Survival In Jack London's To Build A Fire

For the man in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” fire is the key for survival. Fire primarily provides warmth for the man and dog, as well as reassurance that there is hope of survival in the subzero Yukon winter. Survival of the fittest is a prominent theme in London’s works, as well as human judgment versus nature. The man in this story is intent on making it back to camp without a human partner, and the dog is set on following the man for the fire he creates. The dog in London’s “To Build a Fire” serves to contrast man in terms of approach to terrain, physiology, and appreciation of tools for survival. For much of the journey back to camp, the man is confident and even arrogant, but the dog is anxious and tentative from the start. The man estimates that it is about fifty degrees below zero, but does not focus on the physical …show more content…
While he struggles to rub feeling back into his hands, the man sees the dog wrap its tail around its forepaws, and he “[feels] a great surge of envy [toward] the creature that was warm and secure in its natural covering” (ibid. 555). The man even considers killing the dog and lying inside of its warm carcass (ibid. 556), but the dog notices the change in the man’s aura and the man is too weak to execute the action. While the man is a newcomer to the Yukon, the dog is described as “a big native husky” (ibid. 549), one who knows the terrain and is accustomed to the harsh Alaskan winters. It is aware that the temperature is well below zero, much more than the man believes. The dog knows that “it [is] no time for travelling. Its instinct [tells] it a truer tale than [is] told to the man by the man’s judgment” (ibid. 549). Still, the dog follows around its “fire provider” until his frosty death, after which the dog trots towards the direction of the camp, which it has known all along, in a moment of dark