One key idea that Achebe seems to repeatedly return to is the pursuit of objectives, and how ideals can clash to feelings of conservatism, and perhaps reality. To achieve the objective, no matter the means, for the end justifies the means; this is the philosophy demonstrated by Obi. Going so far as to ignore the villagers’ leader and his pleas to keep the ancestral pathway open. Putting myself in Obi’s shoes, I could imagine myself wondering why I would want to retain an ancestral footpath when I plan on teaching the children to ridicule such ideas? Obi’s dreams far outweighed any objections a village of people could muster; what’s a dream in comparison to a bunch of old people and ideas? Most obviously he reaped what he sowed, for destroying the dreams and customs of a village, he paid the sacrifice the diviner conjured; the very dream he was attempting to pursue.
This idea is as old as time itself, and is as recent as today’s debate on health. People will always be uncomfortable with removing or changing something that they’ve had and lived with for the majority of their lives. It doesn’t matter if it is a changing of Greek paganism vs. rational thought, or changing the way Washington works today. When people want to push through new ideas, there is always a barrier. Sometimes people can get through it, and sometimes the wall is stronger than the force to push.
Perhaps another feeling that Achebe wishes to convey is the idea of compromising between the old and the new, and the consequences of NOT doing so. Flowers tend to be a symbol of peace, and from what I remember, hibiscus flowers represent a delicate beauty. Such beauty is easily crushed when there is no effort to reconcile between new ideas and old customs. The timing of the story can be taken as significant as well, 1949 being very shortly after WWII, and the white supervisor is probably weary about conflict breaking out.
To this very day, there are conflicts of old and new between generations and cultures. I invite anybody to answer this question, for I’m curious, in your everyday life, whether it’s family, friend, or just people on TV, where do you see a clash between old and new?
It’s quite a coincidence you posed this question, I was having a discussion about this very subject with one of my friends and his father only yesterday. I was wondering how my friend has such respect for his parent’s values, being that they are somewhat different from his values outside of the house. My friend was born in Korea, yet, he moved to The U.S. at a fairly young age. He has completely embrace the teenage American Culture, however it never seems to conflict with the Korean culture. At first I thought, they may be somewhat similar, however the more I looked into it, there were absolutely no similarities. There is such a demand for respect by the elders on the youth in the Korean culture. There is no room for disobedience, what the parents said was the law. I currently have a similar experience with my parents, yet, my situation is a lot less civil.
For years there has been a constant struggle between my parents and me, namely regarding our perceptions and values towards every day actions. Both of my parents were raised in strutctured households in 1960’s era Chile, South America. I on the other hand, am a first generation American, born in the early 1990’s. I’ve spent the majority of my life in the United States as well as a few years in Canada. It is only natural that our upbringings instilled different values within us. Both my parents have time consuming jobs, which left a majority of my early childhood to be influenced by the American Culture. Whether the influence came from my educational progression or my friends, I was mainly exposed to American values, rather than cultural Chilean ones.
When I was younger I had no problem living with my parent’s rules, I was glad to please them in any way possible. Once I got older, I had to appease myself as well as my parents, this is where the problems began. My parent’s demands got in the way of me doing certain things which I deemed important. This has continued until now even, where there are some things I want to do, even so drastic that I feel like I need to do. Nonetheless my parents deem them less important than having a family dinner, where we have quality time as a family. Yet, every time this got in the way of my necessities, I felt it was a personal attack on my values.
I felt this created a conflict where I felt I was only getting further and further from my parents. My friend’s dad opened my eyes to how my parents were brought up. They probably went through the same things as I did as I was growing up. They had certain values which were instilled in them by force. These values are all of good intentions, they are not meant to hurt me at all. As parents they only want to help me by making me a good person, they see themselves as good people by having their cultural values and they want to instill a sense of respect towards those values. Since I have realized this I have looked at their decisions with more respect. This has somewhat resolved the conflict. I know accept their wishes and if there is some disagreement I put in my own perspective, allowing for them to rebuttal with their own reasons.
While this isn’t in direct correlation with the conflict in the story, this is the old value versus new values conflict which has appeared in my personal life. I feel that it was resolved to a certain extent and that Obi in the story, if he had took the same approach as I have to the priest in the village. He would have avoided a lot of confrontation.