To Build A Fire: Significance Of Words “Dying” And “Death” Essay, Research Paper

To Build A Fire: Significance of Words “Dying” and “Death”

The significance of the words “dying and death” in Jack London’s 1910 novel, “To

Build a Fire” continuously expresses the man’s dwindling warmth and bad luck in

his journey along the Yukon trail to meet “the boys” at camp. London

associates dying with the man’s diminishing ability to stay warm in the frigid

Alaskan climate. The main characters predicament slowly worsens one level at a

time finally resulting in death.

The narrator informs the reader “the man” lacks personal experience travelling

in the Yukon terrain. The old-timer warned the man about the harsh realities of

the Klondike. The confident main character thinks of the old-timer at Sulphur

Creek as “womanish.” Along the trail, “the man” falls into a hidden spring and

attempts to build a fire to dry his socks and warm himself. With his wet feet

quickly growing numb, he realizes he has only one chance to successfully build a

fire or face the harsh realities of the Yukon at one-hundred nine degrees below

freezing. Falling snow from a tree blots out the fire and the character

realizes “he had just heard his own sentence of death.” Jack London introduces

death to the reader in this scene. The man realizes “a second fire must be

built without fail.” The man’s mind begins to run wild with thoughts of

insecurity and death when the second fire fails. He recollects the story of a

man who kills a steer to stay warm and envisions himself killing his dog and

crawling into the carcass to warm up so he can build a fire to save himself.

London writes, “a certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him.”

As the man slowly freezes, he realizes he is in serious trouble and can no

longer make excuses for himself. Acknowledging he “would never get to the camp

and would soon be stiff and dead,” he tries to clear this morbid thought from

his mind by running down the trail in a last ditch effort to pump blood through

his extremities.

The climax of the story describes “the man” picturing “his body completely

frozen on the trail.” He falls into the snow thinking, “he is bound to freeze

anyway and freezing was not as bad as people thought. There were a lot worse

ways to die.” The man drowsed off into “the most comfortable and satisfying

sleep he had ever known.” The dog looked on creeping closer, filling his

nostrils with the “scent of death.”

London’s portrayal of the man does not initially give the reader the theme of

dying, but slowly develops the theme as the story develops. The story doesn’t

mention death until the last several pages. The main character changes from an

enthusiastic pioneer to a sad and desperate man. The conclusion of the story

portrays the man accepting his fate and understands the old-timer at Sulphur

Creek had been right; “no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty

below.” Typically, short stories written in the early 1900’s often conclude the

story with a death or tragedy. London’s story is no exception. This story

follows the pattern by illustrating events leading up to and including death.

Thesis Statement- The significance of the words “dying and death” in Jack

London’s 1910 novel, “To Build a Fire” continuously expresses the man’s

dwindling warmth and bad luck in his journey along the Yukon trail to meet “the

boys” at camp.