To Build a Fire: A Tale of Nature & Toxic Masculinity - Essay Sample

Introduction

In “To Build A Fire”, an unnamed man strives to reach his camp amid a cold snap in Alaska. The story begins by portraying the man’s toxic masculinity. First, he refuses to wear protective clothing for the bad weather and ignores any warnings that the cold may get better of him (London). The story revolves around nature in the form of climate and also on human nature in the type of pride and prejudices and the man’s body systematically going lifeless. On the other hand, “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells of a woman who strives to survive in a manipulated environment with chains and toxic beliefs while also dealing with postnatal depression (Charlotte). This paper discusses the stark differences in representation of naturalism between the two stories. Naturalism in this essay will mean description of things as they really are and not as imagined.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The first naturalistic and realistic variance is the approach that each of the characters portrays in the plays. In to build a fire, the man has an understanding of how things really work. He knows that the cold is dangerous and may kill and also notes when the dog shows reluctance to walking in the cold. Also, he appreciates the factor of time and respects the natural feeling of hunger by taking lunch at half-past twelve at the creek’s divide (London). On the other hand, in The Yellow Wallpaper, the woman’s husband, John, does not allow her to have a say on what she needs or feels, and makes his own decisions on how to take care of her (Charlotte), which is against naturalist ways.

The wife describes their house’s setting as a “colonial mansion, a hereditary estate (Charlotte),” which is a human-centered opinioned view. As she gets more deeply engorged into the wallpaper, her own thoughts clog her mind, leading her to think that there is a woman trapped behind some barriers in the wallpaper. She tears the wallpaper and runs mad. This shows a simple flow of moralist obsessions within the woman and her husband. In contrast, to build a fire mostly focusses on the expanses of nature and human limitations. The narrator says that the man ignored “his frailty as a creature of temperature and man’s frailty in general (London).” This statement reinforces the factual and realistic natural prose of the story.

Another disparity is that to build a fire details things in their natural happenings. It talks of ice, cold temperatures, rivers, and interaction with the domestic dog (London). In contrast, The Yellow Wallpaper narrates about buildings and the modifications done by human beings. The woman gets confused by the yellow wallpaper in the upper room and endeavors to decipher its incomprehensible patterns (Charlotte). Also, the woman had to temporarily abandon her passion for writing and conversation as instructed by her doctor after maternity. These happenings all point to artificial things, thus posing a sharp contrast in setting between the two essays.

How Do Jobs/Labor Intersect With Gender in Gilman or Chopin

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s the Yellow Wallpaper, career and gender interact in the husband John’s patronizing nature. He believes that since his wife has just delivered a baby, he, as a man, must now take care of her fully and should not allow her to engage in a brain-tasking activity (Charlotte). He becomes her doctor and restricts her to house chores, a boring routine that ends up running her mad. In Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” though not clearly inferred, the women, Louise and Josephine appear not to be employed. The men, Richards and Mallard, work (Chopin), showing the ongoing gender stereotypes that were there at the time.

Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." The Norton Introduction to Literature . Alison

Gilman, Charlotte P. The Yellow Wallpaper. Tustin: Xist Publishing, 2015. Internet resource.

London, Jack. To Build a Fire. , 2008. Print.