Short Story Analysis: “The Night Before Christmas” by Nicolai Gogol, Post 1

This is the first of three posts on the short story “The Night Before Christmas” by Nicolai Gogol.  While this seems to be listed as a short story, the length and multiple plot lines would suggest to me to be a novella.

 

Concerning the translation, I am using The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, which includes this story and is translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.  By chance I happened to own this book.  You don’t need the book.  You can find this story in a number of places online such as Gutenberg.  Here is an online version with annotations which might be helpful.  https://litarchive.online/the-night-before-christmas#google_vignette  I think all the online versions use the Constance Garnett translation. Garnett translated all the major 19^th century Russian literature in the first half of the 20^th century.  Her translations I suspect are outside the copy write laws.  Pevear and Volokhonsky are contemporary translators, and seem to be on a mission to translate all the Russian writers anew.  They have won awards, so I do trust them.  But Constance Garnett has a great reputation as a Russian translator as well.  As I’ve compared, I don’t think there is that much of a difference. 

There is one noticeable difference.  The names are spelled differently.  I think Garnett altered the spelling for a more phonetic appeal to English speaking readers.  I don’t think it matters.  If I am going to quote for this discussion I will probably pull from the online source so I can copy and paste.  One other translation thing to be aware, some places online translate the title as “Christmas Eve” rather than “The Night Before Christmas.”  I don’t think that matters.

Let me provide some preliminaries to aid the reader.  This is a 19^th century story and a story from a Russian author.  Both of these details can provide some difficulties.  A 19^th century story provides more exposition and/or overture than a contemporary story.  A 20^th century short story writer will tend to start the story in medias res, or “in the middle of things.”  He will tend not to start with exposition and context, but will somehow get it in once the story is started.  You have to give a 19^th century story a little more time to develop. 

A 19^th century story will tend to be more verbose, detailed, or exhaustive than a 20^th century story.  Contemporary stories use elements of poetry and distill their stories with symbols, allusions, loaded imagery, and other literary devices.  It comes down to realism versus emotional engagement.  The more abundant details of a 19^th century story, the more realistic it feels.  The more symbolism of a 20^th century story though with less details, the greater the emotional connection. 

Finally the Russianness of this story does give the non-Russian reader some difficulties.  Russians do (or maybe they only once did and no longer) have a particular way of passing names down.  This could be a difficulty in some long Russian novels, but I don’t think it’s an issue in this story.  There are some cultural distinctions that you will have to do a search on.  In this story you will come across the caroling (koliadovat) the townspeople do on Christmas Eve.  It’s not just simple caroling as we do here but where the carolers are given treats for their effort.  It seems like it combines elements of our Halloween into caroling.  Another is some traditional Christmas Eve dish, kutya, which appears to be a required dish.  There are also different types of Cossacks mentioned, and they are each associated with a specific region.  Other than geography, I don’t know their relationship.  There are historical persons who are real people fictionalized.  Three that I remember are Queen Catherine the Great, Prince Potemkin, and Denis Fonvizin.  Just do a search and they come up pretty easily. 

Finally Nicolai Gogol is a Ukrainian, not a Russian, and so there are distinctions I seem to feel but not converse in the subject enough to understand.  As we have learned these four years of the Ukraine-Russian War, they are not exactly the same culture.  There are some language distinctions and I would bet rsburg.  There may be significance in this, but it’s outside my ken.  Given the evolving n4186many cultural as well.  We know this story occurs in Ukraine, but there is a trip over to St. Petersburg of Ukraine’s borders with Russia, that may also have some significance that alludes me.  Catherine the Great was a Russian queen, but I have no idea what her relationship with Ukraine was at this time in history.  The story is set in a town called Dikanka, but nearby there is a town called Sorochintsy where some sort of assessor or bureaucrat resides.  I found both towns are small when I looked them up but I have no context for a relationship between them.  But even though I had to struggle to understand some of this, I don’t think it causes the non-Russian reader to get the wonder and delight of this story.

As to Gogol’s place in Russian literature, he is one of the greats that stand with go along with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostevsky, Turgenev, and Chekhov.  Pushkin was Gogol’s predecessor and a friend, and ten years older than Gogol.  Gogol was a good ten to twenty years younger than the other contemporaneous Russian greats except for Chekhov who was born some eight years after Gogol had died.  Gogol’s writing career was over twenty-two years (1830-1852) and included short stories, one novel, drama, and essays.  He is known as a great developer of the form of the short story, which perhaps he is best known for, but his one novel, Dead Souls, is also highly respected and acclaimed.  Gogol split his career writing in early life in Ukraine and then moving to St. Petersburg.

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This story, “The Night Before Christmas” or sometimes translated as “Christmas Eve,”  is such a superb story.  Frankly I think this is elite level of story writing.  The 19^th century Russians are just so good.  I jotted down some notes and I hope it will help readers that might get lost.  First a list of characters.  This is probably not comprehensive but I think it includes all the major characters.  I am using the spelling in my Pevear/Volokhonky translation.  It may be different in your translation.

My early comments here are first impressions.  By the third post I will have arrived at a more complete understanding of the story.  So take my early comments with a grain of salt.  I don’t think there is anything erroneous in them but they do speak from a lack of complete understanding.  It took several reads

List of Characters

The Witch, Solokha, Vakula’s mother

The Devil

Cossack Choub

The Deacon, Osip Nikiforovich

The Headman (Sexton)

Cossack Sverbyguz

Father Kondrat

Choub’s daughter, Oksana

Vakula, the blacksmith

Panas, Choub’s chum

Tymish Korostyavy

Paunchy Patsiuk, the Zaporozhet, wizard

Shapuvalenko, the weaver

Panas’s wife

The Weaver’s Wife

The Deacon’s Wife
Pereperchikha (Pereperchenko’s wife)

The Zaporozhtsy Cossacks

Prince Potemkin, Grigory Alexandrovich

Empress Catherine the Great

Most short stories have only one plot line.  This one has at least four plot lines that I could count.  The plot lines weave in and out of each other.  It may be helpful to list them, so you can understand what is going on and how they are interconnected. 

Plot Lines

Vakula wins Oksana’s hand in marriage.  (Main plot)

Devil stealing the moon and causing chaos

Choab’s Christmas Eve celebration and adventures

Solokha’s dalliances.

I’m trying to arrive at a main theme.  Perhaps it could be: love wins despite the devil’s confusion?  But it’s more complicated than that.  Why is everyone except maybe Vakula the blacksmith so sinful?  Whatever the central theme might be there are some recurring motifs that I noticed.  Here’s my list.

Motifs:

Pranks

Chaos/confusion

Not being able to see correctly

Things and people hidden

Infidelity/Promiscuity

Merry making/Laughter

Sin

Use of the “unclean powers”

Sophistication vs. simplicity

 

This story is very complex.  I haven’t figured it all out yet, and I am so enchanted with it I am going to read it for a third time.  I will soon post on some truly remarkable scenes.

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Frances’s Comment:

Last year a friend recommended a Russian novel to me, The Master and Margarita. It is a highly creative, imaginative — at times even wild — story told in three parts. The heroine, Margarita, is a beautiful young woman who rides in the air through Moscow — on a broom. At first I thought of the Wizard of Oz, but when I looked it up, I learned that the image of a female character riding a broom is a common trope in Russian literature. Of course, I recognized it again in this story.

My Reply to Frances:

Thanks for that Frances. This story is highly dependent on its Russian/Ukrainian folklore. Unfortunately we can’t totally comprehend the nuances.

###

Kerstin’s Summary of the Early Section:

THE DAY OF CHRISTMAS EVE ENDED, AND the night began, cold and clear. The stars and the crescent moon shone brightly upon the Christian world, helping all the good folks welcome the birth of our Savior. The cold grew sharper, yet the night was so quiet that one could hear the snow squeak under a traveler’s boots from half a mile away. Caroling hadn’t yet begun; village youths weren’t yet crowded outside the windows waiting for treats; the moon alone peeked through, as though inviting the girls to finish up their toilette and run out onto the clean, sparkling snow.

 

So begins our adventure into goings-on of the little village Dikanka on the night before the Savior is born.

 

Out of the chimney comes a witch flying on her broom.

Sorochinsky, the property assessor, usually does not miss anything going on in the village, but this time he is far away.

 

The witch flies about on her broom and collects stars into her sleeve.

 

The exceedingly ugly devil appears on the scene and after a couple of tries stuffs the moon into his pocket. Now all of Dikanka is cast in full darkness. His purpose is revenge on the blacksmith Vakula, who is also a talented artist.

 

The pinnacle of his art was agreed to be a large panel inside the church porch which depicted St. Peter expelling the devil from hell on the day of the Last Judgment. Faced with imminent death, the terrified devil darts here and there, while the forgiven sinners bash him with whips and sticks. The devil tried everything to stop Vakula from finishing the hateful portrait, shoving his hand, blowing soot on the panel—but despite his heartiest efforts the painting was completed and nailed to the church wall, and since then the devil swore to take revenge on its creator. For only one more night could he roam freely and look for a way to pay Vakula back—hence the moon theft.

 

As an added bonus, the darkness would also prevent Cossack Chub, and other prominent citizens from attending the deacon’s holiday dinner.

The devil having set in motion this mischief starts flirting with the witch.

 

Chub and Panas, Oksana’s godfather (kum) step onto the porch of Chub’s cottage and realize it is pitch black. Chub curses the devil. He doesn’t want to miss the deacon’s dinner he is already wistfully anticipating of a bottle of spiced vodka.

 

Meanwhile, Chub’s daughter Oksana is standing in front of a mirror completely engrossed in her own reflection. Vakula enters the cottage unbeknownst to her and is equally taken by her. He wants to marry her, but she only toys with him, and he knows it.

 

So what is the devil up to? It is very cold flying through the air, so the witch descends back down and into her chimney. The devil follows her, but before he enters the chimney he creates a blizzard so Chub and kum get disoriented and turn back home in the hopes of catching Vakula and Oksana alone.

 

Who is the witch? Her name is Solokha and Valuka’s mother. As it turns out, she provides extra-marital entertainment for many of the village’s esteemed male citizens. Her favorite is the well-to-do widower Chub whom she aspires to claim for herself and his riches. The only wrinkle in the scheme is her son Vakula and his infatuation with Oksana, so she resorts to all sorts of witchery to foil them.

Sunday Meditation: Taste and See

On the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A, Jesus continues His Sermon on the Mount where He endows His followers with two very powerful symbols: salt and light.  Three years ago I embedded videos from Dr. Brant Pitre to provide the Old Testament significance of salt and light.  Of the various points of connection, the one that strikes me most significant is how salt was used in the Temple sacrifices as a link to the Covenant.  That is well worth going back to.

One lesson I picked up in reading about this passage that I don’t think any of the homilies below point out is that Jesus says “You are the salt” and You are the light.”  He doesn’t say you will become the salt or become the light. You are so now, and if I put on a theologian hat for a second, I would venture that one became salt and light at one’s baptism.  But notice He says that you can lose that flavor or you can dim that light.  How can one lose it?  By not doing good deeds in the world.

 

Here is today’s Gospel reading.

 

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"You are the salt of the earth.

But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?

It is no longer good for anything

but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

You are the light of the world.

A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;

it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.

Just so, your light must shine before others,

that they may see your good deeds

and glorify your heavenly Father."

~Mt: 5:13-16

 

Fr. Tim Peters always has great explanatory homilies on these passages, but they tend to be very long.  This one is long but manageable, and as always thorough.

Fr. Tim:

“Salt should remind us that the new and eternal covenant in Christ is permanent, eternal and that we must continue to proclaim the same truth of the Gospel without compromise until Christ returns.  Moreover, through our words and actions others [through us] should encounter the love of Christ.”

That observation by Fr. Tim that the Menorah was always burning in the Holy of Holies is also a point of connection to Christ’s analogy.

 

I’m going back to Archbishop Edward Weisenburger for the pastoral homily.

 

The Archbishop points out words from the root salt: salad, salary, Salzburg.  There are others one could mention, cities such as Salisbury and Salerno, words such as saline, salacious, and salter. 

Archbishop Weisenburger:

“It is critical for us to note, too, that light does not exist for itself  any more than salt exists for salt.  Rather, light's purpose is to benefit others, to enable others to see. A lamp doesn't exist for itself. It exists so that others can see…This precisely is the ministry  Jesus entrusts to his disciples…And in doing so, they forever serve as a critical reminder that  any understanding of religion that views faith to be only a personal matter or a private  experience is a lie. No, our "saltiness" and our "light" originate in God but are given to us in order to draw others into community with us, because it is always within community that the fullness of the Gospel is found.”

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."

 

Well, the hymn is easy to pick this Sunday.  The archbishop has recommended one and I think it’s perfect, “Taste and See.”

 

Taste and see. Taste and see

the goodness of the Lord.

O, taste and see. Taste and see

the goodness of the Lord, of the Lord.

The Lighthouse: A Novel by Michael D. O’Brien, Post #6

This is the sixth and final post on Michael D. O’Brien’s novel, The Lighthouse: A Novel.

You can find Post #1 here. 

Post #2 here. 

Post #3 here. 

Post #4 here.

Post #5 here. 

 

 

 

My chapter by chapter thoughts and discussions can be found in my previous five posts.  This post consists solely of my review of the book at Goodreads.

 

Goodreads Review

 

I gave this only two stars.  I did very much want to enjoy and praise this book.  This is my first Michael D. O’Brien novel, and frankly I did not know what to expect.  I had heard of him and had wanted to read one of his novels.  After all he may be the most distinguished Catholic writer of fiction writing today.  But his more well-known works can run anywhere from 500 to 1000 pages, I never had the time to commit to such a long read.  This read was a very manageable 200 pages.

 

This review will have spoilers.

 

As you can read in the novel’s blurb, the premise of the novel is we follow the adult life of Ethan McQuarry, a young man in charge of taking care of a lighthouse off the coast of Cape Breton Island in Canada.  Ethan lives with a childhood trauma of having his father abandon him before he was born, raised poorly by a solitary mother, who once he reached an age where he can fend for himself, abandons him too.  When the solitary job of a lighthouse keeper becomes available, he takes it, seeing it as a natural fit for his loner sensibility.  Notably, the lighthouse is situated on a strip of land that is an island at high tide but connected with a walkable strip on low tide.

As a lighthouse keeper he has the time to develop the skill of carpentry and woodworking.  When a dilapidated boat washes up on his island after a storm, Ethan refurbishes the boat.  The boat will eventually become significant.  Ethan also starts sculpting wooden statues from washed up driftwood, most significantly he sculpts men, women, and children who he calls his family.

The plot of the novel can be seen as Ethan’s encounters to what may be called intruders to his island.  There is an iconic, even parablelike, quality to the story.  Two intruders are significant.  Both are doppelgangers to Ethan’s character.  One is Skillsaw Hurley (Skillsaw because he cut off three of his fingers with a power saw), also with childhood trauma, who is Ethan’s double if he had not grown to be societally functional.  Ross, Ethan’s other doppelganger, is a young man who is Ethan’s double because he too has had his father abandon him, but has grown with a good adopting father so that his trauma has not affected his personality.  Unlike Ethan he is very jovial, gregarious, and socially adjusted.

Now on the surface, this all sounds interesting, and the premise of the novel is great.  Alas the execution is terrible.  The flaws just mounted on top of each other.  First, the characters, despite their premises, are really cartoon figures.  There is no depth to them.  O’Brien gives us the exposition of their background with no dramatic or narrative backing.  Second for the central character to be credibly traumatized such trauma requires some narrative development, either through flashback (think Faulkner), through character interplay (think Dickens), or through straight narrative (think of Jane in the early chapters of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre).  We have to understand his experience, not just be told.  The whole novel rests on Ethan’s personality, and we have only cursory exposition to know how he was formed.

Third, the central theme of the modern world having degenerated because of its lack of Christianity, while a theme having weight and importance, is delineated in a superficial way.  Characters who represent the modern world are even more cartoonish than the central characters.  The freakish, rude granddaughter, with the blue spiked hair, nose ring, and startling clothes, of a conservative elderly Japanese couple is contrasted against her grandparents for us to show the generational decay.  Really?  How many people in the modern world walk around with blue spiked hair and nose rings?  A good writer should be “steel manning” the opposition argument, not “straw manning.”  The contrasts between the characters with traditional values against those who have “modern” values are not very compelling.  Frankly, and I don’t know if the author intended this or not, the motif of mothers in the novel not able to function without husbands borders misogyny.

Fourth, the characterization of showing the hole in Ethan’s heart from his abandonment as a child, is poorly executed.  Ethan’s wooden carvings of family figures is an interesting detail, but when he starts talking to them and calling the mother figure his “wife” and the boy his “child” that calls him “papa,” it just comes across as creepy.  I don’t think O’Brien intends to portray Ethan as creepy.  He is supposed to be a hero with perhaps his childhood trauma as a flaw.  If O’Brien had just left the story with Ethan psychologically compelled to create family figures, I think the reader would have gotten the psychological connection, and it would have been appropriate.  But he takes it a step too far.  The strangest is when Ethan has an imaginary conversation with a real-life woman he met several years earlier and then when “glancing across the room at his artificial wife, he felt a momentary guilt of infidelity.”  Infidelity to a wooden stature?  That’s just silly and awful.  If O’Brien was after some sort of psychological insight to Ethan’s character, this is just poorly done.

Fifth, large swaths of the novel are boring.  The Skillsaw chapter was fascinating because O’Brien interweaved fascinating details that brought out Skillsaw’s distinct personality.  But that was just one chapter.  There were four chapters, nearly forty percent of the novel, where Ross and Ethan were seen working together, first repairing and then launching the boat and then building a workroom for Ethan’s woodworking.  There is an emphasis on the manual labor, and I understand the narrative goal of showing male bonding and even the father/son type relationship between the two.  The narrative goal was proper, but again the execution was lacking.  Unlike the Skillsaw chapter, the details were tedious without opening up elements of their characters.  Perhaps this is subjective on my part but given the lack of narrative to their early formative lives I found I really didn’t care about the manual work.  I do realize that the manual work, even the craftsmanship, carries added significance in this novel, but I have to care about the characters first before I find interest in the work.

Lastly, I could not believe this is how O’Brien brought the story to a conclusion: by having Ethan drown in a happenstance storm?  There are so many unfulfilled lines of narrative.  What about Catherine MacInnis, or some other woman to be Ethan’s wife?  What about that hole in his heart for a spouse and children?  What about his carvings and artistry?  What about that work room he and Ross spent a quarter of the novel constructing?  What about his life in the just purchased lighthouse that he spent his life savings on and now has ownership?  What about his relationship to his biological son that he discovered and now loves?  What about Ethan’s nascent Catholicism?  All of these threads could have been tied together by a religious conversion and perhaps wedding.  All his internal demons brought about by that childhood trauma that governed the length of the story could have been brought to rest.

This ending had nothing to do with the story of the novel.  It is simply a Deus ex machina ending where the author by shear plot device brings the novel to a conclusion.  In addition, it is purely a Hollywood movie type ending, packed with schmaltzy heroic action and a self-sacrificing final act that makes the hero into a Christ figure.  Ethan unintentionally even leaves behind a note that Ross will one day read and learn the secret of their relationship.  This is Hollywood sentimentality.

If you want to read this novel, there are enough positive reviews to justify picking it up.  I for one did not find this worthy.  Perhaps I’m just an outlier.  Perhaps I’m just wrong.  If you read it and you disagree, let me know.  Maybe you can change my mind.

Sunday Meditation: The Blessed State

In Matthew’s Gospel, after proclaiming the Kingdom of God, which we saw last Sunday, on the fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time He goes up an mountain and delivers his most profound sermon.  We will get parts of The Sermon on the Mount for a few consecutive Sundays, but today we will get perhaps what might be the core of Jesus’s message, the Beatitudes. 

In Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes Jesus describes eight states or conditions of being which when lived lead to salvation.  It is no coincidence they describe Jesus and I surmise describe out states of being in heaven.  These are what we will become when purified.  Start living them now!

 

 

Here is today’s Gospel reading.

 

 

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,

and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.

He began to teach them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart,

for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you

and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.

Rejoice and be glad,

for your reward will be great in heaven."

~Mt: 5:1-12

 

This week I return to Fr. Geoffrey Plant who first orients us within Matthew’s Gospel then at about the eleven minute mark (if you want to skip ahead) begins explaining the Sermon on the Mount.

To me the most insightful aspect of Fr. Geoffrey’s homily is his definition of “blessedness.”

So when [makarios] is used in the New Testament it no longer describes the gods, or the wealthy, or those fortunate in worldly terms.  It denotes the person who is aligned with God; the one whose life is shaped by God’s reign.  It refers to a joy and flourishing that circumstances cannot touch.  For that reason it should not be translated as “happy” in the modern sense.  It means “deeply flourishing,” or being in a state of  “God-given well-being.

 

Here is someone new to my blog for the pastoral homily, Monsignor Roger Landry of The Pontifical Mission Societies in the U.S.  Msgr Landry speaks from his own mountain top, a rooftop in Manhattan.

Pope St. John Paul II considered this man to have lived out the Beatitudes, now St. Pier Giorgio Frassati.  I have posted on him. 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."

 

 

John Michael Talbot sings the beatitudes.

“Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see the face of God, they shall see the face of God.”

 

 

Personal Note: My Rite of Perpetual Profession

As some of you may know, I’ve been a Lay Dominican for a while, striving to reach Final Profession.  On January 24^th, I made my Final Profession.

If you don’t know what a Lay Dominican is, I wrote a lengthy blog post several years ago, starting with explaining what are religious orders, the Dominican Order, and finally concluding with the Lay Dominicans, which is also referred to as the Dominican Third Order.  You may want to read that if you don’t have a concept of the various orders and how they pertain to the laity.

The Lay Dominicans also go through similar steps as the religious of the Dominican Order: postulate, novice, first profession, final profession.  For the record, here are the dates of my steps.

Postulancy: March 2018

Novice: May 25, 2019

First Promise: March 25, 2022

Final Promise: January 24, 2026

Novice is supposed to be only a one year process, but Covid delayed that two years.  Between first and final promises, which I believe is called the “Perpetual Profession,” is supposed to take about three years, but because the fraternity in Staten Island had to merge and relocate there was some delay in keeping up with the various learning modules.

So last Saturday I became fully professed!  My religious name chosen at first profession is Br. John Catherine of Siena.

Let me share a video clip and some pictures.  The ceremony was within a Mass and took place at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Manhattan (E68th St, just in from 1^st Ave).  St. Catherine of Siena Church is our new fraternity home and is run by Dominican friars. 

 

The ceremony occurs after the homily and consists of an examination of the candidate—which is just a formal asking of his intention—an invocation of divine grace, the perpetual profession, the blessing and clothing of the large scapular, and final prayers.  In the video clip of the ceremony you will see me, Jennifer our fraternity president, and Fr. Joseph Allen O.P. who is our religious assistant at St. Catherine’s.

 

The large scapular—as opposed to the small scapular which consists of two cloths connected with strings that go over the shoulders and under a shirt which we receive at First Profession—is the lay version of a much more distinct version that religious Dominicans receive at their professions.  The lay large scapular is reserved for ceremonies and occasions such as this.  Jennifer is wearing hers.  I also have the option of having it placed on me at my funeral.

 

Pictures

Afterwards with Jennifer and Fr. Joseph.

With my wife and son.

And with some members of the Fraternity.

Thanks be to God.  To praise, to bless, to preach!  May I be worthy of the honor.

 

Short Story Analysis: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, Part 2

This is the second of two posts on my analysis of Jack London’s short story, “To Build a Fire.”

You can find Post #1 here. 

Post #1 introduced the story and analyzed the first three of six parts of the story.  This post will analyze the las three parts and conclude the analysis.

 

Part 4:

Another critical event happens, the bulk of snow on the tree above the fire, loosened by the heat, fell onto the fire snuffing it out (289).  The man with frozen, uncooperative fingers attempts and fails repeatedly to build another (292).

The collapse of the snow from the tree is beautifully described.

 

But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open. But it had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire. Now the tree under which he had done this carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind had blown for weeks, and each bough was fully freighted. Each time he had pulled a twig he had communicated a slight agitation to the tree--an imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, but an agitation sufficient to bring about the disaster. High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on the boughs beneath, capsizing them. This process continued, spreading out and involving the whole tree. It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out! Where it had burned was a mantle of fresh and disordered snow.  (289)

Notice the repetition of “it happened” with the “it happened” when his feet broke through the ice (287), the first critical event of the story.  The repetition provides a nice rhythm to the narrative.  Also I’m struck to the use of the passive voice.  Even though it both instances, the man makes a mistake of discernment, the events are framed as an act done to him.  This gives agency to the strength and power of nature against his feeble human capabilities.

The writing between the snuffing out of the fire and the failure to build another description interspersed with the man’s panic, regret and the awareness of his freezing and burning flesh is a masterpiece of narrative.  Here’s one paragraph.

 

The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner. He beat his hands, but failed in exciting any sensation. Suddenly he bared both hands, removing the mittens with his teeth. He caught the whole bunch between the heels of his hands. His arm-muscles not being frozen enabled him to press the hand-heels tightly against the matches. Then he scratched the bunch along his leg. It flared into flame, seventy sulphur matches at once! There was no wind to blow them out. He kept his head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, and held the blazing bunch to the birch-bark. As he so held it, he became aware of sensation in his hand. His flesh was burning. He could smell it. Deep down below the surface he could feel it. The sensation developed into pain that grew acute. And still he endured it, holding the flame of the matches clumsily to the bark that would not light readily because his own burning hands were in the way, absorbing most of the flame. (291)

After several attempts at building the fire, he reaches a point of resignation.

 

A large piece of green moss fell squarely on the little fire. He tried to poke it out with his fingers, but his shivering frame made him poke too far, and he disrupted the nucleus of the little fire, the burning grasses and tiny twigs separating and scattering. He tried to poke them together again, but in spite of the tenseness of the effort, his shivering got away with him, and the twigs were hopelessly scattered. Each twig gushed a puff of smoke and went out. The fire-provider had failed. (292)

 

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Part 5:

Having resigned to not having the ability to start another fire, the thought of killing the dog and using its cavity body heat to warm his hands comes to him (292).  After finally catching the dog, the man’s hands were too frozen to kill the dog as well (293).

This paragraph captures his failure and the state of his physical condition at that moment.

But it was all he could do, hold its body encircled in his arms and sit there. He realized that he could not kill the dog. There was no way to do it. With his helpless hands he could neither draw nor hold his sheath-knife nor throttle the animal. He released it, and it plunged wildly away, with tail between its legs, and still snarling. It halted forty feet away and surveyed him curiously, with ears sharply pricked forward. The man looked down at his hands in order to locate them, and found them hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him as curious that one should have to use his eyes in order to find out where his hands were. He began threshing his arms back and forth, beating the mittened hands against his sides. He did this for five minutes, violently, and his heart pumped enough blood up to the surface to put a stop to his shivering. But no sensation was aroused in the hands. He had an impression that they hung like weights on the ends of his arms, but when he tried to run the impression down, he could not find it.  (293)

Nature has overwhelmed just about all his physical capabilities.  I am particularly struck by that image of not knowing where his numbed, frozen hands are.  I wonder if that is something that really happens in such a situation or it’s something London imagined.  Obviously he couldn’t have personally experienced that.

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Part 6:

The man has reached a panic state and all he can now do is run toward the camp in hopes he can reach it before he dies (293).  Throughout his mind experiences delusions until he finally collapses and dies.  (295)

It is with the failure to start a fire and to kill the dog that the reality of his death becomes firm.  He has exhausted all options and panic ensues.

A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances against him. This threw him into a panic, and he turned and ran up the creek-bed along the old, dim trail. The dog joined in behind and kept up with him. He ran blindly, without intention, in fear such as he had never known in his life. Slowly, as he ploughed and floundered through the snow, he began to see things again--the banks of the creek, the old timber-jams, the leafless aspens, and the sky. The running made him feel better. He did not shiver. Maybe, if he ran on, his feet would thaw out; and, anyway, if he ran far enough, he would reach camp and the boys. Without doubt he would lose some fingers and toes and some of his face; but the boys would take care of him, and save the rest of him when he got there. And at the same time there was another thought in his mind that said he would never get to the camp and the boys; that it was too many miles away, that the freezing had too great a start on him, and that he would soon be stiff and dead. This thought he kept in the background and refused to consider. Sometimes it pushed itself forward and demanded to be heard, but he thrust it back and strove to think of other things. (293)

You can the contemplatio of weighing the possibilities running through his head.  A reader can only feel some real pity for him. 

Finally  the man reaches his demise in the concluding paragraph of the story.

 

Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the most comfortable and satisfying sleep he had ever known. The dog sat facing him and waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slow twilight. There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides, never in the dog's experience had it known a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the twilight drew on, its eager yearning for the fire mastered it, and with a great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it whined softly, then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the man remained silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers.  (295)

As in most great short stories, the conclusion has been projected all along, though wrapped in the air of uncertainty, but when it does come it comes abruptly.  Even the finality of his death remains in uncertain tension in that last paragraph until the dog confirms it with his sniff.  What a powerful story.

There was a short film dramatizing “To Build A Fire” which is worth watching.  It’s mostly faithful to the story, and after having read it I think watching the film will enhance your experience.  Here it is.

 

 

Which is more powerful, the story or the film?  I always go with the story but that film was well done.

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The theme of the story is the overwhelming power of nature against the small physicality of humanity.  We see man’s limitations lead to his demise.  The man was incapable of seeing how thick was the ice, and that led to his feet cracking through and getting wet.  The overwhelming power of the cold would incapacitate his hands to function.  He could not build a fire once his hands were frozen. 

We also see the man contrasted against the dog, who’s instincts are better suited to survive.  The dog is in his indigenous climate.  The man is alien to the place.  The dog survives; the man doesn’t.

We also see the man’s hubris leads to his demise.  The man’s sense of pride—he doesn’t need a companion in this climate, and he thinks those that do as “womanish”—is contrasted against the dog’s humility.  The dog realizes the danger and attaches himself to the means of survival.  The man, despite his inexperience—a chechaquo (283)—sets out on such a trek alone and did not take the Old-Timer’s advice.  When he builds the first fire, he has a moment of exalted pride.  The nature snuffs the fire out almost in retaliation to such pride.

Pride leading to a downfall is a classic trope of tragedy.  In tragedy the audience—the reader in this case—has pity for the suffering protagonist and fear that what happens to him could happen to the reader.  Aristotle says in his Poetics that the aim of the writer of tragedy is to instill pity and fear for the purposes of catharsis.  I certainly have pity for the man, and I certainly feel fear for the situation, but I’m not sure I have reached catharsis.  Catharsis is supposed to release emotions in the audience, leaving the audience with a sense of relief or enlightenment.  I suppose I am enlightened, but I am not sure I am relieved.  The man ultimately died and we wish it otherwise.