Common Themes of London and Hemingway

Both "To Build a Fire" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" featured prideful men as main characters. The narrator spoke of the man in "To Build a Fire" as being completely uninhibited by his surroundings. The prior advice given to him before his heroic journey into the bitter cold had no weight on his decision to persevere. "It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe" (651). In other words, the man did not think of himself as human but rather as superhuman or invincible. The main character in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" also thought of himself as invincible. After scraping his leg while climbing a monstrous mountain, he neglected to clean the scrape properly and it became infected. Unlike the main character in "To Build a Fire," Harry knew he would soon perish. He started out the story by saying of his gangrene, "The marvelous thing is that it's painless (...) That's how you know when it starts" (1067). Both main characters were so encompassed with their potential achievement that they neglected to see themselves as helpless human beings. The desire to reach their goal-- or the pride it ensued-- was more important than their wellness. 

The common theme of death is prevalent in both stories from the very beginning. The dimly lit environment of "To Build a Fire" set to reader up for eternal darkness. The lack of light from the sun, "There was no sun not a hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky" (650) and the main character's inability to start a fire, "Each twig gushed a puff of snow and went out, The fire-provider had failed" (658) were two examples how the bitterness of nature slowly sucked the life out of the man. Yet, he remained completely oblivious of the idea that death was nipping at his face and extremities. In "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" Harry felt death closer with each breath he took. "Because just then, death had come and rested its head on the foot of the cot and he could smell its breath" (1081). The personification Harry gave death allowed him to ignore the fact it was self-induced. By creating an alternate reality through his haze of sickness, he was able to place the blame on any vile force other than himself. The daoistic, claustrophobic way wilderness was presented in both of these stories created an alternative view of death. Although nature was vast, it was still an entrapment; once each man allowed disillusionment to set in, wilderness was able to sing them into an eternal slumber.