Realty? A New Idea or Old Idea

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Fear, sorrow, pain, heartache, and death. These are just some of the many appeals to entertainment today. Reality based television shows have taken over out television sets and have set the new standard of entertainment. Though this reality movement seems like a new idea, it has been around for quite some time in our literature. Realists and Naturalists writers like Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton, Henry James and Jack London have been writing about real life dilemma's before television had any impact on our entertainment. Jack London wrote countless stories that dealt with real life situations, Tales that often related to his own experiences. Jack London fell in to the category of a Naturalist, but could also be considered as a Realist. London's stories often portray real life dilemmas, realistic contemporary settings, characters that appeal to the ordinary person, and speech and mannerisms that relate to his stories settings. Through these characteristics, Jack London's story "To Build A Fire" stands out as a wonderfully articulated illustration of Literary Realism.

Realism is defined as the attempt to reproduce, faithfully, the appearance of life especially that of ordinary people in every day situations. By appearance of life I mean the realistic situations, experiences, and dilemmas of life and how they affect a person in the real world. Literary Realism is achieved through four main characteristics. It is through these four characteristics that "To Build A Fire" is exemplified as literary realism.

The first characteristic is through the use of realistic contemporary settings. Places that any avid reader could place them selves in. London vividly describes the setting of his story in the cold Yukon of the north

Day had broken cold and gray…. When the man turned aside from the main Yukon Trail and climbed the high earth-bank…looking at his watch. It was nine o'clock. There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun.Custom Essays on Realty? A New Idea or Old Idea

By giving you the location of the Yukon Trail, and the statement that there is no sun yet it is a clear day, London describes the setting of someplace in Alaska. It is in Alaska that as winter comes the son falls beyond the horizon of the earth and does not show its face for months. London continues to foster this idea of reality by further describing the path in which the character travels with great detail

This dark hair line was the trail�the main trail�that led south give hundred miles to the Chilcoot Pass, Dyea, and salt water; and that led north seventy miles to Dawson, and still on to the north a thousand miles to Nulato, and finally to St. Michael on Bering Sea, a thousand miles and half a thousand more.

The setting here is a realistic place. Not a location that needs to be brought up in your imagination but can be brought up on any map. The idea that you could actually be there your self is what gives you that realistic sense of time and place. London furthers the realism in his main character.

The second characteristic of Literary Realism is by using characters from real contemporary life with average social standing. In "To Build a fire", London's main character is new to the area, "He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaqou, and this was his first winter." You can relate to the character being a "newcomer" because most have been in the situation where they were placed or moved in to a new setting and the many circumstances that come along with being in a new environment. London further relates the reader to his character by portraying him as a common man. The author does this by setting his journey to what is possibly a work camp, "He would be in to camp by six o'clock; a bit after dark, it was true, but the boys would be there, a fire would be going, and a hot supper would be ready." Not only can you relate to the character being the average working man, you can relate to the feeling of being on a long trip, and the anticipation that you feel for finally arriving at your destination and the comforts that await. London furthers this portrayal of a common man though the character's habit, "Also, the man was chewing tobacco…" The character is not of wealth, nor is he a hero, but a common man that has many of the same hazardous addictions like tobacco that any real life person can have. Another technique to Realism is to reproduce some of the speech and mannerisms of ordinary people.

The third characteristic of Literary Realism is the reproduction of dialect and language of an ordinary person or of the stories setting. There are two specific uses of this in "To Build A Fire". One is in the description of the main character, "He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaqou" Chechaqou being a local word used to describe a newcomer to the Yukon area. The other is in the description of some of the local vegetation, "He held on through the level stretch of woods for several miles, crossed a flat of niggerheads," The word "niggerhead" is used to describe some of the tangled vegetation striking up through the snow and ice. Through the use of these local, everyday words, London is able to give the reader another relation to the story. With dialect that is used in everyday language, and not always found in a dictionary it helps to set the reader further in to the realistic setting of "To Build A Fire".

The fourth and final characteristic of Literary Realism is the use of realistic ethical dilemmas, which attempt to solve with out the help of coincidence and or probable intervention. By this I mean the problems are real, like the Hazards of nature, or anything else that can happen to anyone else in the real world. It is also dilemmas that do not coincide with improbable intervention or sometimes called "deux ex machina". That expression is defined as the employment of some unexpected and improbable incident in a story that makes things turn out all right. That kind of even makes you feel all warm and cuddly at the end of a movie but hardly occurs in reality. The main character falls short of his goal of reaching the camp in time and is forced to build a fire i.e. the title, and stops to accomplish this task

He had forgotten to build a fire and thaw out. He chuckled at his foolishness, and as he chuckled he noted the numbness creeping in to the exposed fingers… Then he got out matches and proceeded to make a fire.

In most movies or happy stories, the man would have been able to build a fire and avoid the cold of winter but here it is not the case, after building this first fire he succeeds in warming enough to carry on. However as he walks down the path above the frozen creek the worst happens, "And then it happened. At a place where there were no signs, where the soft unbroken snow seemed to advertise solidity beneath, the man broke through." His feet had fallen in to the frigid water and if he didn't build a fire soon he was going to be in serious trouble. As he build his next fire and finally gets it burning the reality comes in to play

But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault or, rather his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open. But it had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire…. It grew like an avalanche, and it descended with out warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out!

In a "deus ex machina" story every thing would have come out okay and by some intervention from God he would have been able to build the fire again and save himself from the bitter cold. However, in reality this is not the case, the cold got to him and in the end he dies.

Reality can be very harsh. In real life there is as much bad as there is Good, if not more bad than good. This is the essence of literary realism. The subject is not to present a "Leave it to Beaver" type ending, but rather what would more likely happen if you and I were to try to travel across the Alaskan Tundra during a blizzard… a inevitable demise. Perhaps the "new era" of reality TV is not a new thing at all. But is actually a resurgence of literature and literary realism, a resurrection in to a new form that is more modern but is still based on the same ideas that have been used long before MTV decided that it would be interesting to put normal people in situations and broadcast it to the rest of the world.

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