"To Build a Fire" is a short story by American author Jack London. There are two versions of this story, one published in 1902 and the other in 1908.There's just one little problem: they've got at least nine hours of hiking ahead of them, and it's minus seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. Like many of his stories, Jack London's "To Build a Fire" takes place in the snowy world of the Yukon, where it's so cold your spit freezes before it even hits the ground.He knows that he'll freeze to death if he doesn't dry his feet, so he tries to build a fire. Unfortunately, a pile of snow fall on the fire, putting it out. By this time, the man's fingers have become frostbitten, and he's unable to build himself another fire. The wolf-dog watches dispassionately as the man dies.London emphasizes the existential theme in “To Build a Fire” in several ways, the most important of which is his selection of the setting in which the story takes place. The story is set in the wilderness of the frozen Yukon during the harsh winter months when “there was no sun nor hint of sun” in the sky (118).
<span><span>“There no longer was any distinction between rich and poor, notables and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate-still unknown.” (pg. 21)
</span><span>“Once again, the young men bound and gagged her. When they actually struck her, people shouted their approval.” (pg. 26)
</span><span>“For us it meant true equality: nakedness. We trembled in the cold.” (pg. 35)
</span><span>“We were incapable of thinking. Our senses numbed, everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything.” (pg. 36)
</span><span>“The Kapos were beating us again, I no longer felt the pain.” (pg. 36)
</span><span>“In a few seconds, we had ceased to be men. Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed. We looked pretty strange!” (pg. 36)
</span><span>“I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.” (pg. 42)
</span>“At that moment in time, all that mattered to me was my daily bowl of soup, my crust of stale bread. The bread, the soup- those were my entire life. I was nothing but a body. Perhaps even less: a famished stomach. The stomach alone was measuring time.” (pg. 52)<span>“I had watched it all happening without moving. I kept silent. In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What’s more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek’s wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me…” (pg. 54)</span><span>“We didn't know what to do. Tired of huddling on the ground, in hope of finding something, a piece of bread, perhaps, that a civilian might have forgotten there.” (pg. 56)
</span><span>“Now I understood why Idek refused to leave us in the camp. He moved one hundred prisoners so that he could copulate with this girl! It struck me as terribly funny and I burst out laughing.” (pg. 57)
</span><span>“I no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip… Only the first really hurt.” (pg. 57)
</span><span>“Two cauldrons of soup! Smack in the middle of the road, two cauldrons of soup with no one to guard them! A royal feast going to waste! Supreme temptation! Hundreds of eyes were looking at them, shining with desire. Two lambs with hundreds of wolves lying in wait for them. Two lambs without a shepherd, free for the taking. But who would dare?” (pg. 59)
</span><span>“Fear was greater than hunger.” (pg. 59)
</span><span>“A man appeared, crawling snakelike in the direction of the cauldrons. Hundreds of eyes were watching his every move. Hundreds of men were crawling with him, scraping their bodies with his on the stones. All hearts trembled, but mostly with envy. He was the one who had dared.” (pg. 59)
</span><span>“Jealousy devoured us, consumed us. We never thought to admire him. Poor hero committing suicide for a ration or two more of soup… In our minds, he was already dead.” (pg. 59)</span></span>
By Guy Maupassant where the ending tells about what is love. I think what he really mean in that part of story is that he couldn't believe nor image the possibility that he would experience such greatness of love and he is like in heaven when he experienced it
if this helps leave a thanks
