‘To Build a Fire” Jack London’s short story, “To Build a Fire,” takes place during a harsh winter in the forest of Alaska. This story is about a courageous but stubborn man who decides to confront the mighty forces of nature. This man takes a journey that not many would have taken, with a husky dog as his only companion. As he travels through the rough landscape of Alaska, he faces many natural obstacles. Facing these barriers make him more aware about reality about challenging the forces of nature, a challenge that in many times becomes a matter of life or death. Throughout the story the main character is not given a name, he is simply known as the “Man.” A hardheaded newcomer to the coniferous forest of Alaska; a man who thinks he knows it all, but is about to come in contact with the worst weather he has ever had to face. The man’s lack of experience led him to his downfall. As his journey began he went into the trail not well prepared, because of the low temperatures a face mask was well needed and he did not bother to wear one. “He does not recognize that man is so finial that the bitterly cold Alaskan inevitably destroys the individual” (McClintock 355). The man had trouble understanding that Nature was something that can never be fought against, but still his machismo personality set in and he was not going to back down from it. Fifty degrees below zero meant nothing to him, he knew it was going to be cold and uncomfortable, and that was it. It did not lead him to think of his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general; being able to live within certain limits of heat or cold (McClintock 356). The trouble with the man was that he was without imagination; he was new to the lands (London 119). This character that we know as the man was going to be going up against the worst weather conditions he had ever faced. The journey that he was going to take was one that not even the most experienced men, would have been able to beat. His manly instincts told him he could, the man thought how cold could it possibly get, but soon he realized that these were no temperatures for a man to be walking under. Fifty degrees below zero is to cold for a man, it is catastrophe, and then to be careless about the cold is mortal folly (Chapman 332). Nature is uncontrollable; it does not choose its prey, but its prey chose’s it. Nature puts up barriers that our human instincts should tell us when it is alright and when it is not, but in this case the man decided to ignore it all and go up against the worst creature in the world. This man did not have the knowledge and experience needed; he lacked many qualities and in the end nature showed itself and what its capabilities were. For the man it was not good, but nature taught him a lesson and showed him that it was something that could never be fought against. “‘It certainly was cold, he concluded, as he rubbed his nose and cheek-bones with his mittened hand” (Widdicombe 344). Soon after that in the next paragraph it talks about the animal saying the animal was depressed and it knew it was no time for traveling (Widdicombe 344). This young man who entered the trail went in with very little experience and there was no way he could handle those difficult conditions. Knowledge in these lands was everything; knowing all the little tricks and all the little information that the man did not bother to learn was what was going to save him in the end. “ This reading easily accommodates a typical ‘moral’ of Naturalistic narrative: humans are cast into an existence over which they have no control and their inherent feelings and a disinterested but ‘implacable’ nature will always conjoin to produce disaster” (Adams 27). Even the toughest and most experienced men would have had a great deal of difficulty trying to get through this trail. Sixty miles to cover under fifty below was an extreme goal; “The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner” (London 120). “When the strong Nations assume that man’s only true work is to break through frontiers, they also assume that the courage it takes is the only one that validates existence” (Chapman 336). The man walks in the trail with a dog as his only companion, and what he thought was good enough as a companion. Unfortunately the dog did not have the ability to start a fire or warn him about the dangers he could encounter in the trail. An experience animal whose natural climate it was had a great deal of intuition; the dog’s natural instinct was what helped him get through the journey. “The dog his companion, is almost wild and retains its primitive instincts virtually intact” (Peterson 3). In the story the dog serves well as an observer. He sees everything that is going on, but only if could speak could he have saved the man (Chapman 333). In a passage the author explains that the dog after walking under these low temperatures thought: why are we not stopping? The dog was use to stopping after walking under these low temperatures and building a fire. This was the dog’s atmosphere, he accompanied the man into the cold and survived; instinct is what protected the dog (McClintock 356). If the man had the instincts and that survival intuition that the dog carried with him, the man would have been in a different place rather than freezing to death. “The distinction between the man’s thought and the dog’s instinct is explicitly made in three places. One passage will serve for example; ‘The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp conscience of a very cold such as the man’s brain. But the brute had its instinct’’’ (Peterson 5). It was the dog who could have led the man to his survival, the dog knew everything, just if could get his thoughts across the man would have survived. The extremely low temperatures led the man to his final minutes; it was clearly shown that the man was not fit to survive under these temperatures. “In the standard reading the man dies because he is not biologically fit to live” (Adams 33).The man believed it was fifty degrees below zero, but in reality the temperature was well under that, it hit seventy degrees below zero. Still with the low temperatures the dog would not see the man stop to make a fire. After several miles the man stopped to make a fire; the dog was happy because all the dog wanted was fire. They were not at the fire for as long as they needed to be. The man whistled and the dog followed they had left the fire, but short after that the man hit a trap. “The man falls through the snow into the water, the accident which begins his desperate struggle to live, because there are ‘no signs’ indicating where the snow is soft. The man’s tragic flaw has been his masculine pride in his rationality” (McClintock 357). Some critics argue that the man had no common knowledge; they argue that he was an idiot for building the second fire under a tree (Widdicombe 346). His lack of experience and knowledge led him to make a fire under a tree; thanks to his unawareness his death came closer. “Extreme cold is a metaphor for a whole range of experiences beyond the man’s awareness, and the point of the story is not that the man freezes to death but that he has been confronted with the inadequacy of his conception of the nature of things” (Peterson 4). Death one of the main characters haunts the characters all through out the story. The text suggested that, the dog and the death, were thematically linked, and that in a special way the man dies because of the dog (Adams 30). The man dies because of the dog for the fact that he could not kill him. The dog had many instincts that we as humans lack. As the man was freezing to death the dog could smell death, the man called the dog over because he planed to kill it so he could keep warm under the dog’s fur. The dog smelled something weird about that and it slowly starting backing off and ran away into the wilderness. In the story nature plays its own role; the man does not understand that if he keeps testing his limitations nature will show him its capabilities. In many ways nature tried telling the man to stop; it sent many signs, but signs that the man decided to ignore. One of the main obstacles that nature set up for the man to stop were the extremely low temperatures, but the stubborn man that he was, the man continued. The man plays the role of a person who knows everything and who is not afraid of going up against the monster that nature can be. Not until death finally comes face to face with him does he start worrying about what the old man had said to him. Death and the old-timer haunt him and in a certain part of the story the man cannot get either of the two things of his mind. In the mans final minutes he comes to realize that there were many things he could have changed in order to survive. All these thoughts start haunting him, and at one point he has an inner voice telling him what could have happened if he had just listened. The old-timer would not get off his mind, and he kept remembering what the old man had told him about traveling with a partner. Before he fell through the trap the man was laughing and mocking the old man; in his mind he thought this old man was weak. Not until he finally came to his death bed which he was walking on the whole time he realized that the old man by the Sulphur Creek was right. What hurts the man the most is that if he would have had a partner, the story would have taken a different turn. Something that Nature teaches in, “To Build a Fire” is imagination to recognize one’s limitation; the man does not have this ability until it is too late and eventually leads him to death (Widdicombe 345). As to the dog if could have just been able to speak to the man it could have been a great help. In the end the man was not able to defeat these obstacles that were set for him by nature. Nature was a creature of its own who ran him to his death. He was a young inexperienced man, who in the end would have had a lot of experience if would have made it alive. Facing these barriers made him more aware and gave him experience, but when he gained the knowledge that was necessary for his survival it was too late. The dog knew and had the necessary elements to survive, but was unable to pass them down to the man; the stubborn man that could have saved his own life by taking a simple advice. In many instances the man lacked common knowledge and knowledge in general; he went into these lands as if they were a playground, but nature took its place and showed the man the capabilities and the power that it had to do things. In the mans final words he said, “You were right old hoss; you were right” (London 129). Works Cited
Adams, George R. "Why the Man dies in 'To Build a Fire'" The Critical Response to Jack London. Ed. Susan M. Nuernberg . Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995. 27-35. 2 June 2009 .
Chapman, Arnold . "'Between Fire and Ice': A Theme in Jack London and Horacio Quiroga." Vol. 24. Short Story Criticism. Ed. Justin Karr. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2002. 332-36.
London, Jack. "To Build a Fire." Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Eds. X.J Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. 119-29.
McClintock, James I. "Alaskan Nightmare and Artistic Success: 1898-1908." Vol. 7. Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Milne. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2000. 355-57. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale Cengage. County College of Morris. 2 June 2009 .
Peterson, Clell . "The Theme of Jack London's 'To Build a Fire'" The Critical Response to Jack London. Ed. Susan M. Nuernberg. Wesport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. 3-8.
Widdicombe, Jill. "Overview of 'To Build a Fire'" Vol. 7. Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Milne. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2000. 343-46. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale Cengage Learning. County College of Morris. 2 June 2009 .