Dead Men’s Path

The path is an important symbol that works on several levels in the story. It is an actual trail that cuts across the school compound, physically connecting the village shrine to ancestral burial grounds. On a spiritual level, it is the route taken by the dead to depart the village, by the ancestors to visit the village, and most critically by newborns coming to be born. It suggests that in the villagers’ religious beliefs, there is no clear separation between the past, present, and future, or between the ancestors and the unborn. Rather, they are all part of a continuum.

The path, which represents tradition, cuts across the land and boundaries of the modern school compound, which has been imposed on the pre-existing village. The presence of the path without Obi’s knowledge (until he spies the old woman crossing the compound) suggests that tradition and modernity can coexist, but Obi’s response to learning of the path’s existence is to block it with sticks and then barbed wire. This signifies that he is not open to peaceful coexistence. Thus the “Dead Men’s Path” of the title becomes not only the track linking the living and the dead, but it also symbolizes the path Obi insists on taking with his arrogant and inflexible actions.