Dead Men’s Path

Colonialism often uses binaries to understand and control the colonized Other. This can be seen, for example, in Obi’s attitude toward the local religious beliefs. Identify and discuss some examples of this in the story. How does the story instill counterpoints to this idea?

Michael and his wife, Nancy Obi, have two aims for the new school: Instill a high level of learning and beautify the compounds. How are these two ideas related and part of the same colonial project?

How does Achebe use imagery to develop the story’s themes? Choose three images and analyze them.

Achebe includes elements of communal storytelling and oral culture in his work to reflect an authentic African voice. Compare the two phrases used in the story (“a penny for your thoughts, Mike” and “let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch”) and think about how they represent modern English versus traditional African culture.

The mission school has been used by other African writers as a setting for staging conflict between the modern and the traditional. Compare this story to one in Zimbabwean Charles Mungoshi‘s collection of short stories called Coming of the Dry Season (1972) about either colonial Rhodesia or postcolonial Zimbabwe (the name the country takes after independence).

Read Achebe’s most famous novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), and discuss how the mission school is presented in a more nuanced way in it. Does this different depiction deviate from or reinforce the themes in “Dead Men’s Path”?

Describe the three female characters in this story (Nancy, the old woman, and the woman who dies in childbirth). Do you think that their roles in the story are as important as the male characters? How do women and their roles in “modern” society differ from “traditional” society? Does it matter that the deity the village priest serves is a goddess?

While the village priest seems to be suggesting a solution to the conflict based on mutual respect, the destruction of the school compound by the villagers suggests that they are closer to Obi’s attitude than the priest’s. Do you think that the priest’s solution will solve the problem?