Discussion Topic
Literary Devices in "To Build a Fire"
Summary:
Jack London's "To Build a Fire" employs literary devices like metaphors, similes, and mood to enhance its themes of human vulnerability and nature's indifference. Metaphors compare the fire to life, emphasizing survival, while similes highlight fragility, such as the ice "like glass". The story's mood, created through descriptions like "intangible pall," reflects foreboding. Characterization contrasts the man's hubris with the dog's instinctual wisdom. Ultimately, the title signifies survival's critical importance, as the man's failure to build a fire leads to his demise.
What are the metaphors and similes in "To Build a Fire"?
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 spruce-covered island to the south.
By referring to the line of trees as a hairline, he uses a metaphor to compare them to this feature of a human head. A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things where one is simply said to be the other.
The narrator describes the tobacco spit that freezes to the main character's facial hair as being "like glass" because, if it fell from his face, it would shatter into brittle fragments. Here, the narrator uses a simile, a comparison of two unlike things where one is said to be like the other using the words like or as . This simile seems to emphasize the man's relative weakness:...
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how fragile he is compared to the natural world around him, which seems vast and so powerful.
The narrator uses another metaphor to describe the man's thinking about the springs under the snow, the springs that never freeze. "They were traps," he thinks, because they hide pools of water under the snow, and if one steps into such a pool, wet feet would necessitate stopping to build a fire to dry them out before one's feet freeze. Another metaphor describes the dog's instincts when it falls into one of these pools. The dog tries to bite the ice from its toes, following the "mysterious prompting that arose from the deep crypts of its being." A crypt is usually an underground vault where the bodies of the dead are placed.
There are many similes and metaphors of this nature throughout the story.
While Jack London's "To Build a Fire" is not filled with similes and metaphors (more personifications exist), one can find a few instances.
Metaphors:
It meant life, and it must not cease.
Here, the metaphor exists in the reference to "it." "It" is being referred to as the fire, although one could see that the man is also comparing the fire to life. Although one is directly dependent upon the other, the man does not want either to "not cease": neither life nor the fire.
The fire provider had failed.
Here, the metaphor exists in the comparison of the fire provider to a few possible things. First, it could be the man. He provides material to build up the fire, Second, it could be the twigs he places into the fire. They are needed to catch fire to keep it burning. Lastly, although this is a bit of a stretch, it could be Nature itself. Given that London was a Naturalistic writer, he could be referencing Nature (personified) as the fire provider.
Similes:
It was like hearing his own judgment of death.
Here, the snow has just fallen on the man's fire, extinguishing it. The "it was like" aspect compares the sound of the snow extinguishing the fire to the sound of death coming for him.
SIMILES
- "The ice held his lips so tightly together that he could not empty the juice from his mouth. The result was a long piece of yellow ice hanging from his lips. If he fell down it would break, like glass, into many pieces."--This is a description of the ice that is forming on the man's face from the tobacco juice. The simile here emphasizes the fragility of the ice; it would shatter just like glass shatters.
- "The man was shocked. It was like hearing his own judgment of death. For a moment he sat and stared at the spot where the fire had been."--This simile is foreshadowing the man's death as the fire goes out. It's one of the first times that the man understands the danger of his journey.
The lack of many similes and metaphors is a reflection of the "lack of imagination" that Jack London uses to describe the man's outlook on life. Had he been able to imagine the extreme conditions in which he set out on his journey, he would not have died in the end. While the dog is an animal and therefore also lacks an imagination, it knows to follow animal instincts, like when it falls through some ice and gets its paws wet. The dog shakes off the ice and then chews the rest off because its instincts tell it to. The man, because he is human, ignores his animal instincts, which is another fatal flaw to his character.
SIMILES
- "Once, coming around a bend, he shied abruptly, like a startled horse..." -- London compares the man's abrupt stop to that of a "startled horse."
- "...the thick German socks were like sheaths of iron half-way to the knees..." -- The socks are being compared to iron.
- "...the moccasin strings were like rods of steel all twisted and knotted as by some conflagration." -- The strings of the moccasin are being likened to steel.
- "...and he wondered if Mercury felt as he felt when skimming over the earth." -- The man is comparing his own lightness of being as that of Mercury soaring above the earth.
- "...running around like a chicken with its head cut off—such was the simile that occurred to him."
METAPHORS
- "The blood was alive, like the dog, and like the dog it wanted to hide away and cover itself up from the fearful cold." -- There are a pair of metaphors here: The blood is being compared to the living dog; the blood is also being shown its desire to hide itself from the cold as would the dog.
What literary devices are used in "To Build a Fire"?
“To Build a Fire” makes use of mood, the emotional reaction the writer attempts to elicit in the reader, through the use of description and imagery. For example, the narrator says of the Yukon, “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 sun.” While a “pall” might simply be something that conceals, or refer to a kind of dimness, it can also be a cloth that covers a coffin at a funeral service. Such a choice of words, along with “gloom” helps to create a somewhat foreboding or threatening mood, as though danger lies ahead for the main character.
Likewise, London makes use of indirectcharacterization, showing us who the main character is through his actions and thoughts rather than telling us who he is or what he is like. The “subtle gloom” of the landscape “did not worry the man” who “flung a look back along the way he had come.” The man proceeds to ignore the advice of the “old-timer” who told him never to travel alone when it’s this cold out. The protagonist, then, is revealed to be rather careless and proud, despite the fact that he’s a relative newcomer, and this, too, does not bode well for his success in this harsh landscape.
How does the author use elements of fiction to enhance the theme in "To Build a Fire"?
"To Build a Fire" by Jack London provides a conflict which places the main character, a nameless man, against the harshness of nature in Alaska in the midst of winter. the setting is the late 180s during the Gold Rush.
The conflict is man versus nature. This story is the portrayal of nature as unconcerned with man's fate. This is a story of a brutal struggle to survive in an unnatural world for man.
The weather is so cold that when the man spits the juices of his spit freeze and form a beard on the man's face. The man had been warned about going out in this type of weather. He lacked the ability to imagine the impact of such cold: fifty to seventy-five degrees below zero.
The old timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish.
His companion is a large husky dog, whose coat and temperament have made him able to withstand this kind of weather. As the man walks along, two bad things happen: he breaks through the ice and gets his feet wet; and then his fire is put out by snow falling from a limb. Both of these events will doom the man to freezing to death.
The man attempts to pull the dog into him and kill him and put his hands inside the dog's warm body. With no real relationship with the animal, the dog senses something is wrong and will not come closer to the man.
Eventually, the man can no longer feel his feet and his arms and hands. Trying one more thing, the man begins to run thinking that this might warm up his body. Because of the cold and his exhaustion, the man was incapable of continuing to run. He sits down, becomes drowsy, and goes into a permanent sleep. The dog watches him, waits a little while, sniffs the man, and the heads on to the camp to food and warmth.
Characterization
The dog's knowledge and natural ability to survive is in direct contrast to the foolishness of the man. London depicts the wolf-like dog that carries with him instincts of his past heritage as a juxtaposition to the man who blunders along with no past to rely on.
Another important element in the characterization is that neither the man nor beast has been given a name. The dog views the man as the "food-provider." Through the course of the story, it is obvious that the man is the much weaker character.
Theme
One of the themes of the story is that man is at the mercy of nature. Through nature's power, the man has no free will. Nature provides a set of circumstances, and the man has no choice but to try to out do nature which is an impossibility. Nature always wins. The man always seems to know what to do in the accidents, but some natural phenomenon that he neglects to think about turns against him.
Stubborn pride impacts the outcome of the story. The man had been told by old timers that no one should go out in this kind of weather. Despite being a newcomer to the Yukon, his pride in his ability will not allow him to listen to the sage advice. Thus, he must take the responsibility for his actions. The death of the man was no one's fault but his own.
What are some analogies for the title in "To Build a Fire"?
"To Build a Fire" takes its title from the main character's goal during the second half of the story. The anonymous man, a fortune-seeker and woodsman, is hiking across the frozen Yukon wilderness when he falls through the ice covering a creek. He needs to build a fire as soon as possible to avoid dying or getting frostbite. Ultimately, the man fails to build a fire that will warm him, and dies.
The title "To Build a Fire" is a shortened statement of the man's intent; he needs to build a fire to stay alive. What seems like a fairly simple task is in fact immensely difficult, and carries far more significance than it would outside the story's environment (most people, including London's readers, will never have their lives hinge on building a fire before they freeze to death).
Therefore, building a fire is equivalent to saving one's life, so analogous statements could include "To Save My Own Life" or "To Avoid Freezing To Death."