The Literary Beauty of Jack London’s: “To Build A Fire” 

by Lily Robbins

Jack London’s work, “To Build A Fire,” is one packed full of irony, imagery, and foreshadowing, each device leading the story towards being the perfect amount of suspenseful, dark, and mysterious. The way London writes to pull the reader in is obvious throughout the story and leads to the masterful piece it is. 

“To Build A Fire”’s style portrays the graspable atmosphere London builds during this piece. London's choice of realistic fiction illustrates a fathomable story for the reader while adding elements of eerie warnings. “To Build A Fire” uses a third-person perspective, which is not only carefully applied to this story but also represents the omniscient narrator whose observation of the characters and their actions leads the reader to further understand London’s central point. Additionally, London provides the two main characters with extremely basic names (The man and The dog), and the narrator strips them down to their original state. It broadens the applicable themes from the specifically named character to entire parts of humanity. “The man” can apply to anyone or our society as a whole, which London strategically uses to help the reader consider a deeper meaning. Still, the narrator goes further by diving into The dog's inner thoughts as well: “The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for traveling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told to the man by the man’s judgment.” Seeing The dog's inner thoughts, you can see the difference between how The man and The dog analyze their situation. While The man is often disregarding the cold, or longing for warmth, The dog is seen acknowledging either the cold or understanding the danger of the situation they’re in. The way London uses perspective and realistic fiction illustrates the circumstances the characters are in and allows the reader to picture exactly what they're going through. 

In “To Build A Fire”, foreshadowing is used frequently throughout the story to emphasize key themes and build tension for the reader. There are many times in the story where London alludes to events that happen later in the reading or gives the characters fears that something bad will happen. These foreshadowing techniques allow the reader to pick out possible scenarios and start to wonder what will happen next. The suspense that these build keeps the reader engaged and on the edge of their seat. “A certain fear of death came upon him. He realized that it was no longer a mere problem of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and feet. Now it was a problem of life and death with the circumstances against him.” Here London introduces the idea of death to the reader. For the first time, death is seen as a plausible problem to The man, and he begins to fear for his life. Up until now, The man’s hubris has prevented him from seeing the truth about his situation. Even though the reader might have been able to question whether or not The man’s situation is life or death, the realization that is upon The man foreshadows a much darker ending to the story. By using foreshadowing, London is able to build suspense throughout his story and create an atmosphere for the reader. One that is able to pull the reader in and keep them engaged. 

London's use of carefully calculated irony is seen throughout the story and comes in both situational irony and dramatic irony. Situational irony is most commonly thought of as a twist ending. The one thing the characters thought was impossible is the thing that ultimately happens. It's clear in “To Build A Fire”, that the situational irony present is the eventual demise of The man. From the very beginning, The man believes he is completely safe. His hubris prevents him from realizing the danger of his situation, and his arrogance stops him from being careful with

his actions, “But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open. But it had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire. Now the tree under which he had done this carried a weight of snow on its boughs”. As The man is overconfident in his abilities, and rash with his decisions, he builds a fire under a tree, whose branches are covered in snow. As the snow falls and puts out his fire, there is no hope for The man to receive any warmth. This string of actions is what eventually leads The man to freeze to death, the exact thing he assumes cannot happen. This use of irony is London’s way of conveying a message about man. By showing how easy it was for The man to fall victim to his own hubris, London reminds us of our own hubris, which we often forget exists. 

Dramatic irony is also used in London’s writing to create suspense for the reader. Dramatic irony is when the readers know something the characters do not, for example in many Shakespearean plays, the villains would out themselves and their intentions to the audience when the protagonist's back was turned. The audience would know the evil motive, but be unable to aid the characters. This can give both a sense of fear and a sense of sympathy for the characters, as the audience must sit back and watch them fall into the villain’s trap. In London’s writing, the temperature is used as the villain of the story. In the beginning, The man mentions the temperature and how it is only 50 degrees below zero. While very cold, still manageable for The man. However, the narrator provides us with the knowledge that the temperature is actually much colder, “In reality, it was not merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero”. With this bit of information, the reader now knows more about the character's condition than the character themselves. The

anticipation created by the use of dramatic irony can pull the reader into the story and have them resonate with the characters' emotions. 

"To Build A Fire," a work by Jack London, is rife with sarcasm, imagery, and foreshadowing, all of which contribute to the story's ideal balance of tension, darkness, and mystery. The narrative is clearly written by London to captivate the reader, which makes for a brilliant piece.