To Build a Fire

I enjoyed reading “To Build a Fire”.  The story is about a man who endures an excruciating journey in freezing temperatures. The man travels through the mountain with a wolf he encounters and travels 10 miles more towards the river in hopes of reaching the camp. The forest they travel through is filled with a lot of snow. The man from Sulphur Creek has advised The man about several adversities he may face such as traveling without a companion and building a fire under a tree.  Both the man and the wolf has cross the creek but the man suffered harshly from this because he fell and got wet.  This delayed him from continuing his journey and it made him weaker against the temperature. He made a horrible mistake by building a fire under a tree and that made things worse. He was colder and barely able to make another fire. He tried to kill the wolf for its fur but failed. He could barely grasp anything at this point. His purpose for this journey is to make it back to his kids in camp. At the end, he ends up embracing death and accepting it as a good way to die. He assumes he will be found soon. The story portrays the man as confident, adaptable and somewhat resilient. He never depended on the wolf as a companion and it seem like the wolf wasn’t against the man. The wolf would always follow the man and watch him. Even after the man attempting to kill the wolf, the wolf lingered around but from a distance.  It’s revealed in the end that the wolf knew where the camp was located all along; making the wolf a viable companion.