Notes for London's "To Build a Fire" and Oates's "The Buck"


"To Build a Fire"

In Victoria's presentation she gave us a basic synopsis of the short story (originally published in 1908). The story sets at odds the ambitions of a young man in the Yukon and the wisdom imparted by "old-timers" and the instinct regarding nature of the man's companion, a dog, "a big native husky." As Victoria put it, the story delivers the message that humans should not overestimate their ability to "survive" nature. Victoria cited a secondary source the described London as a "quintessential naturalist."

With this initial introduction, we engaged further with the text, framing our discussion with the terms "natives" and "non-natives." We see that London himself describes the dog as a "a big native husky," and this nativity informs the dog's instinct to be wary of the severity of the weather conditions. The man, who is non-native, is stubborn, is domineering, is determined to overcome the natural barrier (the extreme severity of the temperature) so that he can reach a destination, as London writes: "He was bound for the old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys were already." We assume that these companions of his, his peers, have a reason to be at this mining claim, and perhaps this reason is pecuniary (we can only speculate this).

London does little to characterize the man, other than to clearly convey that the man is determined to reach his destination, that he disregards the old-timer's advice, and that he is well rooted in the attitude that there is a natural hierarchy (man is superior to nature, and by corollary, superior to the dog). We also see that the man potentially is driven by a financial ambition (in addition to his desire to get to the claim, he perhaps has a logging interest), and this influences his decision concerning which route to take to the claim. As London writes, "he had come the roundabout way to take a look at the possibilities of getting out logs in the spring from the islands in the Yukon." Yet, much of our analysis of the man's possible motivation is only speculation. This is not London's major message.

A feature of the story that we discussed at length was the human's obsession with time. I used the phrase "the hegemony of the clock" to convey the system to which the man is accustomed to adhering. The man frequently references the possible duration of his journey, by which hour he hopes to reach "the boys," and how long each set-back costs him. This idea -- that something can "cost" a person time -- immediately brings before us the conflation of the notions of time and money. The man in London's story is, without a doubt, motivated by time, and thus our speculations regarding his other motivations follow. In contrast, we see that the old-timer and the dog are not so time-driven. For the dog's part, his is a natural, harmonious existence, as London presents it. The dog's is an atemporal existence, as least in contrast to the clock-time-domianted existence of the man. Is nature atemporal, then? We discussed that in regard to clock-time, yes, "nature" appears to be indifference to our imposition of hours, minutes, and seconds as we partition out our days. But yet, these divisions were based on natural temporal transitions -- the sun rise and set, the seasonal changes, etc. This natural temporality --and the order that temperature and weather impart -- seems to be, as London presents them, worth honoring and worth divesting one's self of clock-time-allegiance for. It is important, in light of our previous discussion of place and space and nature and land, to add the component of "time" as this has long had an influence on people's experiences in "nature" and their uses of it. This story bring some of these issues into stark relief.

Earl added that freedom from natural rhythms, from "natural time," was an accomplishment of the industrial revolution. "We were freed from the natural procession of the day," Earl commented. Indeed, from the ancient advent of "candle" technology to the industrial-revolution emergence of electric light, we have long been struggling and striving to divorce ourselves from the demands and the order imposed by the "natural rhythm." And London's story, following this kind of reading, shows us the consequences for one man of this divorce and distance. Humans and technology strive for a differently temporal state (a temporality organized around human needs/wants), but as the story reveals, the natural rhythms can override, as a result of human stubbornness or ignorance, any freedoms the human subject has supposedly gained over natural order.



"The Buck"

We began our initial discussion of "The Buck" with a character summary and overview. Oates presents us with Woody, age 40, Melanie, age 82, and the buck (with eight or ten "points"). Melanie is described as being something of an old spinster with an attitude that hunters are despicable, opportunistic, and exploitative; she is also vastly protective of her land, a land-holding that has significantly decreased in size over the years. She has a "sexless, leathery face." She was once engaged to be married (to a preacher), a subject Oates reveals on several occasions in the story. For Woody's part, he wants to go hunting so that he can try out his new Sears bow. None of his friends can accompany him, so he goes alone. He uses profanity and demonstrates a degree of self-loathing.

The day on which the story takes place is the first day of the hunting season for deer. Melanie is horrified by hunting and she strives to protect all animals on her property, which she guards fiercely. In essence, the crisis emerges when Woody shoots the buck on Melanie's land, but the buck is not quickly killed, and Melanie, Woody, and the buck all become intertwined in a fight over survival, "property," and autonomy.

We briefly discussed the hunting technology Woody uses and how Oates uses these details to distinguish Woody from the natural environment, to make him ignoble and cowardly.

We spent most of our time discussing Melanie and Woody as characters. How, bluntly, are Woody and Melanie different from each other? More significantly and interestingly, how are they similar? They do both believe they are, to a degree, benefitting the deer (Woody would employ the rhetoric of population control, Melanie the rhetoric of preservation of all life and its right to live unmolested by human manipulation). They both have a role, in the "natural" order, as it were, and, more directly, in the story. We have one figure representing the Protector and one representing the Hunter. But how might these roles be reversed?

Both Woody and Melanie were abandoned in love. The story of the dissolution of Melanie's engagement is significant to the story and informs her behaviors for decades, particularly on this particular day, the day of her death. Woody too is unmarried (though he was married) and he is childless. But, yet, through the buck -- the buck's blood -- they are brought together. What kind of union, then, is Woody and Melanie's? The buck brings them both together in a moment of triumph and the fulfillment of their ambition: she had hoped to be a savior; he had dreamed of being a warrior, a dominator, a successful hunter. Both achieve the goal, through it slips, fades, and dissolves. The "device" of the buck brings out for each their greatest moment. But, ultimately, Woody resigns in cowardice; Melanie proceeds in a kind of motivated, triumphant ecstasy, in her effort to free the buck from the arrow that pierces it.

Melanie's relationship with the buck is more interesting even than her relationship with Woody. In death, Melanie joins the buck, the quintessence of masculinity. She was never in life linked in such a way (there are oblique suggestions throughout the story about Melanie's fiance's sexuality or his commitment to her and the reasons for the dissolution of their engagement; these references are relevant to this "union of Melanie with the trope of masculinity" idea). A "gender" reading of this story can reveal to us another level of interplay between the characters. Melanie's sexlessness or even her masculinization -- her short hair, her masculine clothes, the unstated circumstances of the end of her engagement -- perhaps enable her to move forward to the buck with such abandon, such openness, such willingness. Whatever the case, in a kind of hybrid fusion -- a marriage, of sorts -- Melanie joins the buck as both die, their blood intermingled, forming a nearly inextricable bond between them (so say those who come to see her body after the accident). Woody remains alone, an emasculated coward.

And what of the house -- the vestige of Melanie's family history, of farming history -- being destroyed by the buck? What of this being the site of their demise? We considered the relationship between the house and the land on which it sits as revealing the complicated history of "possession" of natural spaces, the "civilization" of land. Indeed, the roaming territory for deer was dramatically changed by such settlement. Deer, in contrast to humans, as we discussed in class, lead a comparatively ephemeral existence. They leave no written, built, or "artifact"-ed history. Human history stands in great contrast to this. So, when the buck destroys the content of Melanie's home, is this a kind of final reckoning? We come to realize that Woody might have been a catalyst for this particular event, but that the battle (effectively, the human/animal battle) was being waged long before he bought his new bow from Sears. In this battle, though Melanie would be loath to see it, even Melanie, protector of animals, played a role. Earl gave us a quote he once read, that "environmentalism is a masochistic philosophy." In light of this story, we can see how through Melanie's agency as a protector land, of animals, she comes to destroy herself -- apparently embodying the aphorism Earl shared.