How Ignorance Can Kill A Man

“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance”— Thomas Sowell

Ignorance is often the first step in the wrong direction. In the short story, “To Build A Fire”, by Jack London, an ignorant man avoids the warnings about the treacherous Yukon and must discover how to overcome his regrettable actions. The man will suffer greatly from this ignorance. The man’s lack of imagination led him to make foolish decisions, which sends him on an ignorant path towards death. 

“The furrow of the old sled trail was plainly visible, but a dozen inches of snow covered the marks of the last runners. In a month no man had come up or down that silent creek. The man held steadily on. He was not much given to thinking, and just then particularly he had nothing to think about save that he would eat lunch at the forks and that at six o'clock he would be in camp with the boys.”

In his arrogance, the man is unable to imagine the possibilities of the brutal cold he will experience.  he seems to think he has enough understanding and ability to handle whatever nature could send his way. His ignorance also causes him to neglect the precautions of the wise old man offered. “It certainly was cold, was his thought. That man from Sulphur Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in the country. And he had laughed at him at the time! ”Although the path showed how desolate and unused it has recently been, but the man was unable or unwilling to realize or even imagine the real dangers ahead of him. He did not even question why the path was not well-used or how cold it could get so that he could prepare himself or make a better decision about doing it another time when it was not so brutally cold. This inability to listen and pay attention about it sets him further on this fatal path.  In addition, the man becomes so desperate for warmth that he is overtaken by this need that he is unaware of the danger he is creating for himself. “It was as though he had just heard his own sentence of death.” Although he is already too late, his final attempt to sustain a fire has already killed him.  The man’s ignorance and arrogance made it so he was not able to warn himself about or warm himself from the cruel Yukon. His stubbornness and inability to imagine an achievable outcome distracts him from the brutal cold and sends him to his own death.    

In the end, the man’s ignorance and failure to imagine such hardships occurring to him did not allow him to be prepared for what was to come. Even before he set foot on that eerie path, those traits were his first steps on his fatal journey.