Maria Alcantara

There are a lot of things that caught my attention about this tale. “To Build a Fire” is a story that can portrait and illustrate many different emotions and feelings. At the beginning of the story, I was a little bit confused, and my emotions were all over the place. But as I kept reading, I started feeling tense, and cold. As the story went on. I started seeing the mixed emotions that were being portrayed by the main character. When he started walking deeper into the trail, I started feeling the fear that he was going through. I always kept in mind when Sulphur Creek said, “no man should travel alone if it’s colder than 50 degrees below zero.” Throughout the whole story I always wondered why he didn’t listen to the old man’s wisdom. Was it because he didn’t believe the man? Or because he thought he could handle the cold? I also asked myself why he didn’t have a companion? And why did he choose that specific day to get to the boys? In addition, as the story went on all those questions and mixed emotions crossed my mind. I’m assuming that is because as a reader you put yourself in the shoes of the main character. You analyze the story and its characters’ behaviors. I think these effects are created because of how connected we get to the story and because of how detailed the story is.