Dead Men's Path
Plot
Michael
Obi is a young reform-minded educator living in Nigeria, January 1949. He is
tasked with reforming Ndume Central School, a place known for its unprogressive
or backwards ways.
Michael
and his wife, Nancy, arrive at the village with the intention of forcing it
into the modern age. Their two goals are to enforce a high standard of
education and to turn the school campus into a place of beauty.
One
evening Mike observes an old woman walking along a faint footpath that crosses
the compound. After consulting with some members of the faculty, Michael learns
that the school had attempted to close the path in the past and met with strong
opposition from the nearby village. Afraid of giving a poor impression to the
Government Education Officer scheduled to visit, Michael places a fence across
the path and tops it with barbed wire. Three days after the fence is put up,
Michael meets with the village priest, who explains the importance of the path
and its relationship with the villagers' animist beliefs. Michael insists that
the path remains closed and explains that the purpose of the school is to
abolish such ancestral beliefs.
Two
days later a young woman in the village dies
in childbirth. A diviner recommends heavy sacrifices to appease the spirits who are
insulted at having the footpath blocked. In the night the flowers and hedges
are torn up and trampled to death and one of the school buildings is torn down.
When the Government Education Officer arrives, he gives Obi a bad review and
writes "a nasty report" on the "tribal-war situation developing
between the school and the village."
References
Achebe, Chinua. Dead Men's Path. Literature: A Pocket
Anthology. Fourth Edition. Edited by R. S. Gwynn. New York: Penguin, 2009.
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