I think Chinua Achebe story, “Dead Man’s Path” is about a man named Obi who is so engrossed in the modern traditional of finding success and having the big house that beliefs no longer matter as much. I think the underlying theme with regards to happiness is that sometimes we need to believe in things beyond us and that not everything is not just black and white. I’m not sure what the moral may be but it could be that we should keep an open mind. Throughout the story the character Obi, seem to be at a lost with his beliefs or he even thought it was ridiculous that a path was so special to the people of that village. I think he didn’t understand that it could be such beliefs that made the people who happy because it gave them comfort but it was as this concept was unknown to him.
I think it wasn’t entirely misguided zeal. He seemed to understand that the path was important to the villagers as he stated “The path,” said the teacher apologetically, “appears to be very important to them” (237). I think he had different priorities. To Obi, it was the idea of improving the school and keeping it in good shape that matter; something that was visible to him unlike the spiritual path that the villages kind of used as a shrine. He just wanted to do the right thing and that could had made him a bit misguided but I also believe he never really experience what the villagers felt so he doesn’t comprehend it. He was also focused on regulations and such that he could enforce. “The whole purpose of our school is to eradicate just such beliefs as that. Dead men do not require footpaths… Our duty is to teach children to laugh at such ideas” (237).
I agree with what you’re saying. Obi became too obsessed with his own ideas of how he wanted things done. He wanted to modernize the school but nonetheless that was his own selfish desire. Although his heart may have been in the right place, it wasn’t was necessarily the best thing for the villagers. He disrespected the ideals and traditions of the villagers who were there before him and that’s where I think he crossed the line. So what if this compound was designed to his pleasure. It wasn’t the best thing for the community as a whole and he completely disregarded the ideals of the villagers. In the end, it was kind of a bad omen on Obi. He disrespected the forefathers of the society and when the white inspector came and saw the place all torn up, a bad report was written. I believe this story has something to do with how the newest things don’t always make you happy. There are also the traditions of the past that remind us of why we do things a certain way. Traditions will die if they are not passed down and Obi was attempting to end these traditions. In the end, however, he was proven wrong.