Essay Draft Three
Tom Lee
June 5, 2007
Draft Three
An Excellent Fighter
A good fighter needs two things: ambition, and courage. There are such a great number of good fighters in the human history. Because of their endless struggle against the backward force, people get civilized, and the society moves forward. There are barely any virtues inappropriate for them. To honor them, we give them the title Prometheus, the God who sacrificed himself to bring fire to the world, and their sagas-legends will be internally remembered from generation to generation.
In the story of Dead Men Path, by Chinua Achebe, the protagonist Mr Obi is characterized as one fighter of this kind. It is a story about Obi, who’s an ambitious and progressive headmaster. After bravely closing the old tribal path for the dead men across the school, he got his work ruined by the violence of the superstitious villagers at last. Though not a success, he keeps his honour by his fight. People can easily find ambition and bravery from his trial. In a word, he performs an excellent fighter in the field of eradicating the superstition and making the people got civilized.
Like all good fighters in the history, he is a man of great ambition. From the words of Mission Authority and the narrator in the start of the story, readers get to know that Obi has a long history behind him against the superstition, which proves his everlasting ambition of eradicating it. In this particular field, “he has many wonderful ideas”, “enthusiasm” and even “designated him a pivotal teacher in the official records”1. His ambition of his work in the new school can also be easily told from his joyful talk with his wife. Obviously, he has confidence in doing a good job in the new school, and the more important, making the school become the centre of knowledge and the civilization in the nearby district. When he comments that the colleagues’ unmarried family situation is a good thing, readers can learn without effort that all he concerns is the school, nothing else. As we may notice, his wife is also modern-minded person who carries the same dream of Obi’s, and it’s “infected by her husband”2. So it’s not hard to deduce that what magical effect his ambition has, through this tiny detail. No doubt, ambition does not promise a certain success. Napoléon, the France emperor, has the ambition of conquering the world but failed, but people still regards him as a hero and are in favor of him. It is the same with Obi. Because of his great ambition and the trial, Obi can stand up to the title “an excellent fighter”.
Not only for his ambitions, but also for his admiring courage against the superstition, Obi can stand for an excellent fighter. It is widely known by the people around him that Obi possesses an outright character, for which he dares to condemn the superstition of people directly without fear. His outspoken character is so charmed, that it becomes an important reason for his appointment of the new school by Mission Authority. After taking the charge of the new school, he learnt that there was a big row for the dead men’s path in the past. Though understanding that it may ignite the villagers, he still made his decision to close the path without hesitation. It’s for his dream, for the school children’s bright future! Though it seems to be a small case to leave the path unchallenged, but if so, it means to surrender to the superstition of the villagers. Who knows what the villagers will request next time? If they want to “use the classroom for a pagan ritual”3, should Obi just let them go ahead? The villagers can easily find fault with his modern school, and because of their superstition, no one can predict what a worse thing would happen if Obi gave in. From this aspect, it proves that Obi is circumspect and farsighted in this choice and his enterprise, and they all come from his courage. To a fighter, there is no word “surrender” in their dictionary. No matter what a great threaten there is, they will choose to fight till the last minutes. Though his strength is limited, Obi chooses to challenge the backward force of the village. This is directly shown in the visit of the tribal priest, who stands for the superstition of the village. The words from the priest are stern and severe. But Obi kept his dignity. Facing the cow of the priest, he said directly ”The whole purpose of our school is to eradicate just such beliefs as that”4. Because of his courage, he stands erectly for what he believes right, and he is fearless towards the coming revenge. Like Santiago in the old man and the sea, by Hemingway, he fight fearless against with the overwhelming force, yet his doing shows that he is an excellent fighter, not a coward.
As a whole, though not a success, Obi is an excellent fighter, for he contains two features, the most important ones: ambition and courage. Yes, he failed, but who cares? He has tried his best to fight a clear sky of civilization for the children and change their fate of living under superstition. His trial is all what people will remember. Just like an England provoke, “an excellent fighter is never judged by the result”.
Worked Cited
1, Chinua Achebe, “Dead Men Path.”1953. Rpt. In “The International Story.” Page 52,
Paragraph One.
2, Chinua Achebe, “Dead Men Path.”1953. Rpt. In “The International Story.” Page 52,
Paragraph Two.
3, Chinua Achebe, “Dead Men Path.”1953. Rpt. In “The International Story.” Page 53,
Last Paragraph.
4, Chinua Achebe, “Dead Men Path.”1953. Rpt. In “The International Story.” Page 54,
Paragraph Seven.