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.