(855) 4-ESSAYS

Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

The Nature Of Instinct

            
             In "How to Build a Fire" Jack London characterizes a man and his dog traveling a Yukon trail. The man sets off with his dog despite grave warnings from a village elder that traveling at -50 is extremely dangerous. The dog is the stronger and the instinctively smarter character in the story. The dog may not understand the reasoning behind its frailty, but it listens to its instinct non the less. The man with all his worldly knowledge really believes he is above nature, while the dog follows his instincts and out lives the man in the end.
             The story begins with the man and the dog traveling in to the Yukon at dangerously low levels of temperature. The man knows that it is tremendously cold, but "it made no impression on the man." (London 223) The dog "knew that is was no time for traveling. It's instinct told it a truer tale than is told to the man by the man's judgment." (London 224) This line is a powerful foreshadowing of the terrible events to come. The dog listens to its instinct and feels or sub-consciously knows the danger it faces, while the man believes he is above the danger. "The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in the brain there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in the man's brain. But the brute had its instinct." (London 224).
             The man realizes that there is a possibility that he may fall through the ice; as such he puts the dog in front. After walking for a while the dog falls through the ice a few inches and gets its paws wet. The dog quickly begins to bite the ice from its feet without a real understanding of exactly what it was doing. "This was a matter of instinct. To permit the ice to remain would mean sore feet. It did not know this. It merely obeyed the mysterious prompting that arose from the deep crypts of its being." (London 227) The man knows the science of water freezing and the pain of frozen flesh; the dog only has its instincts that tell him to remove the ice right away.


Essays Related to The Nature Of Instinct

1. Full Summary - Lord of the Flies

... readings of the novel claimed that "Lord of the Flies" dramatizes the history of civilization. Some believed that the novel explores fundamental religious issues, such as original sin and the nature of good and evil. Others approached Lord of the Flies through the theories of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who taught that the human mind was the site of a constant battle among different impulses-the id (instinctual needs and desires), the ego (the conscious, rational mind), and the superego (the sense of conscience and ... of measurement of the strength of the civilized instinct re...

  • Word Count: 11237
  • Approx Pages: 45
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Naturalism of The Open Boat and To Build a Fire

... styles of naturalism. Crane's "The Open Boat" and London's "To Build a Fire" are two stories that approach the idea of naturalism in different methods. In "The Open Boat," there is a conflict among the men in the boat and the weather surrounding them, along with the conflict among themselves trying to work together to survive. In the story "To Build a Fire," the conflict is between the man, with his lack of instinct, and nature itself. The idea of ... naturalism states the events simply happen and just because, and ... ...

  • Word Count: 746
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

3. How does Shelley represent the nature Vs nurture debate? Thr

... stronger than nurture. Next in chapter sixteen the Creature saves a Girl from drowning. This isn't the only act of kindness the Creation performed. Another time is when he collected wood and crop for the Delacey's. This is a natural instinct in the Creation to help and to pay back people in thanks, yet another time of nature poking through. When the Creature saved the girl he was shot this is a turning point ... in the story because he goes onto killing William ... and others. He becomes wicked and the animal instinct for revenge shows. Would though if the creature had been nurtured to...

  • Word Count: 730
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Aspects of Logic in Faith

... an amount of faith within this type of reasoning. Such understanding is automatic. Instinct does not require a solvent to soothe the possibilities of what is beyond our understanding. An instinct to hunger, fight or flight, and others does not require contemplation or acceptance, but one's mind acts upon the instinct automatically unless deflected by the conscious mind. Pascal visits this idea in saying that, concerning instinct, "But nature has refused ... us this blessing [that we know only through instinct], and has instead given us only very little knowledge of this kind; all other ...

  • Word Count: 2082
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Has Bibliography

5. War and Marriage from greek plays to the Modern novel

... chaos, and if necessary, cut off the ties that bind her to her life as she knew it, as was one hypothesis about the cause of her disappearance. John, on the other hand, feels the opposite instinct to ingratiate himself into other people's lives, and sees politics as the primary means to achieve that goal. John believed that "it was in the nature of love that John Wade went to ... the war only to be loved."" (In the Lake of the Woods, O'Brien, p.59) The need for the love he felt was absent ... during his childhood drove John to enter the war, and ... ...

  • Word Count: 2535
  • Approx Pages: 10
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

6. The devil and Tom Walker

... animals and intelligence or the ability to learn is given to most mammals including us, humans. But is that really the case, is that how it all really works. The one question that I now pose is, is human nature an instinct inherited from past generations, are we predictable. And if there really is extra terrestrial life somewhere in the universe do they think of us as we ... think of lesser intelligent animals that run on instinct. We as humans harbor the same feelings deep within our mind and we all ... have physical reflexes or instinct. The point that I am making is not ... ...

  • Word Count: 990
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Nature V Nurture

... to how we behave, and what we do with our lives. Others believe that we are a product of our environment, and that our behavior is acquired from what we learn through our surroundings or the environment. Others argue it is a mixture of both nature and nurture that decides human similarities and differences. It is common knowledge that certain physical traits are inherited ... instinctive. Scientists however believe that since humans are aware of their own activities and those around them, their behaviors are learned rather than instinctive. Scientists point out the fact that instincts ma...

  • Word Count: 727
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

8. The Follower

... important in the understanding of the poem and in the support of the ideas and the form. The poet uses a particular farming register, such as the " steel pointed sock the sod headrig and hob-nailed." This use of jargon helps to show the instinct of farm life, the poet possessed and the old-fashioned traditional nature towards an environment that felt normal to him as a child. The father's eyes "narrowed and angled," illustrates the poet to show the meticulous nature of concentration ... that was present, to once again express an instinctive nature within him. The participles, "Tripping,...

  • Word Count: 1170
  • Approx Pages: 5

9. Charles Strickland - The Moon and Sixpence

... was strangely divorced from material things, and it was as though his body at times wreaked a fearful revenge on his spirit. The satyr in him suddenly took possession, and he was powerless in the grip of an instinct which had all the strength of the primitive forces of nature. It was an obsession so complete that there was no room in his soul for prudence or gratitude. (151) &apos ... the elaborations of a modern technique does not create the illusion of reality that he is pursuing. It simply emphasises the cleverness, the clever unconvincingness, of his portrait - not at all the vigour...

  • Word Count: 6573
  • Approx Pages: 26
  • Grade Level: High School

Got a writing question? Ask our professional writer!
Submit My Question