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Nature, Supreme Nemesis
Thousands of people are killed every year at the hands of Mother Nature. The vehicles
Nature chooses, whether tornadoes, hurricanes, mudslides, or flooding, does not matter. The fact
remains that Mother Nature is now, and will always stay, a dominant force with no regard for
human life. Naturalist writers such as Stephen Crane and Jack London experienced her full fury
first hand and wrote stories describing their experiences. As we look closer at how Nature’s
wrath is displayed in “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane and “To Build a Fire” by Jack London,
we see how insignificant a human life is to Mother Nature. Both authors show the insignificance
of human life by exploring Nature’s isolation, vastness and power.
The vast spaces of untamed nature have circean qualities that lull visitors, making the
empty spaces feel abandoned. Jack London describes one of these unique spaces when he says,
“North and south, as far as his [the Yukon traveler’s] eye could see, it was unbroken white, save
for a dark hairline that curved and twisted from around the spruce-covered island to the south,
and that curved and twisted away into the north, where it disappeared behind another spruce-
covered island” (1047). This sounds like a beautiful and enticing place; however, advancing into
this alien world of permafrost and barren tundras would isolate the adventurer after a short
period of time. Stephen Crane chronicles a different breadth of Nature in “The Open Boat”
stating, “Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them.
These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white” (990).
From shore the scene is gorgeous and enticing. The member’s perspectives from the dinghy are
far worse and much more dreadful. Crane negates the scene saying “at all times its edge was
jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks” (990). This is an alarming
perception for shipwrecked survivors in a puny craft, and this perception leads the crew to feel
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segregated from the mainland. In an article, Ahmad M. S. Abu Baker states “the sailors are
guilty of not contemplating the beauty of the sea” and that “the sea is ignored and not
contemplated by the sailors despite its vastness” (5). Baker agrees that inhabitants are nescient
of their surroundings and that this is part of their downfall.
In both stories the characters endeavor against nature and strive to overcome the
staggering obstacles presented to them. Both authors heighten nature’s perceived power by
personifying Nature with abilities that do not exist, but to the characters seem real. London says
the snow “grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire,
and the fire was blotted out” (1053). London talks about a tree dropping snow off its branches in
this quote, an action induced by constructing a fire underneath a snow covered tree. The tree was
not deviant, resolving to pitch volumes of snow onto the fire; however, by manifesting cognitive
