The Main Theme Presented Within Jack London's Text To Build a Fire

“It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun.” (Fire, 597) There was a time before humans experienced consciousness on this earth, and there will, without a doubt, be a time after. Even after humanity has long passed, the world will not cease its spinning. Some individuals like to look around and think that nature responds to the existence of humanity, however, upon further investigation you constantly see small structures being enveloped by foliage. Nature just does what nature has always done, despite the surroundings. Though humanity sometimes possesses the power to demolish pieces of nature, it will never be able to completely destroy the earth without destroying themselves. Within Jack London’s text there is a very significantly displayed relationship between human beings and nature, a relationship that ends with the death of a fairly ignorant man. London’s story allows us to see that despite the fact that a man perished at the hands of nature, the world did not pause for even a moment to commemorate this death. Jack London’s text To Build a Fire displays a theme that very strictly illustrates the fact that humanity is by far the least significant being to exist on this Earth.

The fact that the man within this text could not see even the most obvious signs of danger further proves that humanity has little significance in comparison to nature. The man within this text is repeatedly warned, in more than one medium, that it is far too dangerous to go outside in the current conditions. It is obvious that the man does in fact trust the instincts of the dog that he is traveling with, however, he does not bothe...

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...f what was originally intended. Jack London’s To Build a Fire is just one text of hundreds that accurately depicts the relationship between humanity and nature. It is easy enough to state that humans can harm nature, and that is true. Human beings do have the capability to do things like light fires and set off bombs, however, there is no possible way that nature could be completely annihilated and leave human being still alive. That’s the ironic thing about this relationship. Human beings rely heavily on multiple aspects of nature for survival, yet they spend a variety of time causing damage to said nature, while on the other hand, nature functions exactly the same whether or not humanity is involved in it. Humanity is insignificant in terms of nature. When the humans are gone, with time, all evidence of them will disappear and it will be as if they never existed.