Jack London's To Build A Fire

To Build a Fire

Jack London’s short story, “To Build a Fire,” is the tragic tale of a man who decides to travel alone through the Yukon alone at temperatures fifty degrees below freezing and falls victim to the Yukon’s hostile environment due to lack of experience. The man was warned by and old-timer at Sulphur Creek about how dangerous it was to travel alone in these conditions. The man may have been psychologically capable in his own eyes, but weak against mother nature. The story’s plot is centered on the building of several fires, and the arrogance of an unskilled traveler. The character starts out on his journey with only a modest awareness of actually how cold it truly is. He …show more content…
As he slowly drifts away, he imagines seeing himself along with his friends, “the boys”, walking down the creek and finding his own body. Then imagines himself inside a warm room with the old-timer from Sulphur Creek, and he admits that the old-timer was right about not traveling alone on such a cold day. After finally making this admission, the man dies. After meeting his tragic death, his dog waits for a moment, “there were no signs of a fire to be made, and besides, never in the dog’s experience had it known a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire.” The dog was baffled at the sight of a man lying in the snow without a fire. Suddenly, the dog smells death on the man, the dog howls for a few moments. Then eventually scampers off toward the camp, where it knows it will find food and a warm fire. All this commentary tells us that this gentleman was keenly unaware of his surrounds, and too arrogant to take advice which may have saved his life. An ironic strain that runs throughout the story is the man’s sense of dominance and apathy for the old-timer on Sulphur Creek. Meanwhile, his canine companion was fully aware of the dangers. The smug traveler suffered the consequences and paid the ultimate price for his cockiness. He was indeed “without

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Masculinity In Jack London's To Build A Fire