Similarities Between To Build A Fire And The Ugly Duckling

While To Build a Fire and The Ugly Duckling could not be less similar in regard to their storyline, they do share a common element of literature, a quest. This does not mean the quests are similar, but both the man in To Build a Fire and the duckling in The Ugly Duckling have a quest that they must attempt to complete.

To Analyze Both of these stories, we must first understand the main character who is embarking on the quest. In To Build a Fire, the main character is an unnamed man who is Travelling through the Yukon with a dog. In The Ugly Duckling, the main character is a newly hatched duckling deemed ugly by his peers. These characters are polar opposites but they are alike in the way that they both have a clear personal “quest” that …show more content…
While this man is no stranger to the wilderness, he greatly underestimates the temperature believing it is no more than fifty degrees below zero, when it is actually seventy-five degrees below zero. These assumptions lead the man to set out on his journey when even the dog does not want to continue because of the cold. Throughout the beginning of the story, the man encounters no danger and even builds himself a fire to eat lunch next to. It is after this quick break that things take a turn for the worst after the man falls through the ice, completely soaking his feet and legs. The man then realizes that he must build a fire so that he may thaw his feet and legs and dry his socks and shoes. The man ends up burning his hands igniting the fire and once the fire is lit, it is put out by a pile of snow that fell from a tree. This is when the man starts to panic and decides he must kill the dog to stay warm. While attempting to kill the dog, he realizes he his too cold to draw his knife and tries to run to the camp out of desperation. After stumbling and falling many times, the man eventually dies of hypothermia effectively ending his