To Build a Fire

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"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 in which the protaganist survives his ordeal, and a comparison of the two provides a dramatic illustration of the growth of his literary ability. It is widely considered as a prime example of the naturalist movement and of a Man vs. Nature conflict.

1 Summary
2 Characters
3 Link Between Nature and Man
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Summary

This story is about a man on the Yukon Trail on a very cold day (seventy-five degrees below zero). His only traveling companion is a husky wolf-dog. It describes the hardships the man is going through at starting a fire and trying to keep himself warm. The cold does not faze the man, a newcomer to the Yukon, who plans to meet his friends (who are referred to as boys) by six o'clock at an old junction. He walks along a creek trail, mindful of the dangerous, hidden springs, because getting wet feet on such a cold day is dangerous. The man continues on and, in an apparently safe spot, falls through the snow and gets wet up to his shins. He remembers the old-timer from Sulphur Creek who had warned him that no man should travel in the Klondike trail alone when the temperature was fifty degrees below zero.

The man becomes scared, and he immediately starts a fire to dry his wet clothes. He foolishly starts the fire underneath a spruce tree, which is covered with snow. The warmth of the fire melts the overhanging snow and it falls onto the fire, extinguishing it. He then tries to start a new fire, aware that he is already going to lose a few toes from frostbite. He gathers twigs and grasses. His fingers numb and nearly dead, he unsuccessfully attempts to light a match. He grabs all his matches and lights them all at once, then sets fire to a piece of bark. He starts the fire, but in trying to protect it from green pieces of moss, it soon goes out. The man decides to kill the dog and to put his hands inside its warm body to restore his circulation. But due to the extreme cold, he cannot kill the dog because he is unable to pull out his knife, or even throttle the animal. He lets it go.

In a desperate attempt to keep himself warm, he starts to run, trying to let the friction heat his body. However, he has no stamina, and soon he stops and sits down. He imagines his friends, finding his dead body in the snow. He imagines himself telling the oldtimer at Sulfur Creek that he was right: It was too cold to travel. A warmth covers him and he falls into a deep, deadly, relaxing sleep. The dog does not understand why the man is sitting in the snow and not making a fire to warm them. As night falls, the dog comes closer him and smells death on the man. It runs away in the direction of the camp where the others are, unwilling to face death and venturing towards life.

[edit] Characters

There are only two characters in "To Build a Fire," a man and a dog, although some count Nature as a third character. In the story, Nature is portrayed as the antagonist--the foe against which the man is pitted for survival. However, Nature doesn't act deliberately--it simply is, and it is the man's own folly and arrogance that causes his death.

[edit] Link Between Nature and Man

The wolf-dog is a link between the man and Nature, but it identifies more closely with Nature than with the man. Its natural wisdom or instinct--it knows it is too cold to be traveling--is presented as an alternative to the foolishness of the man's behavior. After the man dies, the dog returns to camp.