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Provide a 5 pages analysis while answering the following question: Chinua Achebes Dead Mens Path

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Provide a 5 pages analysis while answering the following question: Chinua Achebes Dead Mens Path. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. The specific process of identifying conflicts and opportunities for compromise is best illustrated in Chinua Achebe’s Dead Men’s Path.

Christian in a country that is largely into traditional religious practices. However, his religion did not deter his interest from the tribal tales of life (Achebe 113). The characters of the story include the over-zealous headmaster Mr Obi, his young wife Nancy, the old village priest, and the ‘white’ supervisor. The story began with the contrast of the old and new: the Ndume Central School was pegged “backwards” while Mr Obi and his wife were making plans of ‘modernizing’ the school (Achebe 113-114). The conflict starts when Mr Obi closed the village’s ancestral footpath that crossed the school compound. The village priest came to explain that the footpath was the link between the unborn, the living and the dead. This belief articulates the “existence of an area of transition” between those three (Viola and Durix 243). The dialogue between the headmaster and the village priest was a failure, most especially on the headmaster’s part, because the headmaster chose to ignore the village priest’s advice: “let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch” (Achebe 115. Emenyonu and Uko 66). It all ends with the death of a young woman in giving birth, followed by the destruction of Mr Obi’s work, and the white supervisor’s ironic disapproval of Mr Obi’s “misguided zeal” (Achebe 115).

Furthermore, the use of differing and regional-like speech (i.e., priest’s) can be observed of Achebe’s short story (Innes 11). This use of speech is useful in establishing the religious background of each character as well as inferring the ‘foreign’ influences that abound the characters’ environment.

Two concepts that were detrimental in recognizing conflicts of interest were Izzo’s mimicry and mindless (89-90).&nbsp.