Essay Draft Two
Yiming Wu (Luther Wu)
May. 9, 2007
Draft One
What Makes Michael Obi Fall Into The Abyss
People who lived in colony but received Christianity and Western education often had to face such a puzzling problem that on which side should they stand when involving in local issues, western or local? There would be different consequences of their choice, maybe a lucky accommodation, or maybe a failure, even a tragedy. Michael Obi, the hero of “Dead Men’s Path”, tried to practice his idea in a local school, but conflicted with the villagers on the maintaining issue of a path through the school compound, which had somewhat religious meaning to the villagers, and at last got a sad ending. What caused this tragedy? The culture conflict? His own personal characteristics? Or the combination of these two? I think both were contributable to Michael Obi’s tragedy, whereas his personal character is more crucial.
First, the culture conflict is an important cause of Michael Obi’s tragedy. Being a Nigerian but bred in Christianity and Western education, Michael Obi was destined to act and think in a western way. From the first paragraph, “He is outspoken in his condemnation of the narrow views of these older and often less-educated ones”, we can see that he has an unshaken thought that western culture and education is superior to local ones, and consequently local people should abort the original and accept what he bring to them. But the local villagers stick to their belief and thus have a conflict with this new headmaster of the local school. The conflict is involved with “an almost disused path from the village across the school compound to the bush on the other side”. Michael Obi is amazed because he thinks only teachers and students can use school, and villagers couldn’t trespass at will. But the villagers think on the opposite. They consider it as a path for their dead relatives to visit them by, so they strongly oppose the blockage of this path, while Michael refuses the village priest’s request to reopen the path and take such idea as “fantastic”. It seems that this conflict is a consequence of the collision between western culture and local one on the issues of ghost. And Michael Obi, who believes in the western culture, is an unfortunate sacrifice.
Second, his own personal character also leads to his tragedy. The first paragraph has mentioned that he accept the responsibilities with enthusiasm and has had many wonderful ideas to put them in practice. This seems to be good but things can often have opposite sides. An over-extent of enthusiasm may lead to his exaggeration of self-confidence and a contempt of potent difficulties. From his wife’s thought in the third passage, “his passion for ‘modern method’ and his denigration of ‘these old and superannuated people… better employed as traders in the Onitstha market’ ”, we can imply that he contemn those local people on their education level and belief. Such a personal character certainly will cause his tragic ending. Moreover, when he said about his colleagues’ marriage status (“All of them are young and unmarried” ), he mentioned it in an enthusiastic tune, “Which is a good thing”. From this, we can find that Michael Obi is a wholly self-egocentric man and takes little care to others. Without knowing how to deal with colleagues rightfully, he is sure to lose the opportunity to achieve his success.
Third, though we can’t omit the culture conflict’s importance, Michael Obi’s personal character contributes more to his tragic ending. Culture conflict is just an outsider affecting factor, thus can be avoided if the hero had taken careful measures, while personal character is intrinsic factor and determinant. Owing to his geocentricism and over self-confidence, he contemns local villagers and thus fails to achieve an accommodation with villagers. The end is consequently destined.
In conclusion, I think Michael Obi’s tragedy is induced not only by the culture conflict but also by his personal character, and the latter is more important. Such tragedy is a consequence of the colony policy of the Britain. Thinking local culture is inferior to Western and Christianity culture, the missionaries introduced the suzerain culture to the colony to weaken tribal affiliations. Thus a lot of local people abort their tribal belief and accept the suzerain culture, eventually causing such tragedy like Michael Obi.