To Live And Die In Winter

My contrast and comparison of A Blizzard under Blue Sky by Pam Houston and To Build a Fire byJack London.

Pam Houston’s “A Blizzard under Blue Sky” and Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” are two unique yet similar stories of life and death. The female character in Houston’s tale is clinically depressed but gains back her joy in life after she battled to stay warm during a cold winter’s night. In contrast, London’s story has a character that looses his life. The woman canine companions are cared for in a motherly way while the man cares little for his dog. The differences and similarities between the two stories show how the relationship between the characters and their dogs and their view of nature reflects the character’s outcome.

Comparing the two stories reveals right away that the character in “A Blizzard under Blue Sky” and the man in “To Build a Fire” both are traveling through winter terrain alone with canine companions.  The female character in Houston’s story goes winter camping in hopes of dealing with her clinical depression. While skiing through the snow and ice covered landscape she is very observant and notices the splendid details of her environment. She comments that the cold weather causes her to have superman vision and every icy landmark appears to pop out as if she is in some other dimension. The Man also has keen observation and is careful to notice details like footprints on the icy trail as he is traveling to meet up with his friends.

The man’s canine is “depressed by the tremendous cold” (James and Merickel 297) because he does not want to be out traveling in such cold weather. The dog which is treated as a slave by the man is used to test the faulty ice. “There was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man” (James and Merickel 300). The dog only follows the man’s orders because it fears being whipped. The dog does not care for the man and the man cares little for the dog. In return, the dog only uses the man as a food and fire provider and likewise the man only uses the dog for his tasks.

The dog does not offer the man any comfort, in fact the man curses the dog because he envies that the animal is warm when he is not. At one point in the story the man considers killing the dog to use it as a source of warmth but the man is unable to use his frozen arms to take hold and kill the animal. The dog seems to know better than the man, the dog’s instincts tell him to stay by the fire but the man does not have that instinct and instead the man continues on his journey. In contrast, the woman is very close to her dogs unlike the man and knows the personality of each dog. She refers to her dogs as her “two best friends” (James and Merickel 278). Jackson, her lead dog, tends to be more driven than Hailey and as a result he causes his owner the female character to go further and be more driven.

When the woman decides to stop and set up camp for the night her dogs assist her. Even though the woman does not know exactly how to build the ice cave, her dog Jackson knows what to do because it is in his instincts to do so. The man however does not have or take heed to the instincts of his canine. The man is a simple fellow, “he was not much given to thinking” (James and Merickel 297) as the story repeats this point several times. The man may notice natural landmarks but he does not notice the whole picture, nature itself or the beauty of his winter surroundings. When the man needs to build a fire to save his frozen limbs he does not notice the snow covered tree above him which unfortunately helps to seal his fate by extinguishing the fire.

The man is not as prepared for the severely cold weather as he should be. On the other hand, the woman is prepared for the night and made sure that she brought the right supplies. She takes the advice of her friend from town and brings along a bivvy bag which helps her to get through the cold night. The man does not heed the advice of the old timer in town who warns him not to go traveling in such cold weather alone. While the woman faces the bitterly cold at night she forgets about her problems and focuses on getting through the night without freezing. While battling the cold she thinks of herself as superwoman and when the morning comes she regains her joy for life. The man at one point thinks that he is a real man but does not ultimately save himself and never makes it to his destination.

Both Houston’s and London’s story were centered on a lone character traveling through a winter wilderness in an effort to reach their goal. The woman was hoping that her camping trip with her two dogs would help to lift herself out of her clinical depression and the man was hoping to reach his friends at camp while using his dog to help me to get across the ice. The woman achieved her goal but the man did not and lost his life in the process. In both stories the character’s canine companions were of help to a certain extent. In the end, the character’s relationship to their dogs and their outlook on nature determined life for one and death for the other.

References and further reading:

• Reading Literature and Writing Argument by James and Merickel (3^rd edition).

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