"To Build a Fire"

     In To Build a Fire, by Jack London, I really recognized the literary element, setting.  The setting in this short story was so descriptive it truly painted a detailed picture in my mind of the snowy trail.  The way the setting is described really helps the story because I get a glimpse of how snowy and freezing it really was.  "He knew that the coldest snaps never froze these springs, and he knew likewise their danger.  They were traps.  They hid pools of water under the snow that might be three inches deeep, or three feet.  Sometimes a skin of ice half an inch think covered them, and in turn was covered by the snow."  This description really gave me a picture of how dangerous it really was out there and it made me begin to fear that the man would soon fall through the thin ice and drown.

    When London describes the dog he says, "The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a fine powder of frost, and especially were its jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes whitened by its crystalled breath."  This description really allows readers to know how freezing it is, and when I read this it made me put myself in that situation and think of what I would do.  The description in this story really helped it out because without the descriptiveness in it, I believe this could have been a very boring story.