Dead Men's Path by Chinua Achebe - Essay Example

?Reynaldo Cruz Eng-102.19 December 6, Paper #                                           "Dead Men's Path" Summary        In "Dead Men's Path" Chinua Achebe writes the story of Michael Obi, a 26 years old, well-educated schoolteacher who has been asked to be the head master at the Ndume Central School. This school has the reputation of always being an "unprogressive" school. Michael is well known for his narrow views of older and less-educated people. He sees the request of been the head master of this school as the opportunity that he is been waiting for a long time. It is an opportunity in where he can put his wonderful and new modern ideas.  Mr. Obi accepts the position with great enthusiasm. His wife Nancy decides to support him by turning the school yard into a beautiful garden. Mr. Obi and his wife Nancy put their whole lives into the work of creating a school with modern, high standards and Nancy's dream garden. One evening as Mr. Obi was admiring his work, he sees a woman from the local village walk through the flower beds. Scandalized by seeing this woman walking by his school grounds, he asks a teacher for an explanation. The teacher informs him that for years, people from the near village have walked along this path that connects the village shrine with the burial place and the schoolyard. Mr. Obi sees this path as the same old-fashioned superstition that he wants to get rid of from his school. Also the Government Education Officer is coming soon to inspect the school and he wants to impress him with the transformation of the new modern school. This path is jeopardizing his chance to make this great impression, so he orders to build a fence to block the path.  When the village priest realizes that the path was closed he meets with Obi and politely explains how important the path is for the villagers and asks him to unblock the path. Michael refuses to reopen the path and makes fun of the villager's tradition. The villager priest doesn't say a word and leaves. A couple of days later a woman in the village dies in childbirth. Achebe writes the consequence of Mr. Obi's decision and the reaction of the villagers, "A diviner was consulted immediately and prescribed heavy sacrifices to propitiate ancestors insulted by the fence".  Mr. Obi wakes up the next morning and sees the ruins of his work. He wakes up to see the schoolyard devastated, the flowers trampled to death, one of the school buildings pulled down and the beautiful hedges torn up not just near the path but right around the school, as the narrator reports, “The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near the path but right round the school, the flowers trampled to death and one of the school buildings pulled down” (Achebe). To add to Obi's misfortune, that day, the white Supervisor came to inspect the school and wrote a nasty report about the condition of the school premises and blames Mr. Obi for the "tribal-war situation" developing between the school and the village. "Dead Men's Path" Response  "Dead Men's Path" has many themes, but the one that I feel is that Chinua Achebe tries to illustrate to us is the theme of tolerance and understanding of other people's beliefs. Achebe presents to us Michael Obi, a young man who, drunk with success, feels like he was above and superior to people less educated than him, or as Achebe describes him: "He was outspoken in his condemnation of the narrow view of these older and often less-educated ones".  This reminds me of the Nazi mentality, a mentality which emphasizes only one way to view the world and the destruction of the other views.  "Dead Men's Path" is showing us how narrow views don't allow us to have tolerance towards others. Not having tolerance towards others is one of the causes of many conflicts we have in today's world. The lack of tolerance has separated us. We tend to be stuck in our narrow views and think that our view is superior to the other people. Some say that there is a God; others opposes saying that there is not a God. Some say that Christianity is the right religion; others claim that Islam is right. There are so many opposing views in this world. We all have our views, and we don't have to change them if we don't want to, but we cannot change other people's views by force if they themselves don't want.  When Obi discovered the path, he was told by a teacher from his school and later by the village priest, that the path had been used by the village for years as tradition. But for Obi the path was a connection with the old style of living -- a connection that was directly interfering with his reform and the impression that he created towards others. For him the path needed to be closed in order to wipeout those old "superstitions". But the path was there and used long ago before he first saw it. A whole village believed those "superstitions" and Obi, stuck in his narrow views, didn't think of the consequences which his views were going to create by opening the path. By opening it he rather pushed the tribe into war, as the priest declares: “If you reopen the path we shall have nothing to quarrel about. What I always say is: let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch” (Achebe) If we try to put our views onto others by force, we have to realize that what we are doing is starting a war. People have to realize that what they perceive as right can be perceived by others as wrong. "The dead Men's Path" wants us to realize that there are many different views and beliefs in the world. We have to respect other people's views and beliefs if we want to live in peace. Read More