Answer to Question 1
- In To Build a Fire what happensthe plotis almost completely determined by the setting. It is seventy-five degrees below zero, a degree of cold that the man failed to anticipate. Because of the ice, snow, and traps, the man is unable to build a fire and save himself. London lavishes upon the setting the amount of detail usually reserved for a storys characters. The arctic weather functions as if it were a character, a malignant adversary doing battle with the man. Detail is piled upon detail as the struggle is gradually lost.
But what happens is also determined by character, as this mans biggest trouble is that he was without imagination (par. 2).
Answer to Question 2
- Most of the story describes the setting in some way, but the opening paragraphs especially contain descriptive, vivid prose, as the author knew that most of his readers would not have experienced the climate, place, or experience he re-creates here. The absence of sun, the subtle gloom, and the cloudless sky are particularly memorable, as is Londons description of the trail that goes 500 miles to the Chilcoot Pass and then more than a thousand miles longer to the Bering Sea.
We hear Jack London at his best in passages such as this: On top of this ice were as many feet of snow. It was all pure white, rolling in gentle undulations where the ice jams of the freeze-up had formed. North and south, as far as the eye could see, it was unbroken white, save for a dark hairline that curved and twisted away into the north, where it disappeared behind another spruce-covered island (par. 2).
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