To Build a Fire
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"To Build a Fire" is a short story by American author Jack London. The famous version of this story was published in 1908. Jack London published an earlier and radically different version in 1902, and a comparison of the two provides a dramatic illustration of the growth of his literary ability.
[edit] Plot
A man and his dog, a husky, were traveling through the tundra of the Klondike region of what is now the Yukon Territory in Canada. The two are returning to camp, where they can have a nice warm meal with "the boys". They had taken a longer route to return to the camp, as the man had to check if it was possible to get logs from the islands in Yukon. However, the Yukon winter is brutal: zero hours of sunlight in a day and startlingly frigid temperatures.
The man spat, and realized that the spit freezes and crackled before it even hits the ground. At -50, the man recalled, spit freezes when it hits the snow and he deduced that the temperature is below -50. The dog following him was depressed from the cold and its instinct told it that it was no time for traveling. The narrator then reveals that the temperature "was not merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero."
The man then traveled at a pace of four miles per hour, eager to reach some forks to have his lunch and ultimately reach the camp at 7 o' clock. He was traveling light with nothing save his lunch of biscuits and bacon, and fire-starting equipment (sulphur matches and a few pieces of birch bark).
Along the way, he had to avoid pools of freezing cold water, hidden under thin skins of ice or snow, which could potentially kill him or hinder his progress if he is soaked in the water. He almost fell for one such trap, however, diverting himself away from the pool at the last minute. Later, in order to test an area he suspected contains such traps, he compels his dog to transverse the area. The dog disobeys him and the man shoved it forwards. The dog went quickly and, suddenly, it broke through a sheet of ice, floundered and managed to get to safer footing. It wet its forefeet and legs, and the water which clung to it quickly froze over. The man removes his mittens to help tear out the ice from the dog, and was astounded when his fingers grew numb within the minute the mittens were removed.
The man continues his journey and at half past twelve, and reached the forks where he had planned to consume his lunch. He removed his mittens again to draw out his lunch, and yet, within a quarter of a minute, his exposed fingers grew numb. He smashed his fingers a dozen times against his leg in a bid to induce sensation in the fingers. Yet, the sting of the fingers which had followed ceased so quickly that he was startled. It was so quick, he had no chance to even bite a biscuit. He attempted to continue his lunch, however, a muzzle of ice had formed over his mouth, preventing him from eating. He chuckled at his foolishness of not building a fire first to thaw himself.
He then realized that his feet had no sensation in them. He was startled, and stamped his feet till sensation returned to them. He grew a little frightened and remembered how a man from Sulphur creek told him how cold it gets around the region and how he had laughed at the latter's stories. He gathered twigs from the undergrowth and started a fire to thaw himself. The fire was a success and the man managed to eat his lunch while the dog laid near the fire.
The man then continued his journey, the dog however yearned back to the fire, its instinct telling it that it was dangerous to continue the journey. The narrator then reveals that "there was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man", while the dog was the toil-slave of the man, receiving only the "caresses of the whiplash and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that threatened the whiplash."
Hence the dog makes no effort to communicate its apprehension to the man, and continued following the man only after he spoke to the dog with the sound of whiplashes.
Later, the man falls partially into one of the traps, wetting himself to the knees in freezing water. He curses his luck, and flounders to firmer ground, while angry at the now inevitable delay of his arrival at the camp due to the need for a fire to unfreeze his legs.
He walks under a nearby spruce tree and begins to build a fire with its twigs and bark. He builds the fire slowly, aware of the danger from the cold. The fire starts to blaze and grows stronger. The man judges that he could soon feed the fire with large branches and will soon be able to keep his naked feet warm.
He remembers the law passed by an old timer, that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. He started to think about how "womanish" the old timer was, after all, he thought, he had an accident alone, and he saved himself.
However, as he begins to remove his footwear, the tree dumps a pile of snow on his precious fire. The tree had carried a load of snow on its boughs. And by removing twigs from the bush, he had disturbed the snow which had then tumbled onto his fire.
He was shocked and thought of his death, He realizes this was a costly mistake, as he will certainly lose at least a few toes to frostbite. He moved to the open now, and tried to start another fire. However, by now, he was unable to use his fingers; He could not even feel his fingers. He desperately tried to strike his matches. Using his teeth, he scratches the first match against his leg, the match was alight, however, the burning sulphur chokes him and he coughed. The match he lit falls into the snow and the flame dies.
In his second attempt, he was used the heels of his hands to strike all seventy of his matches at once against his leg and they all caught fire at once. He feels some sensation in his hand and realizes his hand is burning. He held the matches over the birch bark, however, his own burning hands were getting in the way, stealing heat from the matches. He could not tolerate the pain anymore and dropped the all the matches onto the snow. However, the birch bark was set alight.
He begun feeding twigs to the fire, however, he dropped a piece of moss onto it. He tried to poke the moss off the fire, however, due to his shivering, he poked too far and disturbed the nucleus of the fire. The twigs fell apart and the fire died.
The man, his opportunities to build a fire all lost, recalls a story of another man who killed a steer for his warmth. The man, deciding to attempt something similar, calls over his dog in a friendly and warm fashion. The dog walks over in apprehension, as its master's words are usually harsh and threatening. The man gets his arms around the dog for a few moments, but he releases the dog after realizing his hands are unresponsive and useless, unable to get the knife in his jacket and hence he was unable to kill it.
The man realizes his death is now inevitable. He makes vain attempts to make a run for the camp that always end in his falling after a few hundred feet. He lies down and starts to feel drowsy, realizing a sleep-like death will soon overtake his body. In his delirium he mutters his last words to the old-timer of Sulphur Creek: "You were right, old hoss; you were right." The husky stands around for a while. After smelling death, it howls and trots off on the trail towards the camp, looking for another human to provide fire.
