This allows story endings to have an ending where the main character dies or is still alive but doesn't return to the same lifestyle they had before. In a modern tragedy it may be one or the other, but in the case of the newcomer in "To Build a Fire" he "fell asleep in what seemed to him the most comfortable and satisfying sleep he had ever known" (London 10 ), meaning dead. In Oedipus Rex, his ending is different, in which he is allowed to still be alive but vanishes outside the city into the mountains where he can no longer rule the city of Thebes or be with his family. “To Build a Fire” is a modern tragedy and not a tragedy because its ending is different, but the story has some of the same components as a tragedy like Oedipus Rex. Both the newcomer and Oedipus Rex recognize that the people who gave them advice about what would happen in the future were right. That they should follow the advice they were given and avoid the death or disappearance of themselves from the city and the death of their loved ones. “You were right, old boy; you were right," (London 10) the man murmured to the veteran. "After all this, after all this vile discovery which I myself have brought to the brutal light of the truth" (Sophocles