Jack London was a socialist. How does his political orientation emerge in his work--specifically, in his story "To Build a Fire"?"To Build a Fire"...

In his essay, "How I Became a Socialist," Jack London
explains that he "fell into it" when he went out West as a man in search or work.  He
writes,

I had
dropped down from the proletariat into what sociologists love to call the "submerged
tenth," and I was startled to discover the way in which that submerged tenth was
recruited.

After this
experience of realizing that he was not as superior as he had thought, that someday his
strength would leave him, London concludes,

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 I think it is apparent that my rampant
individualism was pretty effectively hammered out of me, and something else as
effectively hammered in....It was a
Socialist.

Perhaps, then, the
individual, "the man" of London's "To Build a Fire" who believes himself strong,
superior to the forces of nature because he possesses strength and "judgment," is a
metaphor for the man that London himself was in his bold youth.  And, while the man
steps into the frozen water, so, too, was London figuratively submerged as he found
himself at the "bottom of the[social]Pit.... hanging on to the slippery wall" and
knowing that he would not survive by youthful strength alone.  For, there are forces
stronger than the man of his story and stronger than London himself. Thus, the old-timer
from Sulfur Creek's warning to not go forth without another also underscores the concept
of socialism in which there is strength in the unity of men.