Luther Wu's Writing Portfolio

Essay Draft Three

Yiming Wu (Luther Wu)
June 14, 2007
Draft Three

People who lived in colony but were bred in Christianity and Western education often had to tackle such a torturous problem that on which side should they stand when involving in local issues, western or local? There would be different consequences of their choices, maybe a lucky accommodation, maybe a failure of disharmonious, or even a tragedy. Michael Obi, the hero of “Dead Men’s Path” written by Chinua Achebe, tried to practice his ideas in a local school, but conflicted with the villagers on the maintaining issue of a path across the school compound, which has religious meaning to the villagers to some extents. And at last he got a sad end, disliked by both the villagers and the supervisor. What causes this tragedy? Culture conflict and his personal characters both should be ascribed to that, whereas his personal character is the more crucial point.

Admittedly, the culture conflict is an important cause of Michael Obi’s tragedy. Being a Nigerian but received Christianity and Western education, Michael Obi is largely destined to act and thinks in a western way. From the first passage, “He is outspoken in his condemnation of the narrow views of these older and often less-educated ones”[52], it can be inferred that he has already abandoned his country’s traditional beliefs and has an unshaken thought that western culture and education is superior to local ones, thus local people should also abolish the original and accept what he bring to them. Unwilling to follow him due to the divergence in thoughts, the local villagers stick to their belief, and thus have a conflict with this new headmaster, Michael Obi, on whether “an almost disused path from the village across the school compound to the bush on the other side”[53] should still be kept. As to Michael Obi, a man who receives western education, he certainly has no approbation with them and thinks villagers shouldn’t trespass on the campus at will. Because he has such two opinions that maybe never exist in villagers’ mind, it is no wonder that the local people strongly oppose that blockage. Separation in thoughts and culture leads to the conflict. The consequence of the collision on the issues of whether the path across the campus with religious meaning should be maintained between western culture and local one is a man’s tragedy. Michael Obi, who believes in the western culture, is that unfortunate sacrifice.

We shouldn’t then ignore that his personal character is also responsible for the tragedy. The first paragraph has mentioned that he accepts the responsibilities with enthusiasm and has had many wonderful ideas to put them in practice [52]. This seems to be good but things can often have opposite side. An over-extent of enthusiasm may lead to his exaggeration of self-confidence and contempt of potent difficulties. All of those cause Michael to overlook his competence, thus he refuses to take other’s advice and doesn’t accept the village priest’s persuasion of not to block that path which he actually fail to handle it by himself. Moreover, from his wife’s thinking 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’ ”[52], we can imply that he despises those local people on their education levels and beliefs. Such a personal character certainly is a deadly point. It can’t be imagined how a man who has contempt in other’s capability could do well with colleagues. Nonetheless, when he speaks of his colleagues’ marriage status, “All of them are young and unmarried”[53], he mentioned this in an enthusiastic tune, “Which is a good thing”[53]. From this, we can infer that Michael Obi is a wholly egocentric man and takes little care to others. Without knowing how to work with colleagues in a right way, he is sure to lose the opportunity to achieve his success.

After analyzing the above two causes, we need to compare which is more important than the other. Though the culture conflicts play an important role in causing the final tragedy, Michael Obi’s personal character is a more crucial point leading to his unfortunate end. 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. From the first paragraph, we can find that “ He had had sound secondary school education which designated him a ‘pivotal teacher’ in the official records”[52]. So it can be implied that Michael Obi could deal with the cultural divergence, know how to teach and get along with local people, and have done a good job. Now we can deduce that culture conflict is not unavoidable or unsolvable by Michael, and he has the ability to mix in local people though he receives western education. Though the previous success may provide him with a great many of experiences, it may also make Michael become bumptious, egocentric, and supercilious. “He was outspoken in his condemnation of the narrow views of these older and often less-educated ones”[52], after a series of success, he overlooked himself and despised others. As a consequence, he talks to the priest in a rather impolite tune and thus exacerbating the issue. How could such an arrogant and dogmatic man keep a cool mind when he has to tackle a tough issue? Therefore we can get to the conclusion that Michael Obi’s tragedy is more ascribed to his personal character.

In conclusion, Michael Obi’s tragedy is induced not only by the culture conflict but also by his personal characters, and the latter is more important. After a second thought, we should ask whether his personal character is the final leading cause? Would the tragedy be avoided if another Peter Obi or Tom Obi came? I think the answer is “No”. This tragedy is just one case in Nigeria due to the colonial policy of the Britain. Having such belief that local culture is inferior to Western and Christianity culture, the missionaries introduced the suzerain culture to the colony to weaken tribal affiliations and strengthen British government’s control. Thus a lot of local people abandon their tribal belief and accept the western culture, eventually becoming people like Michael Obi.

Works Cited:

Chinua Achebe. “Dead Men’s Path”. 《International Story》

30.5.07 15:45