Question

What is the author's intent by writing that the man's limitation is that he is without imagination?To build a fire​

Answer 1

Answer:

The author means this man is limited and not practical in his understanding of things.

Explanation:

"To Build a Fire" is a short story by author Jack London. The main character is a man who ignores the wise words of an old man and decides to face nature on his own. He dies due to the freezing weather in the region of Yukon.

London does not seem to feel sorry for his character. He makes it clear that this man is "without imagination," and that this is precisely his limitation. This man does not go beyond the literal meaning of words. He does not understand them in a practical way. For instance, as is described in the quote below, he does not understand that a temperature is not just a number. It is a matter of life and death.

“The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe.”