Jack London “To Build a Fire”
Reading Questions
Read the story on page 495 and then answer these questions on your own paper. Please leave this worksheet in the classroom for my next class.
1. What was the author’s purpose of referring to the protagonist as “the man” -- as opposed to giving him a name?
The man is representative of all mankind
2. Describe the protagonist (main character) in two or three sentences. What does he look like? (Use your inference skills to deduce what he would look like.)
Big and heavy with a bushy beard and mustache. Reddened skin and yellow teeth (from cold and tobacco)
3. Describe the setting in detail. Where does this story take place?
Yukon. 70 below zero and snowy; blizzard conditions; bleak and bare setting without much civilization
4. How would you describe the dog?
Driven by instinct, but due to beatings and what it has learned, it stays near the man;
smarter than the man; husky probably
5. London writes, “He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances” (498). What does this mean?
He is shallow and does not see the big picture. He knows what is around him (alert), but
doesn’t understand consequences of his actions.
6. What’s the relationship between the dog and the protagonist?
Working relationship; no love lost
7. What’s the tone of the story? Find textual support to help you support the tone word you selected. (Provide two quotes from the story that SHOW the tone.)
Matter of fact; unemotional
8. How does the dog know to leave and head to the camp?
Instinct; he is part of the natural world
9. How does this story end? Does the ending surprise you?
Man dies in the cold
10. What’s the point of view of this story? Why do you think the author picked this point of view? How would it have been different if the story would have been told in first person?
3rd person omni. Sense of understanding both man and nature; sense of detached
Observer; if in first person, reader might sympathize with the man; London didn’t
Want sympathy for man
11. What’s the central idea of this story?
Man is not part of the natural world, nor does he really understand it
12. What’s the theme of this story? Provide one quote that shows the theme.
Man cannot control nature; man vs nature and nature wins