Dead Men's Path - Chinua Achebe

Dead Men's Path

by Chinua Achebe
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Dead Men's Path was a folklore story about the repercussions of neglecting the wishes of ancestral spirits. Set in Nigeria, it follows the enterprising new headmaster of a school named Michael Obi in his attempt to eradicate the beliefs of old. He wants to fence off the century-old of a walkway for the dead and the unborn to enter the village. Everything he does, he does in order to impress the inspector coming the following week. Despite the warnings of an old priest who told him "the whole life of this village depends on it", Obi blockades the pathway, claiming the spirits would not mind a slight detour.

Little does Obi know that his actions would be so counterproductive. Much to his dismay, a mother died in childbirth the next day, his hedges were torn up, his flowers were trampled on, and one of his school buildings were destroyed.

In my opinion, the purpose of this story centralized around the importance of respecting one's elders and one's ancestors. Michael Obi, living in the present day and planning for his future, with no regard to anything else, incurs the wrath of his ancestors by disrespecting them and disrespecting his elders who warned him. What I interpreted the story to mean is as follows: do not get too wrapped up in your own ambitions that you ignore the desires of those around you.

Saboteur - Ha Jin

Saboteur

Written by Ha Jin

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Saboteur is a story written with a clear purpose. It details the atrocities that befall the unfortunate Mr. Chiu, a lecturer at a nearby university. The entire story seemed to be an outcry against authority. The last paragraph of the story describes Mr. Chiu's act of vengeance resulting from his predicament; the most interesting part of the novel for me, I was left considering whether his action was justified.

Abuse of power

The fundamental plot of the story follows the policemen seriously abusing their power -- they know that they can do whatever they please, and they do so without remorse.  Mr. Chiu, an educated scholar, who was highly aware that the police were breaking the law and bullying innocent citizens, is highly perturbed by his wrongdoers actions:"Time and again he was overwhelmed by anger, cursing aloud, 'A bunch of thugs!' "

Vengeance

As I mentioned prior, Mr. Chiu did get his revenge on the police. The last paragraph of the story describes how he "dragged his lawyer from restaurant to restaurant near the police station, but at each place he ordered no more than two bowls of food ... ... While eating, he kept saying through his teeth, 'If only I could kill all the bastards!' " The author goes on to describe the epidemic of acute hepatitis that began to plague the vicinity within six months, clearly inferring that Mr. Chiu was the source.

Was Chiu justified in his revenge?

Personally, I was shocked by the ending. Though he is illustrated throughout the novel as a hateful and spiteful individual, he also is described as one who is able to remain calm despite his anger. A very educated man, I expected better morals of Chiu. Indeed, he and his lawyer were severely wronged by the barbaric policemen. Yet, that hardly gives Chiu the right to enact his revenge against the general public. There was nothing else he could do to get back at the police, save murdering them and landing himself in jail, but, in my opinion, that in no way justifies his actions against the community as a whole. As mentioned at the end of the story, "Six died of the disease, including two chuildren."

Thus, it is my opinion that this a story of revenge that instills poor ethics. I highly disagree with the morals that Saboteur infers in its message. Rather than acting on revenge when one is wronged, one should learn to cope with the wrongdoing in a more positive manner: forgiving and moving on.

"Brokeback Mountain" -- Annie Proulx

Brokeback Mountain
by Annie Proulx
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"Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives"

Not your average love story, by any means. Brokeback Mountain is unquestionably a tragedy. Of course, it is tragic in regards to the fact that one of the two protagonists of the story is brutally beaten to death by a tire iron and left in the dirt to drown in his own blood; a gruesome, unwarranted death for a man with half of his life left in front of him. However -- and not to undermine the tragedy of this event at the end of the short story, by any means -- I propose that this story is tragic throughout. The very nature of the story is morose, the content depressing.
The problems in this story are issues that many people today continue to deal with. Homosexuals especially saw issues identical to this preventing man from being with his lover throughout the course of history, but this most recent century perhaps more than ever. Homophobia is a fear that has driven the vast majority to hate homosexuals and commit unforgivably cruel crimes against them.
I digress; I would now bring up one of the most prominent plays ever written as an example for comparison: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Two star-crossed lovers, destined to be together should circumstance ever permit, but kept apart by fear of the repercussions of their actions. Romeo and Juliet and Brokeback Mountain tell virtually the same story from two very different perspectives. Both stories are told from a narrative that leads the reader to identify with the lovers and hope for their reunion, their happiness together. Both are tragedies. Both leave a sour taste in the reader's mouth after putting the story down and result in a bitterness regarding the nature of society in the time it was written.
Before reading this for class, what I had heard about the story was limited to the very judgmental summaries of my friends. There seriously is a lot more to the story than two homosexual cowboys finding comfort in each others' arms in the cold of winter. Popular speculation of the story does the piece a serious injustice -- it really contains lots of insightful, brilliant subtext about the harsh reality of love being denied by the circumstances the lovers find themselves in.

"Complicity" by Tim Parrish

Complicity
by Tim Parrish
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"Next time you wanta hit my son, remember this"

Tim Parrish's Complicity is a short story that excels in telling a story by showing instead of telling. Throughout my life, my English teachers have always told me to show what is going on by describing the situation and leaving the reader to figure out what it means for himself, instead of outright explaining "this is what happens".
Parrish does this by developing a relationship between the main character's family and the family across the street, the Parks. Jeb, the main character, acts as a foil for Mr. Parks by getting in a fight with his son. Once his father catches the two of them fighting, his true colors shine. He holds Jeb back for Ricky, his son, to wail on him, striking him over and over in the stomach. It is at this point in the story where the reader is able to see the kind of man that Mr. Parks really is.
Later on in the story, Mr. Parks' wife is tied down and beaten until she is black and blue while nobody else was home in the house. When pressed, Mr. Parks is adamant that the intruder must have been an African American adolescent who came into their house and hurt his wife. However, the author drops hints that Jeb is skeptical.
I came to the conclusion that Mr. Parks was the one who hurt his wife, because of his violent nature and because of Mrs. Parks' tendency to dismiss the question whenever the topic of her being beaten was brought up. In my opinion, this story centralized around the theme of everything not being quite as it seems. Although popular opinion may dictate that an event happened one way, in reality that is not always the case.

Ray Bradbury, "2026: There Will Come Soft Rains"

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"The fire burst the house and let it slam flat down, puffing out skirts of spark and smoke."


Bradbury's "2026: There Will Come Soft Rains" is another science fiction piece set in the future. In my opinion, this was my least favorite story that we have read so far. It lacks any real plot; the events in the story seem to be written as if in a list, and it struggled to hold my attention throughout the whole story. In my opinion, virtually the entire story was description. The only conflict was the house burning down and even that did not interest me in the slightest because the author gives us no information at all about any characters other than a dog.
It left me wondering: how are we supposed to connect with the story at all, given such little information? Why should I care about the house burning down? All of these questions were left spinning in my mind after finishing the short story and it only served to frustrate me after a boring read about how different houses are going to be twelve years from now.