“Dead Men’s Path,” take place in a village located in Nigeria, Africa. There’s a man and the village fighting about a path, and the outcome does not end well for one of them. In this story, Chinua Achebe uses conflict and symbolism to teach us that outside ideas are not the best idea.
In the short story, conflict helps find the theme. The conflict is between Obi, a young man with new ideas, and an old, traditional village. They were fighting over a path in the village. Obi was to close the path because to him the path is useless, but to the village the path means the world to them. The village ends up winning because Obi and his wife made hedges and the villagers came and ruin their work “The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near the path but right round the school, the flowers trampled to death and one of the school buildings pulled down…” (Achebe 999) The village messed up all of Obi’s work that he did to the path. The village wins, so we know that Obi’s ideas, the outside idea, were not the best.
Not only did Chinua Achebe use conflict, he also used symbolism to help teach theme. The path symbolizes tradition. The path leads to shrine – a place of religious devotion commemoration –and the villagers use the shrine for religious activities for years. The villagers go to the shrine to worship and that’s a tradition in their culture; therefore, that’s why the villagers torn down all of Obi’s work because he was trying to shut down the path. “Although it is hardly used, it connects the village shrine with their place of burial.” You can’t stop tradition.
As you can see, “Dead Men’s Path” applied conflict and symbolism to educate us that other people, Obi, ideas are not useful at times when you are fighting for what you believe in. The conflict between Obi and the village, the village won because they fought for what they have faith in, the path. The path, which is the symbol, Obi comes from the outside party and tries to shut it down, but the village was not going to let that happen. Never stop fighting for what you have faith in, keep going until you get what’s right for you.