The three assigned readings, "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, and "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens shared common themes and imagery, all three encompassing nameless main characters as well as discuss the simultaneous beauty and danger of the cold.
In "To Build a Fire", the reader is able to feel the building fear and anxiety of the man as he fights for life and approaches his eventual death; the character of the dog lends an interesting insight to London's point of view of man's "superior knowledge" of survival. He urges the man to seek shelter and stay by the warmth of the fire, yet the man's determination to adhere to his schedule and ignore the dog's evolutionary programming causes the man's death.
"Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" depicts an almost longing by the narrator to remain in the cold and deadly forest, but the animal companion (the horse) brings him back to Earth and acknowledges his agenda before he is able to do so. There is a mystery and allure of death, which the frozen and dark forest is symbolizing, that draws a person to it.
"The Snow Man" was my favorite of the three pieces, specifically the final stanza:
For the listener...nothing himself, beholds
nothing that is not there and nothing that is
There is a relation to holding onto the threshold of life while peering over the edge, observing death from a detached, removed point of view that allows the reader to breathe in the imagery and marvel at the beauty of nature.
photo credit Kilian Schoenberger
"The Snow Man" Wallace Stevens
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