In the story “Dead Man’s Path, we are introduced to a man named Obi who has a great deal of pride and ideas for his new job as headmaster. My first thought of this story was that it had no point to it and that these people are crazy. But as I thought deeper into it, i realized that the story had a deeper meaning to it than what I read. Sometimes looking at things from different perspectives is better than forcing your own ideals onto something with a closed mind state.
Many people have been given opportunities at time that gives them great success but I believe absolute power corrupts absolutely. In this case Obi was given a great power of being headmaster of a school. With this power also came zeal and selfishness. Also, sometimes perserving old traditions can go a long way with relationships than modernizing them. Obi was blind sided by his power which in the end led to his downfall.
Everyone who has been in positions of great power would be in the position to have a downfall. A great experience of this is the situation in my job. My boss would test his associates by giving them the power to be manager for a week. If they survived then they would continue their job or they would get less hours. But in majority of the cases, the associates got power hungry and ended up not being able to handle the store.
alive man’s path
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I completely agree with you when you say that intolerance was Obi’s main reason for his downfall. The only
reason I chose to go the route of power was because it was a point of view that nobody tackled. I didn’t just want to repeat what other students stated in their posts.
I agree that part of Obi’s downfall was due to the his position of power as headmaster, but I think the fault lies more in his intolerance of what he considers old ideas, which Adeng points out in his post on the story. On page 237, Obi says, “The whole purpose of our school…is to eradicate just such beliefs as that…Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas.” This was said in regards to the village priest’s spiritual beliefs; it’s an incredibly insulting thing to say and is a terrible stance on what a school’s purpose should be. Although we learn early on of his intolerance, I do agree that his newly granted power as headmaster is what ultimately corrupted him and led to his failure. A man without power doesn’t make such bold and insulting statements to someone who has considerable status in the community.