“To Build a Fire” has often been called London’s masterpiece. London was able to give his stories greater depth by using his extraordinary powers of narrative and language, and by infusing them with a remarkable sense of irony. His stories became like the men and women about whom he wrote-bold, violent, sometimes primitive. By turning to harsh, frontier environment for his setting and themes, London soon came to be a strong voice heard over the genteel tradition of nineteenth century parlor-fiction writers. Later on he would move his setting to the primitive South Seas, after his travels had also made him familiar with that region. Accordingly, he turned to the Canadian Northland, the locale where he had gained experience, for his settings and characters. Early in his career, London realized that he had no talent for invention and that in his writing he would have to be an interpreter of the things that are rather than a creator of the things that might be. Jack London’s (Janu– November 22, 1916) fame as a writer came about largely through his ability to interpret realistically humans’ struggle in a hostile environment.
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