Jack London

It’s clear within the first couple paragraphs of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” that nature was an inspiration for the short story. Natural ideas and the outdoors were commonly mentioned in pieces of the transcendentalist period. Both Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson described nature and its beauty in their works. It takes a lot of knowledge and research to properly use nature in one’s writing. Jack London does a wonderful job at describing the scenes in the story, and the imagery used makes the reader feel the cold temperature that the protagonist feels throughout the story. It is obvious that he did his research on the below freezing temperatures because he shared many sophisticated facts through the unnamed protagonist.  After falling into the shallow water, the main character has to work at building a fire. London shares his knowledge by giving the reader a simple anatomy lesson. He states, “If his feet are dry, and he fails (to build a fire), he can run along the trail for half a mile and restore his circulation. But the circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored by running when it is seventy-five below” (London 609).

The lesson of “To Build a Fire” could easily be summed up in one word: Determination. The protagonist often refers back to “the old-timer on Sulphur Creek” and the wise advice the man once gave to him. He remembers, “The old-timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was.” (London 609). The man faced serious danger with his wet limbs in the freezing weather, but he continued to take the path to the camp. He struggled to build a fire, but he worked at it as much as he could because it was the only way he would stay warm and, ultimately, survive. He thought about the negative of what could be and described his emotions as “a fear he had never known in his life” (London 613). Although he knew the reality of what was to come, the man was determined to get what he wanted, a trait that was often featured in the transcendentalism period.

London, Jack. “To Build a Fire". Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 603-614. Print.