“To Build a Fire”: An Environmentalist Interpretation | National Humanities Center

America in Class Lessons

“To Build a Fire”: An Environmentalist Interpretation

Advisor: Fleissner, Jennifer L. (NHC Fellow, 2011–12)

By Schramm, Richard R. (NHC Vice President for Education Programs, 1984–2016)

Jack London’s story “To Build a Fire” warns not only against trekking through a wilderness at seventy-five below but also against seeing nature simply as a resource to be exploited and controlled.

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Subjects

Literature / Literary Criticism / Environment and Nature / American Literature / Short Stories / Environmentalism / Fiction /