Themes of A Story: - To Build A Fire: Instinctual Knowledge vs. Scientific Knowledge

Themes of a story: - to build a fire
Instinctual Knowledge vs. Scientific Knowledge: -
Jack London’s short story is an

example of Naturalism, a literary movement that focuses on the realism of human
experiences, and often engages with the broad theme of “man versus nature.”
London’s unique take on this larger literary idea is through the topic of knowledge.
Two types of knowledge are discussed throughout the short story: instinctual
knowledge and scientific knowledge. The first is associated with the dog and the
second with the man. These two figures represent a larger distinction between
nature and humans. The dog cannot understand or reason, but his instincts direct
his survival throughout the story. The man, on the other hand, relies on information
gained from others, on logic, and on tools and technologies (matches and a knife).
This scientific or rational knowledge clouds the man’s instinctual knowledge, and
gives him confidence in his ability to protect himself from the natural elements
with the resource of fire. Because of this confidence, he ignores the dog’s
instinctual knowledge that the weather is too cold to safely travel. In this way, the
man is presented as separate from nature, and distant from his biological instinct
for survival, because he understands the world scientifically rather than
instinctually. Ultimately, the conclusion of the story shows a triumph of instinctual
knowledge and trust in one’s nature over confidence in logic and reason, as do
other Naturalist texts.
Chance and Human Error: -
The man’s initial mistake of traveling alone in weather
that is far too cold for independent hiking does not ensure his fate of freezing to
death. The gradual deterioration of the man’s conditions involves both chance and
human error. The man is careful and prepared for the streams of water under the
snow that will soak him and threaten his survival. Yet, he stumbles into an
unexpected stream that was essentially invisible before he fell into it. This shows
that even a prepared and observant person may fall prey to chance. When the man
builds a fire, it is extinguished by snow falling from a pine tree, an devastating
accident that is both human error and chance: the man could have been more
cautious, but the snow might not have accumulated in that area, and might not have
fallen in such a way as to put out the fire entirely. The interaction of chance and
human error creates the chain of events leading to the man’s death. This theme
demonstrates that London’s Naturalism does not prescribe “fault” to either nature
or humans, only acknowledging the error in underestimating the power of chance
to provide unaccounted for circumstances.
Fight for Survival vs. Acceptance of Death: -
As the man’s situation deteriorates,
his emotional state oscillates between determination and acceptance. In certain
moments, he seems to foresee his approaching death and in other moments he
seems to have faith in his survival. These shifting reactions represent universal
human themes of optimism and denial. When the snow falls on his fire, the man’s
initial shock reflects his certainty of his death, but his calm reaction and productive
response seem optimistic. As a living being, he instinctively wants to continue to
live, and so he refuses to give up, and fights for his survival. As he repeatedly
drops the matches, he attempts to innovate. When the matches fail, his thoughts
quickly turn to the price he’d pay for survival: killing the dog to warm his hands.
This thinking reflects a man in a desperate situation, forced to think quickly and
willing to kill for his own survival. After he is unable to kill the dog, a “certain fear
of death” comes over him. This fear causes him to panic and run, an act of
desperation. His repeated running and falling shows the back-and-forth between
his fight and his acceptance. His final fall triggers his acceptance of death and he
sits in the snow, waiting. His final imaginative visions resemble accounts of near-
death experiences by survivors of such situations. The shifts between the man’s
perspective on his life and death, his need to struggle and his stages of acceptance,
reflect the larger aspects of Realism in London’s work. The story traces the
internal response of any human to a life-and-death situation, engaging with
universal ideas of how humans react with fear and acceptance.
The Power of Imagination” -
Early in the story, the man is identified as not
being a “thinker” and as “unimaginative.” He is aware of the world around him and
of the terrible cold, but he does not imagine the possible outcomes of this cold.
Because the man eventually dies due to his initial mistake of traveling on such a
cold day, his failure to imagine possible outcomes of his choice is linked to his
inability to survive. Imagination could have saved his life. This theme connects to
the theme of Chance and Human Error, as several of the man’s errors seem linked
to his inability to imagine the outcome, as when he builds a fire under a snowy
tree, or strikes all the matches at once, with dreadful consequences. Had he been
more imaginative, more open to the possibilities of what could result from his
actions and from the terrible cold, he might have avoided these mistakes.
At the end of the story, in the moments of the man’s death, his imagination
suddenly flourishes. He imagines the boys finding his body in the snow, and he
contemplates the certainty of his own death. These imaginative acts are linked to
his acceptance of his death. Before, when the man was focused on survival, he
considered only the resources at his disposal and what they could achieve. Once he
accepts his death, he begins to imagine and to imaginatively apply the wisdom of
the old man at Sulphur Creek (that no one should hike alone in weather below 50
degrees) to his own situation.
Indifferent Nature: -
Throughout the story, the natural world is presented as unemotional
and unaware of the fate of the man. This literary depiction of nature reflects
Naturalism’s understanding of a harsh, yet realistic natural world. Contrary to other
literary movements, Naturalism views nature without sentiment and without
projecting human characteristics of love, care, and agency onto the natural world.
This understanding of nature is clearly embodied in the character of the dog that is
indifferent to the man and his fate. To the dog, the man is a source of food and
protection only, and not a companion. The dog cannot feel any emotion about the
death of the man, and the dog quickly seeks out other humans who will provide the
food and shelter it needs. One human is indistinguishable from another in the dog’s
mind. Many people who emphasize a unique connection between a specific human
and a specific animal view dogs and other pets sentimentally. Therefore, the
relationship, or lack thereof, between the man and the dog in this story effectively
communicates London’s theme of the indifference of nature. Naturalism rejects the
literary movement Transcendentalism, an influential philosophy in American
thought, which emphasized unique connections between nature and humanity and
focused on the souls of humans as open to the influence of nature as a spiritual
force.

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Themes of a story: - to build a fire

Instinctual Knowledge vs. Scientific Knowledge: -

Jack London’s short story is an

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