The man is to unintelligent to realize that nature will defeat him in the end. Throughout the story he continues to have incidences that slow him down and will eventually lead to his down fall. The protagonist gets his feet wet in a stream and has to build a second fire, but he does not realize that he is under a tree that has freshly fallen snow. The snow falls and puts out his fire, and he has no more matches to build another fire. In the end the man freezes to death due to his stupidity. London uses the theme "Nature as an indifferent force acting on the lives of human beings" (Campbell, 3) to portray mans idiocy when it comes to man trying to out smart forces that are much stronger than he. .
In "To Build a fire" the main character is also faced with the battle against himself and other men. In time he realizes "The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued: after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner"(London, 1346). Although he is told numerous times that it is to cold to travel he continues to do it anyway. His stubbornness about getting to the camp by six also leads up to his down fall. He also must battle with himself about whether or not to continue on with his journey to the camp. When he realizes that it is a great deal colder than he originally thought, and he could still turn around, but he is over come by stubbornness and still travels on. Finally after debating with himself, he comes to the conclusion to just sit down by a tree and go to sleep. He does realize that he will most likely never wake up again. He decides that he is all right with the others finding him frozen to death against a tree. When he dies his dog abandons him, because he knows from the beginning that the trip was a stupid idea. The dog is cut out for the journey with his thick fur coat, but man is not; therefore, the dog lives but man does not.