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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dead Men’s Path, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Modernity and Progress
Education as a Colonial Weapon
Cultural History and Identity
Summary
Analysis
In 1949, the young Michael Obi is appointed headmaster of the unprogressive school, Ndume Central School, by the Mission authorities (a colonial religious body). A “young and energetic man” with lots of big ideas for the school, Obi happily accepts the offer.
Michael Obi’s appointment reveals that his youth and ideas are of use to the Mission authorities, the colonial gubernatorial organization that defines the metrics of the school’s success. Mr. Obi’s appointment shows that his values and ideas about education and how the school should be run align closely with the Mission authorities
Themes
Michael Obi and his wife, Nancy, immediately get to work making the school into a place where “modern” ideas will be practiced. They are passionate about this project and they scorn anyone and any idea that they feel does not adhere to their progressive values, including scorning older educators. Excited by the prospect of the school and reverent of her husband’s ideas, Nancy begins to think of herself as “the queen of the school” who will be deeply envied and admired by the other teachers’ wives. However, she is crushed when Obi tells her that the other teachers don’t have wives. She recovers from her disappointment, though, because “[h]er little personal misfortune could not blind her to her husband’s happy prospects.”
Obi and Nancy revere colonial ideas and practices. Thus they make it their goal to make the school into a “modern” institution, because they conflate modernity with these colonial practices, which they view as more sophisticated and progressive. Their way of thinking inflates their sense of importance and makes them feel like they have more in common with colonial figures than with others from the community. Thus, Obi and Nancy scorn other educators who dare to deviate from their progressive values, while Nancy dreams of “ruling” the school symbolically, in the same way a monarch might rule over a colony. Nancy is determined to let her husband’s prospects help her achieve a new start, despite the news that she will not be able to establish a hierarchy among the wives of other teachers.
Themes
Nancy studies her husband. Although Obi is “stoop-shouldered” and looks weak, he is known for his “sudden bursts of physical energy.” He also looks fairly old—he’s twenty-six, but looks to be at least thirty years old. Obi tells his wife that he’s excited about his chance to run the school because it will allow him “to show these people how a school should be run.”
Despite Obi’s small weak frame, he carries himself with the confidence of someone who knows without a doubt that his modern ideas are what’s best for the students. His premature aging suggests that something is wrong with his lifestyle, though. Perhaps his ideas and values are exhausting him, preventing him from living a good life.
Themes
At the school, Obi and Nancy emphasize a “high standard of teaching” and work together to make the school grounds beautiful with the rich and carefully-tended gardens of Nancy’s dreams. The flowering hedges of the gardens eventually demarcate the school compound from the nearby village, which is outlined by “rank” shrubs.
The high standard of teaching that Obi and Nancy emphasize is meant to adequately instill in the students a strong affinity for the modern ideas that they themselves deeply cherish. Thus, while high in standard, the teaching at the school is not objective in value. Rather it is meant to push for an understanding of modernity and progress through the eyes of colonial institutions. The school is meant to be a place where children deviate from the ways of the past and their parents; the garden’s demarcation becomes a visual symbol of the separation of the village and its past ways from the school and its future potential.
Themes
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One day, Obi sees an old woman cross the school compound, wander through the gardens, and walk down an “almost disused path.” Obi becomes angry and confronts a teacher about the path’s use. The teacher, “apologetically,” explains the path’s cultural importance: how it links the village shrine to the villagers’ “place of burial.” Obi challenges him by asking about the path’s usefulness to the school, but the teacher responds by warning Obi of the “big row” that occurred when others attempted to close the path a while ago. Obi, nonetheless, is scandalized by the thought of the Government Education Officer witnessing signs of the “pagan ritual” during his inspection in a week’s time. Thus, Obi promptly shuts the path with a fence, prohibiting its use.
Obi is angered by the man’s actions because he sees it as an affront to the steps he has taken to make the school orient itself towards progress and modernity. To Obi, anything that deviates from his modern ideas and practices is intolerable and must be prohibited before it has a chance to spread and garner the attention of powerful figures like the Government Education Officer. The importance of the path to the community and the disruption it might cause in the villagers’ lives is merely collateral damage to Obi.
Themes
The village priest, an elderly man who “walk[s] with a slight stoop,” visits Obi a few days after the path’s closing. He attempts to get Obi to change his mind and recognize and respect the deep significance the path has in the community, their lives, and their identity as people now and for generations to come: “Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to be born…”
The village priest’s advocacy on behalf of the path reveals that, despite his physical shortcomings, he will use every bit of his limited energy to advocate for the history and rites of his community. The costs of the path’s possible closure are too high for the priest to not intervene.
Themes
With a “satisfied smile,” Obi refuses the old village priest’s request and declares that he would like to not just eliminate such pagan ideas and traditions from the students at his school, but also encourage the students to actively ridicule them. Preparing to leave, the priest says that they must “let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch.” Obi reiterates that allowing the villagers to use the school path is “against our regulations,” but he suggests that the village make another path outside of school grounds, claiming that the ancestors won’t “find the little detour too burdensome.” Speechless, the old priest leaves.
Obi relishes antagonizing the village priest, which reveals the lengths he is willing to go to dismiss the ideas of those of the community he deems old and unprogressive in their ways. Moreover, Obi appears to want to use the incident of the path as a teaching moment for the students to get them to understand why ancient customs must not be tolerated to this extent. Though the priest is thwarted, he seems to allude to a coming battle between the newness that Obi and the school represent and the past ways that the path and the village represent.
Themes
A woman in the village dies two days later while giving birth. A diviner is called, and he prescribes that the village complete “heavy sacrifices” to satisfy the ancestors, who, he suggests, let the woman die because they were insulted by the prohibitions on their path.
Rites and customs are an organic thing for the community and a huge part of their sense of self. A part of them died with the closing of the path, which the woman’s death alludes to. The heavy sacrifices are meant to reclaim some of the damage Obi’s prohibitions have made in the community.
Themes
Obi wakes up the next morning and sees the school in shambles: the gardens, the hedges of the school, and even a school building have been destroyed
The battle that the priest alluded to happens and Obi’s school is left in shambles, presumably by the villagers and/or the priest who most likely did it as a way of standing up for their ancient traditions, their community, and their way of life. The outcome, of course, is that all of Obi and Nancy’s carefully cultivated modern fixtures are destroyed so that almost nothing is left.
Themes
Shortly afterwards, a white government Supervisor arrives to inspect the school. He pens a “nasty report” about Obi, the dilapidated school grounds, and the “tribal-war situation” that Obi had unwittingly started because of his “misguided zeal.”
In the eyes of the Mission authorities, Obi has failed to live up to the promise of teaching the students how to be good colonial subjects, and instead instigated a war between ancient traditions and modernity.
Themes
