“To Build a Fire” Essay

Ethan Frome and “To Build a Fire” exemplify how the steadfast cold bends humankind to its will both physically and mentally. In Wharton’s novel, the cold overtakes Ethan emotionally and leaves him incapable of effectively exercising his free will.

London, Jack. "To Build a Fire." The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's,

To Build a Fire is a story about a man who doesn't listen to anyone but himself and freezes to death. Jack London based the story in the Yukon, Canada. There was a ton of snow and it is -75 degrees fahrenheit far too cold for people to be out there. There are things that he could have done to save his own life but the things were too hard for him to do. One thing that would have most definitely saved him is he could have killed the dog and used him as warmth but he couldn’t so in the end he died and the dog lived through the night.

This man who we do not know from the start got lost in the Yukon Trail. From the start we could see he wasn’t sure where he was and that brings me to number one in the Principle of Survival his perception was not clear he wasn’t sure what was going on at the beginning all he knew was the it was nine o’clock and the sky was starting to get a subtle gloom. His awareness was not in the best place either in this situation, “ But all this-this mysterious, far reaching hairline trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and the strangeness of it was- made no impression on the man.” He wasn't aware of the symptoms that he was already experiencing like the frost forming on his beard. He didn't have that awareness that he needed in the type of climate he was in.

The setting acts as an antagonist to the man because it creates conflict, man versus nature, and is partially the cause of the man’s death. The brutal and harsh conditions of the Yukon works against the man in almost every way possible. In the story, the man gets his feet wet and struggles to build a fire (Line 255). The gradual freezing and numbing of his body begins which will eventually lead to his inevitable death.

The short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London starts off with a man who travels to the Yukon, a major river in Alaska and western Canada, on an extremely cold winter day with a wolf dog. The man was a newcomer in the Yukon and this winter was going to be his first. The man is planning to meet a group of his friends at a camp by six o’clock. He plans on traveling alone with his wolf dog because he states that he is not fazed by the cold. An older timer on Sulphur Creek warns the man to not go into the wilder of Yukon on his own, but he refuses to listen and lets his ego get the best of him. So the man sets forth his journey with his dog and no other companion. As the days goes on and the weather grows colder, the ma realizes that his unprotected

In the short story, “To Build a Fire,” Jack London puts a tragic twist on the classic tale of wilderness survival. The author’s use of imagery and detailed sentences leave readers yearning for the warmth of fire alongside the characters. The story takes place in the Yukon during the Great Klondike Gold Rush, where the author himself spent a very influential part of his young life. London’s style of writing is an exaggeration of his own experience while mining in the arctic north. In this story, Jack London writes about an inexperienced man and his dog’s struggle through fatal weather conditions.

Jack London, an american novelist, wrote a short story called To Build a Fire in the early 1900’s. To Build a Fire is about a man who travels alone through the dangerous environment of Yukon in below-freezing temperatures. The man’s goal was to meet up with “the boys” at a camp that was a couple of miles from where he began his journey. He had no doubt that he would make it to the camp, for he had a husky wolf-dog by his side, and the skills he needed to survive. However, the man ended up running out of energy and falling into a nice, satisfying sleep, murmuring, “You were right, old fellow. You were right,” to the old man of Sulphur Creek who warned him about travelling alone.

Within the short story, nature has been given the characteristic of uncaring and harsh. The thermometer at the Sixty Mile mark, along the trail, read to be 55 below. London mentions that “they had not been as cold as this”(London 1049) before. The particular route that was taken had not been transversed within a month “by no man”(London 1049) much less a team. There was danger along this path, there “were traps” (London 1050), pools of water hidden beneath the layers of snow. In order to survive in this environment there must be a sense of understanding, not only of the dangers that lie in wait, but also in the

To Build a Fire Jack London expresses the unforgiving conditions of nature by writing of a man who is roaming through the Yukon, with no company but a dog, and how in the end his stubbornness and Mother Nature’s brute weather conditions and nature’s inability to care for the man ultimately lead to his demise.

Jack London's To Build a fire begins with a hiker in the Yukon, setting out to test his abilities with his large loyal dog at his side. At the start of the story there is a hint that things will not go as planned because it mentions how clear the day was, and the lack of sun and lack of worry on the man's part seems to be a foreshadowing of events to come, the man was experienced and should have known better to take nature for granted like he was doing. The hiker also had been warned by an old native man that hiking in negative 50 degree weather could have dangerous consequences and yet the man chose to ignore the old man's warning. In the whole story the man brushes off the cold temperatures even when he begins to feel symptoms of frostbite, like his face becoming numb, his fingers and toes start to freeze and he even doesn't have anything to protect his face from the harshness of the arctic temperatures.

In the text, “To Build a Fire” by London, the author emphasizes the idea of man versus nature by the struggles the man and dog faces through the journey and brings a tone of unsympathetic and uncaring to the readers this suggestion can bring the elements of survival of the fittest and the power of nature life. To build a fire takes place on a snowy area that is so cold when you spit freezes before it even hits the snow. Survival of the fittest can be described as a human or anything living that can withstand their environment and the strongest link that can thrive in harsh environment but the weakest link always dies off, some connections that can tackle the theme of survival of the fittest when “It made quick efforts to lick the ice off it’s legs, then dropped down in the snow and

     During his fateful journey, the Man is given warnings first-hand of the extreme cold and of the consequences of his actions. The first is when he spits on the snow: