SOURCE: “Jack London's ‘To Build a Fire’: A Mythic Reading,” in Jack London Newsletter, Vol. 20, 1987, pp. 48–51.

In the following essay, Clasby maintains that in “To Build a Fire” London's “unquestioned myth-making ability has produced an extreme expression of a common archetype.”

D.H. Lawrence observed, in his Studies in Classic American Literature, that the quintessential American hero is a divided person. Natty Bumpo of the Leatherstocking Tales stands first in the line of these dual heroes, paired with his dark companion, Chingachgook. Ishmael and Queequeeg, Huck and Jim follow in a succession leading to such twentieth century pop-culture icons as Batman and Robin. Lawrence theorizes that the excessively dualistic quality of the American male psyche required that the emotional, instinctive aspects of the self, which is perceived as “feminine,” be projected onto a dark, devalued alter-ego. The primary persona remains detached. In Lawrence's words, the “essential American soul...