Narration In Jack London's To Build A Fire

Narration is key for a reader to understand what is going on in a story, and Jack London 's “To Build a Fire” is a masterful way in which the themes and perception of nature can be completely different depending on the type of narration used to tell a story. “To Build a Fire” is told from the third person omniscient narrative perspective, which leads the reader to easily conceptualize the hazards that the young man in the story goes through in an arduous attempt to survive in impossible conditions. And yet, by keeping the story the same and changing only the narrative focus, a wholly new, dangerous and foreboding story is told. Using a different type of narration in Jack London 's “To Build a Fire” can emphasize different themes using the

However, the theme of the foolishness of man can be changed to the worthlessness of man by redirecting the primary narrative perspective from the man’s thoughts to his actions. Had the narrator been in third person omnipresent, allowing the reader to see the actions instead of the thoughts of the man, the reader would have realized the worthlessness of the man 's self-imposed task. The omniscient narrative subtly implied this in the reference to the conversation with the older man of Sulphur Creek:

“He was somewhat frightened. He stamped forcefully until the feeling returned to his feet. It certainly was cold, was his thought. That man from Sulphur Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in this country. And he had laughed at him at the time!” (70).

Had instead the short story been told in an omnipresent narrative, the man 's last words, “You were right, old fellow. You were right” (79), would have been in vein as the details of all the man 's actions without the interruption of his pointless thought process would have led the reader to knowing that he would die far sooner in the

If instead the dog was the focus of the narrative perspective in the story, the morals would have been different. The dog followed and obeyed the orders of the human, despite the person being ill-equipped to deal with the situation at hand. There were several instances where the man had been borderline abusive to the dog itself, leading one takeaway having been be either careful who you follow or not to trust someone simply because you have both been placed in the same horrible situation. Another moral from the dog 's point of view could have been to trust in your instinct as if the man and dog had simply followed the dog 's natural instincts, they both could have lived. “Instinct covers many areas which include survival, guarding, hunting, maternal, pack, and last but not least self-preservation. This last instinct is related to fear, aggression and anxiety” (Rawlinson). London taps into this facet of dog 's primal nature as seen with the line “But the animal sensed the danger. Its fear made it question eagerly every movement of the man as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire” (66). If they had sought shelter as the pup so eagerly wanted to, the story would have ended on a happier note for both. A focus on the dog would have also had the effect of changing the story from a serious