To Build a Fire Literary Analysis

           In To Build a Fire by Jack London, he portrays a strong example of his literary movement naturalism; you will be able to see many relations to the description of naturalism I last posted and Jack London’s interesting piece.  To Build a Fire is one of Jack London’s more popular works which is a great story regarding human’s fight for survival, the brute within, and human compared to animal. London’s main character in this piece finds himself in a situation of life or death after struggling with his brute within and seeking out on a adventure he should not have, we will see how his humanly instincts come through in his fight for survival.

                In the beginning we learn of this man who is on a trip through Alaska with his dog. It is a very cold night but there are descriptions about how the cold does not faze the man. Different thoughts cross into his mind of him making sense such as realizing his cheeks will freeze but he ignores his thoughts and presses on. He remembers back before he left an old man telling him that no man should attempt this travel alone, that many things could happen and if one is alone there was no hope for survival.  The man remembers this often but then his thoughts are somewhat of Ill show him. The man is more interested in proving that this trip is possible by himself rather than paying attention to his thoughts of truth. This shows the struggle his is having with the brute within. In the story London writes many thoughts from the man’s dog. Many times through the story it seems that the dog’s thoughts are more rational than the man’s. The man finds himself in a few sticky situations, of which the first couple he made his way out of safely. This boosted the man confidence that this trip was possible alone. But it was the last situation where he found himself fighting for survival. He becomes very cold and stops to build another fire, he gets the fire going but just then he realized he was over a tree as the warmth of the fire caused the snow and ice of the tree to melt and fall down to his fire putting it out. He becomes scared and quickly starts getting other branches and twigs to build another fire, but he is never successful.  His next survival instinct is to kill his dog and use him for warmth, but when he finally gets hold of the dog he is too cold and in pain to hold onto him or kill him. He begins to panic and again remembers what the old man said about traveling alone. He falls asleep to die and the dog takes off to find food and fire which is his animal instinct for survival.

                To Build a Fire is one of London’s many works where you can learn more of him as a writer and about naturalism. In this piece you see that there are many characteristics of naturalism such as the brute within, fight for survival and human compared to animal. It is important to be able to read a piece of work and see the different aspects of the writer and his movement and To Build a Fire is a perfect story showing both.