Dead Man's Path

Dead Men’s Path is a short story that was written by Chinua Achebe.  Achebe’s actual full name is Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe. The Nigerian artist was born in 1930. He has a best-selling world renowned book called Things Fall Apart. This book is one of the most read books in African literature nowadays.

The short story Dead Man’s Path is all about tradition and respecting our elders and other cultures.  This story is all about a man, Michael Obi, and his wife, Nancy Obi.  Michael is offered a job at a school as headmaster, which he accepts enthusiastically and his wife, a little less enthusiastically.  The Ndume school he was appointed to was “backward in every sense of the word”.  The Obi’s decided to put all of their time into this school, Michael made sure the teaching was top-notch and his wife made the grounds gorgeous with her “dream-gardens”.

                While making her dream gardens and running the school, the Obi’s noticed that elders from the community were walking right through the gardens and through the school yards.  Michael did not like this at all and he placed sticks and barbed wires and blocked off the path.  The village priest then called Michael and called him out on this.  The priest said that this foot path was how their ancestors visited them and then Michael decided to mock him and tell the priest that that was the reason they closed off the path “The whole purpose of our school… is to eradicate just such beliefs as that… Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas”.  The priest then left and the next day when the Obi’s woke up, their gardens were completely wrecked and even one of the school buildings was torn down.

                I believe that the Obi’s should have respected the elder’s enough to talk this out with them before they put up barbed wire, but the elders should have tried to compromise, saying maybe they wouldn’t walk there during school hours.

Stones

The short story Stones was written by Timothy Findley in 1988. Timothy Findley was a Canadian playwright and novelist from Toronto.  It is also rumoured that he had a small part in a movie “John Cabot: A Man of the Renaissance”  but it was never know if he was or not. 

Dieppe

                So, the short story Stones is about a family in the WWII era, and the hardships they suffered because of the ongoing war.  The narrator of this story is one of the sons in the story, named Ben.  Ben’s father, like many other men, was called into the line of duty to fight for the Canadian military in WWII.  The father was sent to Dieppe and he ditched, turned back and left the other men to fight for themselves.  Because of his actions, the father was dishonorably discharged from the Canadian military and was sent back home with shame on his shoulders and in his face.  The father is having a hard time dealing with the events of the war and the outcome of his actions and is seemingly insane.  After strangling and almost killing the mother, he leaves home and lives alone for the rest of his life.  The son takes his ashes and spreads them all over Dieppe.

                I found this story very intriguing because it shows a very real part of many families lives who lived through WWII,  at first their lives were normal and happy, then suddenly everything was ripped apart by the turmoil of WWII.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

The poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night was written by Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was a poet/writer from Wales who, strangely enough, wrote his works in english only. He was born in 1914 and only lived to be 39 years old. Thomas wrote, not only poems, but short stories and film and radio scripts! When I first read the title I thought it was just about a person who didn't want to go to sleep, but later found out that the them is death and the poem is actually about someone fighting against death and the thought of death.

                This poem pretty much just describes somebody’s opinion of death and how they think everyone should act when it comes to them or someone around them dying. The person who is giving their opinion is saying to fight when death knocks on your door and to try and keep living as long as possible, to stay strong no matter what anyone else says on the topic of death.

                My personal opinion is that death eventually comes to visit us all and there isn’t much about it that we can do, but it is everyone’s personal opinion when it comes to such a controversial topic such as this. Now if the person said we should all eat healthy and exercise plenty to stay healthy and alive for as long as possible then I would have to strongly agree with him!  This poem creates plenty of controversy to such a private issue.