To Build A Fire by Jack London-Setting Analysis

Hi guys! How’s life? I hope you guys had a great day today J okay then, now I’m gonna talk about one of reports I made for Introduction to Prose, and this is my analysis of To Build A Fire, a short story written by Jack London. 

This story is about a man who goes on traveling in Yukon, a place in the Canada Territory.  This place is extremely cold, snowy and icy all the time and he’s only accompanied by a Husky native dog while he’s travelling. The purpose of his journey is to get to the boys’ camp. I do not really understand for what he wants to get to the boys’ camp and meet them there, but I believe it only a purpose that represents human’s purpose in the world when they live. But unfortunately, because he doesn’t have any well preparation, he dies at last in the cold place such Yukon. As we know, Yukon is included as the coldest place in the world, and less than eight people live there. The temperature is more than sixty three below degree. The man actually has been warned by other people that there’s no man can travel alone in such place after fifty below degree, but he doesn’t listen to the advice he gets. Along his journey, he gets a lot of bad thing experiences such as falling into the ice, getting numb, and having failed to build a fire. At last, as I said before, he dies because of his unwell prepared and his foolishness in traveling alone in such place. 

Why I said that he dies only because of his foolishness is that the man actually knows about the dangerous condition in Yukon, but he only knows, he never understands what it means. Here, in this story the man actually represents man in common, we, as human. Here, if we analyze the story, the man in this story is without name, so it represents us as human. We think that we have power to face the nature, the world, even in the wildest place and in the most dangerous place like Yukon in this story. However, we, as human are only a little thing if we’re compared to nature itself. He tries to travel alone in the cold place like Yukon, only with a dog; though some people have warned him not to travel alone after fifty below degree in such cold place. Then he feels that, only with his fool he can fight against nature. He also doesn’t think about the dog that actually has better instinct that he does. This dog is used to remind us, as human being, that sometimes animals have e better instinct than we have. Sometimes they know more about danger, like in this story told. Furthermore, as I said before that the purpose of the man in this story is to get to the boys’ camp. The boys’ camp represents the purpose of life of human being. We, as a human, of course have a dream to achieve, right? And Yukon here represents where we can get our achievement or dream.

In my report actually I’m asked by my lecturer to focus on the setting of the story, how it plays the role in this story and how it influences the story. Here my analysis of To Build A Fire by Jack London :)

 Nature Proves Its Power

In my opinion, this story represents how the foolishness and egoism of a man face against the nature. In this story, nature here is represented by a place named Yukon in which the condition is extremely dangerous and the weather is very tremendously cold. We can see that the man never gets any knowledge about Yukon which is considered as the coldest place in the world with its (at least) 70 degrees below zero. He only guesses the temperature in Yukon for example, and he doesn’t have any preparation. And talking about the foolishness and the egoism he has here is that he never listens to what other people say about that place. He also never tries to imagine what condition he might face when he travels alone, only with a Husky dog that is although in a very cold place, it can adapt with it.

If I focus in the setting here, it’s clearly seen that the setting influences a lot to the main character, the man. Imagine if the man was not in such condition, not in a such cold Yukon, maybe he will not get so mad and do such crazy things or loss his hope when he’s travelling. At first, he’s really sure that he can get to the boys’ camp safely without any companion but the dog. He is at first also sure that the temperature is only 50 degrees below zero, but in fact the dog knows that it’s more than that. It is 75 degrees below zero. This very cold place plays a role to the man’s belief. Then as the time goes by, the man starts to be unsure of his belief and he starts to loss his defenses. He thinks about what the old-timer says, that is true about the weather and the advice that that there’s no any man can go travelling alone in such place after 50 degrees below zero. He’s also freighted because of the numbness of his hands. Moreover, he thinks about killing his dog to make him warm. This place, with its dangerous condition, forces him to think madly and do something crazy when he feels that he’s forced by the nature. I think it won’t be the same if the setting of place isn’t in Yukon, in Egypt for example. Next, he starts to think of death. The boys’ will find his body, whereas he also thinks about getting to the boys’ camp safely with any ways. We can see that the man feels afraid of the place after he falls to the broken ice. He starts to feel cold and numb. He tries to build a fire several times, but the last one is unsuccessful attempt. It feels like as if the place, nature, is trying to prove its power. It‘s trying to frighten him by all the accident he gets. He’s like someone who doesn’t have any destination after this cold place punishes him by making his body getting colder and his hands getting numb. His hands can’t clutch anything.

Maybe the man will survive if he’s not alone in Yukon, maybe he can survive if he’s well-prepared. Maybe he can get any help from people if he isn’t in Yukon since Yukon only has eight people living there (based on information from a source). But all are only ‘maybe’, the setting can’t be changed. Yukon proves its power to him, proves that what the old-timer says is true. At last he admits it he is lose. He dies because of his foolishness and egoism battling with the power of nature. Finally he says, “You were right, old hoss, you were right” as the sign of regretting his act.

  

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Well guys, I know it isn't perfect yet since I know there are still maybe a lot of mistakes on my analysis. I hope somebody puts any comments, critics, or whatsoever on my post here. Thanks! :)