To Build a Fire: Quotes by Theme

Survial in Extremes

The animal was worried by the great cold. It knew that this was no time for traveling. Its own feeling was closer to the truth than the man’s judgment.

The dog’s understanding of the danger contrasts with the man’s limited experience, which relies on the assumption that human knowledge can prevail. Instinct, then, is shown as a much more powerful guide to survival than experience, particularly if there is not much experience to speak of. The dog wants the man to build a fire or dig into the snow itself to find shelter, but the man thinks his superiority as a human, and as a man, will be enough to protect him.

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.

Once the man’s fire goes out, he realizes the true danger of the situation, and the magnitude of his error in choosing to take on this hike alone. Up until this point, the man thought that perhaps he might only lose a few fingers or toes; now he realizes he’s facing death. Although the man’s dog, and even the reader, have doubted the man’s chances for survival, it takes blunt circumstances to alert him to his own peril. The warnings he has ignored are now coming to fruition as his body begins to fail for lack of warmth.

Then it turned and ran along the trail toward the camp it knew, where there were the other food providers and fire providers.

At the end of the story, the dog leaves the man’s dead body in search of a replacement, someone who can perform the functions the dog associates with humans—providing food and fire. There is no bond or feeling between the man and the dog. The dog, representative of nature itself, illustrates the indifference of the universe in regards to the man’s life and death.

The Limits of Self-Reliance

Fifty degrees below zero meant 80 degrees of frost. Such facts told him it was cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to consider his weakness as a creature affected by temperature.

The narrator criticizes the man’s unwillingness to consider the possible adverse effects of the cold. Like nature itself, the narrator is indifferent; neither cares if the man lives or dies. Because the man has no way of understanding the ramifications of his decision to trek alone, his self-reliance ends up costing him his life. The universe and the narrator are unmoved by his plight.

This man did not know cold. Possibly none of his ancestors had known cold, real cold. But the dog knew and all its family knew. And it knew that it was not good to walk outside in such fearful cold. It was the time to lie in a hole in the snow and to wait for this awful cold to stop.

The dog’s knowledge of the cold is instinctual and comes from a long line of ancestors who had survived similarly harsh conditions. As a result, the dog wants to find shelter by burrowing under the snow. But the man does not have the benefit of the dog’s instincts. He thinks it is reasonable to travel in these conditions, while the dog understands intuitively that it is not.

His mind went from this to the thought of the old man of Sulphur Creek. He could see him quite clearly, warm and comfortable, and smoking a pipe.
‘You were right, old fellow. You were right,’ he murmured to the old man of Sulphur Creek.

The man speaks aloud to the old man as if he were there, at last admitting that he was right. The man has reached the absolute limit of self-reliance, traveling in temperatures of 75 below zero, alone. If the story is to serve as a warning, its message is clearly that overconfidence and individualism can be dangerous and even fatal in the face of that which cannot be controlled—for instance, nature.

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