Chinua Achebe, author of “Dead Men's Path,” was born in a village in eastern Nigeria; since he was the son of a missionary, he had a Christian education. He studied in England at the University of London, but finished his studies at University College, Ibadan. After returning home, Achebe saw Nigeria free itself from the control of England as the country gained its independence. The experience of these two worlds colliding in his formative years most likely influenced his story, since the main conflict in “Dead Men's Path” is the conflict between competing worldviews. The story is set in a small village which is a disputed territory everywhere, while the headmaster fights with the villagers over issues of control. The fact that the story is set in a small village is vital because small communities are more likely to maintain traditional values ​​than larger, more progressive areas. Michael Obi's attempts, similar to those of centuries of Christian missionaries throughout history, to revolutionize the village set everyone further back than before his arrival. He goes against the formidable beast of tradition without the proper tools or attitude and loses spectacularly. In his exploration of symbolism, point of view, and characterization, Achebe argues that prosperity is unattainable when the beliefs of others are not treated with due deference, even if those beliefs are not shared. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Nature is as much at war with itself as people are at war with each other throughout history. The school garden, representative of all the modernity that Michael Obi seeks to bring out, is built around the old path which has much more utility than beauty, going against the 'modern values' that led to the construction of the garden in the first place . In Obi's eyes, the path is "weak" and "almost disused", but in reality it is sacred to the people. He is the symbol of all the ideas that the villagers struggle to maintain, values ​​that the newcomer believes he can control. In the eyes of a person seeking to change it, the path is irrelevant and the garden the epitome of beauty, representative of modern thinking with “beautiful hedges of hibiscus and allamanda in bright red and yellow”. The garden swallows the path, but the path cuts through the garden. Neither of them is willing to give the other their space, instead trying to hinder them. Therefore, neither the garden nor the path reaches their full usefulness. Although the story is written in a third-person perspective, the reader is given information about the protagonist's motivations. By seeing the story through the eyes of Michael Obi, the new principal, the reader can understand that he has good intentions such as introducing “a high standard of teaching” and transforming the school complex “into a place of beauty”. he's not simply a villain who barges in and tries to terrorize a village by ripping away what the residents hold dear. We are able to feel an intrinsic sympathy for the villagers' struggle to maintain the path because they believe that “the whole life of this village depends on it. about it" as well as sympathy for the man who is trying to change things because he wants to help Obi believes that the best way to help the people of this village is to educate them, modernize them and make sure that this happens. Children do not cling to their parents' superstitions. His pure intentions are confused by his adamant refusal to try to understand a different perspective.