Analysis Pages

Foreshadowing in To Build a Fire

Foreshadowing Examples in To Build a Fire:

To Build a Fire

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"But before he could cut the strings, it happened...."   (To Build a Fire)

London structures this paragraph to create an atmosphere of suspense. By foreshadowing a mysterious event in the first sentence, the rest of the paragraph takes on a tension.

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"Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head...."   (To Build a Fire)

The protagonist’s lack of instinct here is exemplary of one of the story’s primary themes: man versus nature. The man’s inability to properly read his environment sets him at odds with it. The dropping temperature, along with his naivety, foreshadows events to come.

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"an intangible pall..."   (To Build a Fire)

London uses “pall” in both senses of the word. On one level, we see the stark lighting that falls across the landscape. On another level, London evokes the image of a funereal pall, a piece of cloth lain upon a coffin, thus offering connotations and foreshadowings of death. There is also a subtle rhyme between the final syllable of “intangible” and “pall,” with a consonance between b and p.

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