Polar vortex takes us back to the coldest story in American literature

The unnamed protagonist in Jack London's 'To Build a Fire' gets into trouble while hiking in the frozen Yukon with his dog. Widely considered to be London’s best short story, 'To Build a Fire' captures the cold with painful accuracy.

'To Build a Fire' by Jack London is memorable for its descriptions of cold weather.

Now that frigid temperatures have settled across much of the United States this week, the time seems right to revisit the coldest story in American literature.

We’re talking, of course, about Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” a Yukon tale that frequently shows up in literary anthologies and assigned texts for grade school.

We won’t disclose all of the plot turns here; if you haven’t read “To Build a Fire,” or have forgotten it, we don’t want to spoil the ending for you.

But suffice it to say that London’s celebrated short story includes a lone, unnamed protagonist who gets into some desperate trouble while hiking through the freezing, barren stretches of the North American wilderness with his dog. His only hope to survive the arctic temperature is building a fire. So begins a frantic race to get a blaze going – a task complicated by wind, damp, and fingers numb with cold. 

London first published a version of the story in Youth’s Companion, a magazine for young boys, in 1902. The Youth’s Companion text of the story was fairly tame and moralistic, offering a little life lesson to his young readers. But six years later, London wrote a darker, more naturalistic version of the story that would also resonate with adults.

“To Build a Fire” is widely considered to be London’s best short story. The most enthralling aspect of the narrative is the way that London captures the cold. Here’s how London describes the weather – and the main character’s unwillingness to recognize just how dangerous it is: 

"Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man’s place in the universe...."

Readers can get the full text of “To Build a Fire” for free at this Library of America link. Dress warmly before you start reading it. Even in the middle of August, London’s story can chill you to the bone.

Danny Heitman, a columnist for The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana, is the author of “A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Polar vortex takes us back to the coldest story in American literature
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/0107/Polar-vortex-takes-us-back-to-the-coldest-story-in-American-literature
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe