In what has been described by some readers as "the coldest story anyone could read," the most vivid moment may well be during the climax in which the man is freezing and makes his last desperate attempt to run to camp.
When he commands the dog to come to him, it obeys although it is suspicious as its fur bristles. The man attempts to grab it, but discovers that his hands cannot clutch the dog's body.
He had forgotten that they were frozen....He realized he could not kill the dog....he could neither draw nor hold his sheath knife not throttle the animal.
So, he makes a last desperate attempt to save himself by running to camp. He hopes that if he runs, his feet will thaw out with the added circulation, but at the same time, he knows that he is a long ways from the camp. The passage in which he begins to run is especially graphic as he thinks it bizarre that he cannot feel them as they strike the ground, yet he can propel himself along.
He seemed to...skim along above the surface, and to have no connection with the earth. Somewhere he had once seen a winged Mercury, and he wondered if Mercury felt as he felt when skimming over the earth. (paragraph 34)
When he stops to rest, the man feels warm and rather comfortable, yet when he touches his nose or cheeks, there is no feeling in them.
Then the thought that came to him that the frozen portions of his body must be extending.
The man makes a second attempt, but he falls. "He was losing in this battle with the frost." This thought propels, but he only covers a hundred feet, until he falls again, realizing that he is, indeed, going to freeze to death. He decides to "sleep off to death....He did not belong with himself anymore" (paragraph 36)
The surreal quality of the ordinary man picturing himself as Mercury "skimming over the earth," and his feeling that "he did not belong with himself anymore" are especially vivid images in Jack London's story.
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