This allows the end of the story to have an ending where the main character dies or is still alive but does not return to the same lifestyle they had before . In a modern tragedy it can be either, but in the case of the newcomer in "To Build a Fire" he "fell asleep in what seemed to him the most comfortable and most satisfactory that he ever knew” (London 10), meaning that he died. In Oedipus Rex his ending is different, in which he is allowed to still be alive but disappears out of town 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 it has a different ending, but the story has some of the same elements as a tragedy like Oedipus Rex. The newcomer and Oedipus the King admit that the people who gave them advice about what would happen in the future were right. That they should have followed the advice given to them and avoided the death or disappearance of themselves from the city and the death of their loved ones. “You were right, old man; you were right", (London 10) the man muttered to the old man. "After all this, after all this vile discovery which I myself brought to the brutal light of truth" (Sophocles