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Dramatic Irony
Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Foreshadowing
Explanation and Analysis—Lack of Imagination:
At the beginning of "To Build a Fire," the omniscient narrator comments on the man's lack of interest in the landscape, thus foreshadowing his fate later in the story:
The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general.
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Explanation and Analysis—What the Dog Knows:
At several points throughout the story, London foreshadows the man's eventual fate by commenting on the dog's apprehension at traveling in such cold weather.
Unlock with LitCharts A+The dog was disappointed and yearned back toward the fire. This man did not know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezing-point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had inherited the knowledge. And it knew that it was not good to walk abroad in such fearful cold.
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Explanation and Analysis—A Morning With No Sun:
At the beginning of "To Build a Fire," London's description of the sky foreshadows the grim, depressing conclusion of the story:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray... There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun.
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Explanation and Analysis—Hidden Pools:
In the passage below, the story draws attention to the possible dangers of pools of water hidden beneath the ice. This foreshadows the crucial moment later in the story when the man falls into one of these pools.
Unlock with LitCharts A+He had felt the give under his feet and heard the crackle of a snow-hidden ice-skin. And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant trouble and danger. At the very least it meant delay, for he would be forced to stop and build a fire, and under its protection to bare his feet while he dried his socks and moccasins.
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Explanation and Analysis—The Old-Timer's Advice:
At multiple points in the story, the man remembers the advice the old man on Sulphur Creek gave him about traveling in the Yukon. For the most part, the man seems appreciative of this advice, but he grows dismissive of it when he believes that he has successfully built a fire and avoided danger:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He remembered the advice of the old-timer on Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them, he thought. All a man had to do was to keep his head, and he was all right. Any man who was a man could travel alone.
