Jack London To Build A Fire Language Analysis

In “To Build A Fire” the author Jack London is basically, pardon the unprofessional language, telling us to check ourselves before we wreak ourselves. It uses humanity's arrogance and carelessness, as well as nature’s indifference and power as well as consequences to our actions. Over and over we see instances where mistakes come back to haunt the man in his hour of need, even as he makes more. Jack London as a prospector no doubt saw many deaths like these. Men who thought the rules didn’t apply to them and that those who had survived the long Yukon winters were just being “womanish” or over careful, who went out and were found dead, or never found at all. It is the height of human arrogance to think that you can survive a Yukon Winter all

It is obvious to anyone who has ever met a dog in their life that this man does not treat his dog properly. If your dog finches from you, then you are doing something very wrong and “it whined softly, then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man.” is most definitely a flinch. The dog lags behind him when they start walking again and the man crashes through the thin ice. If he had treated his dog properly it would have been walking alongside or slightly in front of him, in the perfect position for him to be warned of the hidden springs by the dog's instincts and reactions to the terrain well before they became the deadly threat they did. It is obvious the man viewed it as only a dumb animal and not the intelligent and loyal creature it truly is. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that if a dog doesn't want to continue on a set path, there is usually a reason that should be investigated, in this case, the most obvious danger was the hidden springs so he could have saved himself trouble, time and exposure to the cold by adjusting his course when the dog refused to go on, instead of pushing the dog out in front of him, causing it to sink its front legs into icy water. There is a reason the dog fears the