To Build a Fire

Another conflict is man vs. animal. This is because the man did not trust or let the dog find their way to the camp, when it is clear the dog could have led the man. The man insisted on control...

In Jack London's short story, "To Build a Fire", the man is a newcomer to the wildness of Alaska, and against all advice, he starts out for his camp alone except for his dog. The man and the dog...

In To Build a Fire, one theme is survival in the wilderness. The man who is traveling alone, except for his dog, is a newcomer to the region. He has no idea how cold it really is in the Klondike...

We do not know much about about the protagonist in "To Build a Fire." In fact, we do not even know his name and origin. We are only aware that he is a man that is unaccustomed to the nature of the...

London's use of imagery helps emphasize the harshness of the environment and the man's solitude in a vast landscape. For instance, the initial description of the trail emphasizes the blank...

The moral lesson in Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire" is that people should not think they are more powerful than nature. In addition, people should listen to others who have more...

One good example of textual foreshadowing comes early on: He plunged in among the big spruce trees. The trail was faint. A foot of snow had fallen since the last sled had passed over, and he was...

"To Build a Fire" by Jack London is narrated in the third person and follows the story of a newcomer to the Yukon who decides to travel alone with a dog to visit another settlement. Although we do...

During the Alaskan Gold Rush thousands of mostly nameless men sought their fortune in a harsh environment and lost. This character is but one of many who died alone and probably undiscovered. By...

The old timer’s advice is to never travel alone during a cold snap. Specifically, London writes that the man “remembered the advice of the old man on Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The man had been...

The newcomer foolishly ignores the old timer's advice by traveling throughout the Yukon territory alone when it is below fifty degrees in order to meet his friends at the next human settlement by...

These two stories actually have relatively little in common. But there is one valid connecting point: the man of Jack London's story and the man from the West in O. Henry's are both adventurers who...

Nature is totally indifferent to man in Jack London's story "To Build a Fire." Nature is a simple fact. It doesn't care in the least whether the protagonist makes it to the camp or whether he...

The dog's leaving represents the harshness of nature and the animal's deep instinct to survive. When it first encounters the man, the narrator claims, "It was not concerned with the well-being of...

On a cold and gray day in the Yukon gold country, a man sets out on foot for a camp with his dog. This is his first winter here, and he is said to be a person who understands "things" but not their...

The narrator describes the appearance of the snow and the distant trees of the Yukon, saying that it was an unbroken white, save for a dark hairline that curved and twisted from around the...

One of the most notable aspects of literary naturalism is the way it presents human beings as an intrinsic part of nature. All too often, we like to think of ourselves as standing over against...

The famous short story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London tells of a man, accompanied by a dog, struggling for survival in forbidding primeval wilderness. Its setting is "spruce timberland" in the...

The man in “To Build a Fire” is a young and inexperienced traveler who dies at the end of the story due to his hubris. He thinks, mistakenly, that he knows better than others what it takes to...

Naturalism is often defined as a type of realism that emphasizes the harsher and more brutal aspects of daily life. In Jack London's Yukon stories, and in his fiction in general, we see a raw,...

Situational and dramatic irony are both present in "To Build a Fire." Dramatic irony occurs when a reader has more information or knowledge about a character or situation than a particular...

The theme of Man vs. Nature is the central conflict of Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire," which focuses on an inexperienced traveler's struggle to survive the treacherous Yukon...

It was really wonderful to read your question. No need even to review the story to mention the biggest mistakes that stand out in my mind. In my opinion, the absolute biggest mistake the man...

The dog is guided by instinct, while the man must rely on human judgement, which is unreliable. When faced with extreme cold, the dog experiences "a vague but menacing apprehension that...

A fiction writer typically gives characters names in order to enable the reader to tell them apart. Since there is no other human character in "To Build a Fire," Jack London had no need to give his...

I feel that a theme (main idea) of London's "To Build a Fire" is a theme that he frequently uses in his writings. That theme is the theme of nature's indifference to humans. Granted, the man...

The man does not belong in this setting. He can only maintain his existence by the artificial means of building fires. The dog, on the other hand, does belong in this setting because it is not far...

"To Build A Fire" by Jack London employs the natural world of the Yukon in winter. This is the conflict that the main character faces as he begins his journey to another mining camp. The...

The main theme of this story is a perennial one in the works of Jack London: man versus nature. The hapless protagonist of "To Build a Fire" foolishly thinks that he can conquer nature, that he is...

"To Build a Fire" is naturalistic in that it looks at the story's protagonist in much the same way as a scientist would observe microbes in a petri dish. We observe the unnamed man from a distance...

The mood of "To Build a Fire" changes slowly, as the man discovers how unprepared for the cold he really is. At first, the story is told with simple phrases, little excitement, and shows the man's...

Think of it this way. Did the dog need his imagination in order to survive the frigid cold? The dog relied solely on his instincts and knowledge of nature to make it out alive. The man, however,...

The ignorance of the man in "To Build a Fire" is our ignorance: the ignorance of the human race with respect to nature. London's use of dramatic irony gives us an omniscient perspective on things,...

In "To Build a Fire," Jack London deliberately separates the consciousness of the man from that of the narrator. This serves to highlight the chronic lack of awareness demonstrated throughout the...

In "To Build A Fire," the main external conflict can be expressed as "man against nature" -- it is simply too cold (75 degrees below zero!) to travel alone. The internal conflict is the man's...

The climax of Jack London's short story To Build a Fire occurs when the story's protagonist, simply referred to as "the man," warming himself after falling through the ice in the extreme, frigid...

The first occasion occurred when the man tried to eat his sandwich. Unfortunately, his mouth was frozen shut and he regretted that he had not already made a fire. He then discovered that his...

London's description indicates that the man's mental functions are limited--not in the sense that he's lacking intelligence, but that his mind is focused narrowly upon superficial and mechanical...

The main theme in "To Build a Fire" is Man versus Nature, but in the sense of Literary Naturalism. The protagonist is not killed by nature, but simply is unequipped to survive in it; he does not...

In Jack London's celebrated short story "To Build a Fire," the ignorant newcomer attempts to travel ten miles across the Yukon wilderness in temperatures dropping to seventy-five degrees below...

The protagonist of Jack London's short story builds three fires on his journey through the Yukon territory. The naive young man builds his first fire after he attempts to eat his lunch but cannot...

Physically, the dog and the man are both dying from the cold. It is so cold that they are caked with ice. The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a fine powder of frost, and...

The story begins with the unnamed man travelling on foot through the wilderness. He realizes it is actually far colder than 50 below but doesn't worry about it. His only companion is a dog, the...

The unnamed protagonist of "To Build a Fire" is travelling alone, with only his dog as a companion, in order to meet back up with the other members of his party. We don't know exactly why he had...

In "To Build a Fire" since this is the man's first trip to the Yukon and he is not acquainted with the extreme cold, and since he lacks "the imagination," He was quick and alert in the things of...

The climax, or point of highest emotional intensity, in "To Build a Fire" occurs after the man's first fire is extinguished and he is unable to start a second. In Jack London's story that...

Jack London's “To Build a Fire” is the story of an unnamed man, traveling with his dog in the Yukon in extraordinarily cold conditions. He follows a “dim and little-traveled trail,” planning to...

In Jack London's "To Build a Fire," the cold, desolate setting of the story creates a mood of hopelessness and desperation that persist throughout the story. The story takes place in the Yukon...

Jack London's adventure story "To Build a Fire," set in the Yukon at the turn of the 20th century, is a perfect example of a "man vs. nature" conflict. The unnamed protagonist is hiking in the...

I love this question because a reader can answer it in through a big picture lens or a small, narrower view. Let's start with the ultimate effect. The man dies. I could make the argument that this...