To Build a Fire and Other Stories by Jack London

He couldn’t even feel his legs and hands. The man tries to keep his blood circulation normal by running but the cold is too harsh and he gets too tired to even stand. But still in his arrogance, he doesn’t realize the gravity of the situation he’s in. Then he attempts two more times to build a fire but his hands were too frozen and numb to even light a match. The man curses his luck, even panics but wills himself to remain calm and attempts to light a fire again but fails miserably. Only then he realizes that he should have brought along a friend. Not long after this though a mound of ice from the leaves of the tree falls right on the fire. Taking pride in himself that he had survived this much. While doing so, he laughs at the old-timer Sulphur Creek, thinking he was too womanish and meek.

He puts the foot-gear for drying and tries to warm himself up a bit by the fire. Under a tree, he starts putting dry leaves, tiny twigs, branches and lights a fire. He realizes that he won’t be able to walk much due to the numbness from the soaking wet cloth so he decides to light a fire.

He smartly avoids all the ice traps and thin ice layers, but during the journey a layer of ice breaks under his feet and one of his legs gets soaked in the ice-cold water till his knee. Advertisementsīut when his spit turns into ice in mid-air, he feels it actually is cold but remains calm and confident nevertheless. Though an older man, or as the author has described, an old-timer of the Sulphur Creek had warned him that the area was too dangerous and not to venture in those areas alone, he ignores his advice thinking he can survive and the conditions may not be as harsh as the old man had said. In the 1908 version, there’s an unnamed protagonist who decides one day to venture around and hike through the sub-zero Tundra areas of Yukon territory to meet up with his friends and is accompanied by a dog.

Both of them are based on the same plot but have different twists towards the end. The first one was published in 1902 and the other version was published in 1908. “To build a fire”, the short story authored by Jack London has two versions.

To Build a Fire and Other Stories by Jack London