Kill the dog!

Gustavo Quintero
English 48B
March 17, 2008
Journal #45 Jack London




Quote:
"He would kill the dog and bury his hands in the warm body until the numbness went out of them. Then he could build another fire. He spoke to the dog, calling to him, but in his voice was a strange note of fear that frightened the animal"(London 1065).




Summary:
The man wants to kill the dog so that he can put his hands in its belly to thaw out his badly frostbitten hands. He needs to thaw out his hands so that he can build another fire.



Response:
I am glad that the dog does not die at the hands of the man. The dog knew all to well that it was too cold to travel. Earlier in the story it is the dog that shy's away form the cold and it also wants to stay close to the fire. It is the man who decides to push on in the incredible cold. After all the bad decisions that the man has made he tries to kill the dog for his mistakes. The man has fallen into water and must thaw out his feet. He builds a fire only to have it put out by a snowfall caused from a spruce tree. It's funny how the man tries to kill the dog for his mistakes. In the first place he should have never made that trip down the trail especially alone. From the beginning the dog knows this. This is survival of the fittest and the dog wins this round. Maybe the man should have paid more attention to the dog, the dog would have told him never to travel in this terrible cold. It almost serves the man right that he ends up perishing in the cold because of his ignorance to the cold. The dog is obviously more well fitted for travel in this weather while the man is not. Ultimately the man's fragile nature and ignorance kill him.

This quote reminds me of an episode of "Man vs. Wild". The host Bear Grylis is stranded in a desert and shows what to do in the event that you are hit with an extreme drop in temperature or a sandstorm. Bear finds a dead camel and cuts it wide open from the belly. He then crawls right in and sleeps in the camel's belly through the night. You almost have to wonder why we as humans think that we are masters of our environment. We always think that we are smarter and stronger than our environment. In the case of the man and the dog, the man proves to be the weakest link in the evolutionary chain.