To Build a Fire
Encyclopedia
"To Build a Fire" is a short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...

. The famous version of this story was published in 1908. London published an earlier and radically different version in 1902 in which the protagonist survives his ordeal, and a comparison of the two provides a dramatic illustration of the growth of his literary ability. This story is considered a prime example of the naturalist movement
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...

 and of a Man vs. Nature conflict.

Summary

A man is traveling on the Yukon Trail on a very cold day (−75°F, −60°C), accompanied only by a husky
Husky
Husky is a general name for a type of dog originally used to pull sleds in northern regions, differentiated from other sled dog types by their fast hard pulling style...

 wolf-dog. The cold does not deter the man, a newcomer to the Yukon, who plans to meet his friends (who are referred to as boys) by six o'clock at an old junction. He walks along a creek trail, mindful of the dangerous, hidden springs, because getting wet feet on such a cold day is dangerous. The man continues on and, in an apparently safe spot, falls through the snow and gets wet up to his shins. He remembers an old-timer who had warned him that no man should travel in the Klondike
Klondike, Yukon
The Klondike is a region of the Yukon in northwest Canada, east of the Alaska border. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon from the east at Dawson....

 alone when the temperature is colder than minus fifty.

With the wet legs, the man becomes scared and builds a fire to dry his wet clothes. He starts the fire underneath a pine tree, which is covered with snow, and keeps pulling twigs from its lower branches to feed the flames. The agitation eventually upsets the loaded boughs, which dump their weight of snow onto the fire, extinguishing it. He tries to start a new fire, aware that he is already going to lose a few toes from frostbite
Frostbite
Frostbite is the medical condition where localized damage is caused to skin and other tissues due to extreme cold. Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas...

. He gathers twigs and grasses, then tries to light a match with his frozen, numbed fingers. He grabs all his matches and lights them all at once, then sets fire to a piece of bark and his hands. He starts the fire, but accidentally pokes it apart while trying to remove a piece of green moss. The man decides to kill the dog and to put his hands inside its warm body to restore his circulation. But due to the extreme cold, he cannot kill the dog because he is unable to pull out his knife, or even throttle the animal. He lets it go.

In a desperate attempt to keep himself warm, he starts to run, trying to let the exertion heat his body. However, he has no stamina, and soon he stops and sits down. He imagines his friends finding his dead body in the snow, then himself telling the old-timer that he was right: It was foolish to travel alone. A warmth covers him and he falls into a deep, deadly, relaxing sleep. The dog does not understand why the man is sitting in the snow and not making a fire to warm them. As night falls, the dog comes closer to him and smells death on the man. It trots away "in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers".

Characters

There are only two main characters in "To Build a Fire," a man (who is never named) and his dog, although some count Nature as a third character. In the story, Nature is portrayed as the antagonist—the foe against which the man is pitted for survival. However, Nature does not act deliberately—it simply is, and it is the man's own folly which causes his death.

Other characters in the story are "the old-timer", a man who tries to warn the main character of the dangers that lie ahead if he decides to continue with his travels, and "the boys", the men who the man is supposed to meet up with in the end.

Films

A 1969 film was made by David Cobham
David Cobham
David Cobham is a UK Film and TV producer and director, notable for the film Tarka the Otter. He also directed children's TV series Bernard's Watch, Brendon Chase, Out of Sight and Woof...

, with Ian Hogg
Ian Hogg (actor)
Ian Hogg is a British actor.- Early life :He is the son of a doctor and was educated at Durham School, Durham University and the Central School of Speech and Drama...

 as the man, with the story read by Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

. A French version was made in 2003 starring Olivier Pagès, and an American one with a modified story in 2008.

External links

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