Jack Willette Thursday, April 18, 2013 Eng 9 H Hartwig To Build a Fire Literary Analysis The man was

shocked. It was as if he had just heard his own sentence of death (London 9). Jack Londons To Build a Fire focuses on the eternal struggle between man and nature. Facing the cold, the protagonist promptly becomes overwhelmed looking for timber prospects and falls through the ice floating on a pond. The protagonist tries to build a fire, but he fails, leading to his demise. First, the man is too arrogant and ignorant to take the advice of a seasoned Yukon veteran, and travels alone. In addition, the man is too distraught by the cold to realize that he built his fire under a snow-covered tree instead of in the open, endangering himself, and his fire. Through an assortment of incidences, the doomed protagonist causes his own his death in the Yukon wilderness. When the man stops at Sulphur Creek, a seasoned trail veteran gives him a tip of advice, telling him not to travel alone. In To Build a Fire, this is the mans first winter, he is contemptuous and does not follow the oldtimers advice. He does not realize his mistake until too late, after he falls in the icy cold water. He has trouble starting a fire when London writes, Perhaps the old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right. If only he had a trail mate he would have been in no danger now. The trail mate could have built the fire (London 9). Unable to get the fire started, the man eventually dies, due to severe hypothermia. When the man falls into the water, he must build a fire quickly or risk frostbite, and eventual death. In his rush to build a fire, he chooses to build it under a tree, due to the abundance of resources. This soon proves hindering to the mans goals, when London writes, He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree [] it [snow] descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out! (London 9). He tries valiantly to rebuild the fire out in the open, but he burns all of his matches at once, burning his hands and

making it even harder to relight the fire. Unable to relight the fire, the man decides to run until he is exhausted, dying soon after. Due to various unfavorable circumstances, and poor choices, the man causes his own untimely death, which could have been prevented. Jack Londons To Build a Fire is a prime example of the struggle between man and nature, proving that nature is always triumphant.