. One reason the main character died is because he did not follow the trait of “staying calm, and letting fear motivate him.” In his crisis, he did not understand the importance of taking meticulous decisive action. For example, the man decided to turn aside from the main Yukon trail, instead of staying …show more content…
Instead of staying calm he became hectic and irrational in his actions. For example, when the man could not get the second fire to start he began to fumble with the matches and he began to understand the fault in traveling by his self. It states that, “He picked up the matches in his teeth and scratched it on his leg…. But the burning brimstone went up his nostrils and into his lungs, causing him to cough spasmodically” (London 87). After the second fire failed the man devised another plan for surviving. This plan included the act of killing his dog, yet he had one fatal flaw he had no way of killing the dog so instead he became frantic. In the story it says, “He sat down in the snow, and in this fashion held the dog, while it snarled and whined and struggled…. He began threshing his arms back and forth, beating his hands against his sides so he could kill the dog” (London 89). Finally, it is stated that “Once he slowed down to a walk, but the thought of freezing extended itself made him run again”(London 90). This shows that in his last attempts to survive the man begins running like a chicken with his head cut off in fear of death. If the man would have stayed calm in these situations he may have been able to avoid his