31 pages • 1 hour read
Chinua AchebeDead Men’s Path
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Imagery
Details of the kind and color of flowers planted in the garden are described more vividly than other details in the story and appear more than once. Mr. Obi enjoys admiring the “beautiful hibiscus and allamanda hedges in brilliant red and yellow” that separate the “civilized” compound from the “rank neighborhood bushes” (72). Here, Achebe contrasts the flowers’ beauty with the word “rank,” which evokes feelings of revulsion. This imagery highlights the imperial idea that Indigenous practices need to be replaced; in this case, the plants are native to neither England nor Nigeria and, like the couple’s dreams, prove to be fragile. The flowers are carefully tended and cultivated, and although the plants thrive for a time, they are trampled on by villagers walking through “marigold[s]” (72), which in Christianity are often associated with the Virgin Mary. When “the beautiful hedges were torn up” and “the flowers trampled to death” (74), Obi replaces them with barbed wire, a stark contrast to the flowers’ soft beauty.
Foreshadowing
There are three moments of foreshadowing in the story. The first happens when the teacher warns the headmaster about the “big row” (72) that occurred the last time the school tried to block access to the path, which is exactly what happens when Obi installs large sticks and then barbed wire where the path crosses into the school compound. Another moment of foreshadowing occurs when the priest cites the proverb about eagles and hawks coexisting. The proverb alludes to coexistence, but the mention of two birds of prey creates tension regarding what might happen if these two groups don’t respect each other’s spaces. With this, the proverb carries an implicit warning and proves to be a moment of foreshadowing; Obi does not respect the ancestral path, so he wakes to find the gardens and fence destroyed.
Irony
The basic irony of the story is that Michael Obi is sent to the mission school to improve the level of education and beautify the grounds, and through his arrogance, he causes the garden and some of the school itself to be destroyed. Rather than improving the school and modernizing the village, he ruins the compound and sparks conflict with the villagers. Although the reader has been led to expect a confrontation due to foreshadowing, the narrator’s description of Obi discovering the ruined garden suggests that neither he nor the headmaster expected it, an example of dramatic irony. The supervisor’s report is the final ironic nail in the coffin of Obi’s career. Obi blocked the path to prevent the “pagans” from engaging in their rituals on the school compound, which he worried would reflect poorly on him during the inspection, but the supervisor cites Obi’s rigidity and unwillingness to compromise with the villagers as the root of the problem.
Maxim
This comes in the form of the village priest’s proverb: “What I always say is: let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch” (74). This aphoristic saying is short yet contains a kernel of truth that can be understood by all; the priest reminds the headmaster that both belief systems must be given equal weight and should be respected by the other. The birds referenced in the proverb are potentially dangerous, so it can also be seen as a warning to Obi. By providing one of the story’s themes in a maxim, Achebe creates something memorable for the reader to take away with them.
Achebe often used proverbs in his writing to bring a sense of authentic African life and culture as part of his project creating a “new” English of postcolonial writing. This strategy is present in other details in the story, such as the discussion of ancestors, the diviner, and the deity Ani.
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By Chinua Achebe
