Analysis Of To Build A Fire By Jack London

Many times in life we see nature’s impact on human lives, whether it be taking the lives of humans or devastating them by destroying many things. In this short story, it starts with a man and his dog stuck in the middle of a freezing, snowy climate where he must try to survive and make it back to camp for safety. Throughout his perilous adventure he comes across many outside forces that put him, his knowledge, strength and will to the test to see if he can handle it under extreme pressures. But throughout the story many times nature had interfered with that and put his life at risk, but that did not hold nature back and put this man through misery. Throughout the story “To Build A Fire”, Jack London conveys that character choice, narration …show more content…
As he to make it through the conditions, nature’s forces are not on his side. We see this as he tries to build a fire at the end of the story and succeeds, but he was under a tree that would drop snow onto his fire every time he would try to light one. The fallen snow would put it out immediately and force him to try and start another, but once again, it puts it out adding to his struggle. Not only does he have to deal with his fire being put out, but he also has to deal with the freezing temperatures with no protection, the feet of snow to walk through and falling into ice water. The mood of the story does not have an attached feeling to it, this allows the audience to get a sense of unimportance of the story and not have a real connection to the story. By the author doing this, it shows he did not care enough to add any real emotion to the story. This conveys the reality that he was just another victim of nature’s unruly forces and its lack of care. With the mood of “To Build A Fire” being very detached and the multiple ways nature has not let up proves the thematic statement because nature does not let up just for him, the temperature only keeps dropping and the snow keeps putting the fire out not letting …show more content…
The main character of the story does not have a name, by not giving the main character a name it shows his unimportance versus nature in the story and how he is just like everyone else taking on nature’s extreme forces. By not giving him a name this shows that there has been many people just like him and that this can be anyone in this position, but nature will not let up no matter who it is even if it is you. This just shows he is no different than anyone else thinking that they can get through it, but all their fates have been the same, trying and not succeeding. The dog in the story that follows the man around is a representation of what the man needs to be in order to survive, the dog knows how far to stay away from the fire to not only keep warm, but to prevent sweat from forming to later make him colder, he also knows that they should build a burrow and rest in it to build up warmth and get out of the elements of nature. At the end of the story the after the man’s passing the dog heads into the direction of the camp for warmth and safety showing that the man had a lack of preparation and his unimportance with the story ending on the dog heading back in the direction of