To Build a Fire (Spencer Library) の感想

Anyone can easily build a fire, but this is a story about the circumstances in which no one can build a fire easily. A man decides to travel alone through the hostile environment of the Yukon in sub-freezing temperatures. During his journey, he gets his feet wet as he falls through the ice into the water of a hot spring. Because of the severity of the cold, some “one hundred and seven degrees below the freezing point,” the man’s life depends upon his ability to promptly light a fire to keep his feet from freezing. He finds it very difficult to do so, and he finally becomes a little out of mind.
“The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. He remembered the tale of the man, caught in a blizzard, who killed a steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved. He would kill the dog and bury his hands in the warm body until the numbness went out of them.”
On the surface of it, the central theme is a man’s foolish confidence in the face of nature’s power, but what