Jack London's 'To Build a Fire': A Naturalistic Critique

“To Build a Fire” Literary Analysis “To Build a Fire” was written by Jack London, a writer made famous by his indifferent naturalism. The story features an unnamed man who is traveling through the Alaskan wilderness along with his dog. The story turns dark when the man attempts to build a fire to dry his clothing, and then fails. Due to the man’s failures, he ultimately freezes to death. This is typical of a Jack London story, who believed in the futility of man and the complete power and control that nature has over man. London spent a lot of his life in nature, including traveling the Yukon trail in Alaska as well as traveling across the Pacific on a small boat. “To Build a Fire” is one of London’s most famous short stories, as well as a

The story frequently compares the thoughts of the man and the dog, stating that even though the dog does not have the capacity for a coherent string of thought, it knows more than the man. The narrator explains why in this quote: “This man did not know cold... but the dog knew and all of its family knew. And it knew that it was not good to walk outside in such fearful cold”. London believed that the dog was closer to nature and its instincts than the man. Including this dynamic and showing how each of them dealt with the wilderness and the cold was extremely effective in conveying the message of how nature is inherently better and more powerful than man. Especially considering that at the end of the story, the dog survives and reaches the camp, whereas the man freezes due to the man’s own ignorance. To further this, the narrator states that the dog made no effort to show his uncertainties to the man. The dog, in this story, is a symbol of nature and how it endures. Even in this partnership between the dog and the man, the dog is uninterested in helping the man survive and thrive. The dog does not care about the man at

Nature does not get warmer for the man. Nature does not allow his hands or feet to warm. Nature does not allow the man to muster the strength to kill the dog. Nor does nature give the man enough endurance for him to be able to make it back to the camp. “To Build a Fire” shows just how unrelenting and unsympathetic nature truly is. This theme can be shown in many of London’s other works, such as “The Law of Life.” In this story, a Native American, who is arguably closer to nature than the man from “To Build a Fire”, is still at the mercy of nature. Though the man from “Law of Life” knows he is to die and it is what he was meant for, the man still finds himself scared and anxious about death. And, as he saw a moose be eaten by wolves as a child, he too is eaten by wolves. Conversely, Walt Whitman proposes that nature is there to enrich a man’s life and is there to serve man. Whitman explores this in his poem, “Give Me the Splendid, Silent Sun.”Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev’d, recluse by myself, for my own ears only;/ Give me solitude—give me Nature—give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!” Whitman proposes that nature is a safe space for the man to enjoy life and be free. This is wildly different than London’s idea of nature where nature is Law and is