To Build A Fire, By Jack London

Along this difficult march, the narrator reflects on the life of the dog and remembers the not-so-bad characteristics of the family pet, “During our joint ordeal I had developed a grudging affection for our pet; he who’d been so quick to defend my kith and kin against the noise of passing trucks, who took loud notice of the squirrels outside, who held fast in the foyer, hackles raised, fearlessly barking, whenever company arrived at the front door (248).”

In Jack London's “To Build A Fire” the story follows a man and his dog in the Klondike and their obstacles of trying to get to the boys which are his compatriots. The story revolves around the winter and how mankind reacts to the wild. The author uses nature to illustrate the poem’s tone by vilifying nature and using it as an obstacle.

While the man is walking along the path, he lacks most of the basic needs for a human to survive and function. Although the man had a connection to society via the dog, “there was no real bond between the dog and the man. The one was the slave of the other”(70). The dog does not portray any main roles for the man’s survival and is only a spectator. Eventually, the man falls over and the frost begins to take over.

The man represents the fraction of society that doesn't respect nature. He doesn't understand the power of nature because he is oblivious to it. On the other hand the dog was "told a truer tale than that was told to the man by the man's judgement." The man "did not know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold." "The was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man." The man and the dog are together because the man needs the dog, and the dog has no choice. They have no emotional connection between them because the dog is used as a slave. In one part of the story the man uses the dog to test the trail and make sure that it is safe. The dog has more inherent knowledge about the area, all of his "ancestry knew" about the cold and the dangers of extreme cold. He also had a warm "natural covering" to keep him safe from the weather. The man was not used to the cold. He "was without imagination. He was quick and alert to the things of life, but only the things, and not the significances." He also was stubborn for his neglect to take advice.

To build a fire is a short story written by Jack London. It is a story about an individual’s choice. The main character’s self-centeredness overcomes him, as he tries to survive the wintery weather in his travel in the Yukon Trail. He made a choice of ignoring the weather warnings, which evidenced danger in his journey. There were warnings like the absence of fellow travelers due to the cold season, but his egoism made him still embark on the journey alone, despite the warnings. The protagonist’s pride and arrogance leads to a regrettable outcome, as it leads to his downfall. The protagonist made the wrong choices because of his egotism, and arrogance and they led to his downfall. He defied nature due to his lack of logical judgment, and

The main character of the story is doomed from the start. London says, “The man broke through” telling the reader about the main character’s experience with the water spring (London 337). Nature gives him bad luck over and over again, showing us his doomed fate from the start. Naturalism also demonstrates the environment being indifferent; the environment does nothing to help its inhabitants. The Yukon does not cease the bitter coldness when the man is struggling to stay alive: “He was losing this battle with the frost” (London 344). This indifference makes survival the only possible goal to try to reach. Another characteristic of Naturalism is the force of instinct. London states in the story, “The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp conscious or a condition of very cold such as in the man’s brain. But the brute had its instinct” (London 334). The dog’s instincts give it an awareness of the wilderness that is superior to or better than the man’s sense of judgment. The dog’s instinct also ties in with the Naturalistic characteristic of heredity. The dog, unlike the man, has physical characteristics that have been passed down genetically

This theme can be seen in who survives the whole ordeal, whether the dog does or if the human does is all that needs to be said of the matter. The human is held back from survival because he let his pretentious attitude that he didn't need nothing reign over the raw instinct that what he was doing was wrong, this instinct is manifested by the dog. When the dogs has his paws wet, the dog immediately takes care of the matter, not because it had thought to, but because it immediately knew to. The human also conspires, in such a desperate situation, to cut the dog open and use the body heat from inside the dog, to warm himself up. The dog does seem to understand this danger and the thoughts running through the man's head, so the dog keeps a safe distance from him.

Dogs rarely die a shameful death, but instead fight to the finish. Using this dichotomy he further illustrates the severance of and between the hunter and the hunted. McKay emphasizes within the first three lines that the conflict at hand is not merely a struggle then, but a fierce hunt in which there is no mercy and only one survivor.

“To Build a Fire” is a short story written by Jack London. It is viewed as a masterpiece of naturalist fiction. “To Build a Fire” features a miner who is traveling to the Yukon Territory with a dog as his companion. The miner is the protagonist and the dog companion is called the foil. The dog plays off of the traits of the protagonist. “The central motif of “To Build a Fire” concerns the struggle of man versus nature.” (Short Story Criticism) The most argued point in the short story is the reason of the protagonist death. “Some critics believe that it was his lack of intuition and imagination that lead to his death, while others say that he dies because of panic.” (Short Story Criticism) The protagonist in “To Build a Fire” struggles in

First, I am going to analyze the dog’s relationship with the man. the man is on his way to meet the boys with his only companion, a wolf dog which represents the bond we have with nature. The dog relies on the man to provide warmth by fire and the man needs the dog for his instincts. I believe the that since it is a wolf dog it has both traits as a wild wolf and a domesticated dog. It is like a gateway between humanity and nature which allows us to be a part of it. The dog never left the man’s side because he needed him. The man however, the attempted to kill the dog to spare his life. The man also sent the dog across the lake knowing that the dog’s instincts could get him across. The man heavily relied on the dog for his survival and was willing to sacrifice him for the man’s

McClintock states, “Indeed, the cold itself functions as an invisible antagonist in ‘To Build a Fire’ It meets the man as soon as he goes outside into the brutal Klondike winter” (McClintock 347). McClintock really explains the idea of conflict of the cold within the short story. Telling on how much it really is an enemy and the factor it plays. The Man also faces himself as an enemy, being he is too foolish to learn when he is wrong. He constantly fights his own foolishness everytime he goes against the more experienced advice he is given. The narrator tells, “You were right, old hoss; you were right” (London 506). It is obvious that the Man realizes that his foolishness of not listening to the Old Timer lead to his death. Since the theme of foolishness plays a respectable role in this story, the conflicts given throughout the story shows the readers on how the main character could have avoided a number of conflicts, just by listening to the advice he was given. Furthermore, the conflicts throughout the story exemplify the theme of foolishness.

The sadness intermixed with intrigue I felt reading the story “To Build A Fire” by Jack London compelled me to choose it for analysis. London relates the short story of a man traveling near the border of present day Alaska. Accompanied by his Husky on his way to meet his friends later that day, the man faces a cascade of escalating challenges as the story progresses. Although he carefully tries to avoid these threats, leads to the worst possible chain of events. The author portrays his Naturalist philosophy through the themes of chance and human error, the indifference of nature, and the fight for survival versus the acceptance of death.

Do you think you could survive the Yukon trail, a mile wide and three feet of ice, and just as many feet of snow, in weather colder than fifty below? The story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, is about a man who tried to take the Yukon trail and get to his friends with just a dog to guide him. He was told that no one has ever made the journey alone, yet he chose to take on the journey. Through the story the man faces many conflicts not only through himself in having too much pride, but also with the physical ones such as the cold which lead to his death. The main theme in the book is the man’s perseverance to try and survive. The man on the Yukon Trail has to show perseverance through the story even with the harsh weather and signs of bad events coming upon him. In his story “To Build a Fire,” Jack London discusses the theme of perseverance through two literary elements, conflict and foreshadowing.

“It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of the sun.” Throughout Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” there is a sense of slow burning dread as readers are introduced to the man and his gradual, but inevitable death, brought upon by himself. London’s short story opens with the main character, a man, foolishly embarking on the long journey back to camp in the freezing Yukon, accompanied only by a husky mix. It is in this unforgivingly harsh weather that the man meets his fate, at his own hand. From the beginning of the story, the man displays flawed behaviors and personality traits that render him unable to survive on his solo journey in the Yukon, becoming his own worst enemy.

The same moment I decided to quicken my speed, a deer burst through the night. I screamed, stumbled and hit the ground with a loud thump. I sat on the moist ground for a moment to try to recover but my heart began to throb as if it was beating within my throat. It was just a deer I told myself, I had to be brave. Trying to get myself together I began to feel this hot puffs of air on the back of my neck. “It’s the goblin!” I screamed as I rapidly rose to my feet. My head spun like an owl as I went to look for what was behind me. I looked to the ground and discovered a little white dog. “You scared me to death little guy. What is a cute little puppy like you doing in a dense forest like this?” I said to him. I was relieved it was only a dog instead of the ghastly goblin, but I only made it half-way home by then. As I proceeded on the white little dog followed me. I felt more at ease now that I had him following me but he would not be considered much of a watch dog to most