生火 (1902)

《生火》（英语：To Build a Fire），是美国作家杰克·伦敦创作的一篇短篇小说。这个故事有两种版本，分别发表于1902年和1908年。1908年版本是选集中的经典，而1902年的版本则变成了一个鲜为人知的故事。在1908年的版本中，主角在冬季的加拿大育空地区，与他的狗一同去看望他的朋友。虽然一个长者警告了他有关自己徒步出发的危险，但他忽视了这个警告。主人公完全错误低估了恶劣、寒冷的天气条件，他慢慢地开始被冻僵。尽管他三次试图生火，但火皆熄灭了。在他最后一次尝试后，他被冻死在雪地里。

1902年的版本描述了一个类似的情况，但有着不同的情节。虽然两者的结构和故事情节很相似，但在1902年版本中，天气并不是严酷的寒冷，没有狗跟随主角，火没有熄灭，主角只遭受了永久性冻伤，幸存下来成为了一个更忧郁但聪明的人。

1908年版本的《生火》是一个常被自然主义引用的例子，因为它描绘了人与自然间的冲突。它还反映了作者从育空地区学到的经验。

"To Build a Fire" is a short story by American author Jack London. There are two versions of this story. The first version was published in 1902; the second, later version was published in 1908 and republished in 1910. The story written in 1908 has become an often anthologized classic, while the 1902 story is less well known.

The 1908 version is about an unnamed male protagonist who ventures out in the subzero boreal forest of the Yukon Territory. He is accompanied by a native husky dog and is en route to visit his friends—ignoring warnings from an older man from Sulphur Creek about the dangers of hiking alone in extreme cold. The protagonist underestimates the harsh conditions and freezes to death after his fire is doused and he is unable to re-light it.

In the 1902 version, though the structure and storyline are similar, the weather is not as cold and horrendous, no dog follows the protagonist, the fire is not doused, and the man (named Tom Vincent in this version) suffers only from severe frostbite and survives to become a more melancholic but wiser person.

"To Build a Fire" is an oft-cited example of the naturalist movement that portrays the conflict of man versus nature. It also reflects London's personal experiences in the Yukon Territory.

1908 version plot

The unnamed man, a chechaquo (newcomer to the Yukon), sets out to hike through the forests bordering the Yukon River on a winter day where the temperature has fallen to −75 °F (−59 °C). Having ignored warnings against traveling alone in such conditions, he is accompanied only by a large husky dog. The animal's instincts warn it about the dangers of the extreme cold, but the dog reluctantly follows the man. As they follow the course of a frozen creek, the man is careful to avoid patches of thin ice hidden by the snow. His goal is to reach a group of prospectors (referred to as "the boys") at their camp by six o'clock that evening.

At half-past noon, the man stops and builds a fire so he can warm up and eat his lunch. Shortly after resuming his hike, he accidentally breaks through the ice and soaks his feet and lower legs, forcing him to stop and build another fire so he can dry himself. Having chosen a spot under a tree for this fire, he pulls twigs from the brush pile around it to feed the flames; the vibrations of this action eventually cause a large amount of snow to tumble down from the branches overhead and extinguish the fire. The man quickly begins to lose sensation in his extremities and hurries to light another fire, now starting to understand the warnings about the life-threatening danger posed by the extreme cold. He lights the fire, igniting all of his matches and burning himself in the process due to the numbness in his hands. While trying to remove a piece of moss from the fire, he inadvertently pokes the burning twigs apart, extinguishing them.

With no way to start another fire, the man thinks of killing the dog and using its body heat to save himself, but his hands are so stiff that he can neither strangle the animal nor draw his knife to cut its throat. Finally, he tries to restore his circulation by running toward the camp, but stumbles and falls multiple times in the snow. The man feels the cold gradually freezing him to his core, and he ultimately falls asleep and dies of hypothermia. He imagines himself standing with "the boys" as they find his body. The dog leaves the body after dark to find food and shelter at the camp.