"To build a fire" is a short story written by Jack London.
It is a story about a man who is traveling alone in the frozen Yukon.
The protagonist knows that it is not safe to be traveling when it is
so cold, but stubbornly keeps moving. He falls through a crack in the
ice, wetting his feet. In order to stay alive, he must build a fire
again, warm his feet and move on. He starts to build another fire but
it's really hard because his fingers are numb. The dog is watching him
as he tries to light the twigs but his hands are too numb to use his
matches. He finally lights one but the twigs get scattered when he
tries to get them lit and he realizes his fire has failed. Despite
several attempts, the protagonist fails and dies. Of the fourteen
pages within "To Build a Fire," eight of those are devoted to the
events of the man trying to make a fire; the other six mainly focus on
the setting. The man's determination to build the fire is evident-a
simple annoyance at the beginning leads to a frantic death at the end.
The plot is as simple as one man's attempt to survive against nature.
The story is very well written. The writer wrote it so detailed that
reading it I felt inside the story since the beginning. He describes
the nature, its coldness, the indifferent environment, the
protagonist's thoughts and behavior very natural and detailed.
Surely it is worth to be read as it an edifying story. The author
wants his readers to understand something.
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