“Dead Men’s Path”

By Chinua Achebe
At the beginning of the story, a twenty-six-year-old zealous man named
Michael Obi becomes the headmaster of the Ndume Central School. He is portrayed
as an extremely intolerant man who wishes to eradicate traditional beliefs and customs
while simultaneously promoting "modern methods." Michael Obi views the local
villagers with contempt and believes they are superannuated people with outrageous
customs and rituals. His main goals as headmaster of the Ndume Central School are to
promote and teach modern methods, eradicate traditional beliefs, and maintain the
beautiful gardens on the school's grounds.

After Michael Obi notices that an ancestral footpath travels through his
compound, he orders the path to be barricaded so that villagers cannot travel on it.
The village priest, Ani, then visits Michael Obi and petitions him to reopen the
ancestral footpath, explaining its significance to the villagers. Ani tells Michael Obi
that the spirits of their ancestors and unborn children travel along the footpath to visit
them, which is a belief that Obi finds amusing and ridiculous. Michael Obi refuses to
reopen the footpath, and a woman dies during childbirth that night. In response to her
death, the villagers destroy the beautiful school grounds the next day. When a white
supervisor visits the Ndume Central School, he witnesses the destruction and writes a
scathing report regarding the tribal-war situation developing as a result of Michael
Obi's misguided zeal.

Michael Obi’s ambition is fulfilled when, at age twenty-six, he is appointed to

whip into shape an unprogressive secondary school. Energetic, young, and idealistic
as he is, Obi hopes to clean up the educational mission field and speed up its
Christianizing mission. Already outspoken in his denigration of “the narrow views”
and ways of “superannuated people in the teaching field,” he expects to make a good
job of this grand opportunity and show people how a school should be run. He plans
to institute modern methods and demand high standards of teaching, while his wife,
Nancy—who looks forward to being the admired wife of the headmaster—plants her
“dream gardens” of beautiful hibiscus and allamanda hedges. With Nancy doing her
gardening part, they will together lift Ndume School from its backward ways to a
place of European-inspired beauty in which school regulations will replace the Ndume
village community’s traditional beliefs.

So Obi dreams and plans until one evening when he discovers a village woman
cutting across the school gardens on a footpath that links the village shrine with the
cemetery. Scandalized by her blatant trespassing, Obi orders the sacred ancestral
footpath fenced off with barbed wire, much to the consternation of the villagers. The
local priest then tries to remind Obi of the path’s historical and spiritual significance
as the sacred link between the villagers, their dead ancestors, and the yet unborn. Obi
flippantly derides the priest’s explanation as the very kind of superstition that the
school is intended to eradicate because “dead men do not require footpaths.” Two
days later the hedge surrounding the school, its flower beds, and one of its buildings
lie trampled and in ruins—the result of the villagers’ attempt to propitiate the
ancestors whom Obi’s fence has insulted. After his supervisor issues a report on this
incident, Obi is dismissed.
 “A Corner In My Soul”
By Saju Abraham

The poet talks about human life in the present times. The main idea of the poem
is that humans are extremely caught up in this materialistic life and often take
decisions that are not ethically right. This is when the ‘corner’ in his soul helps him.
The poet feels that there still is a part of his soul that is unaffected by the world
around and that gives his the right advice.

Whenever the poet is in a tricky situation where he is ‘faced with Hamlet’s

dilemma’, meaning when he doesn’t know what to do, or his mind is full of troubled
thoughts, he turns to that corner of his soul. That part is still untouched by corruption
and is still connected to God, so it gives his clear directions and leads him towards the
right direction.

Similarly, when he is upset or in grief, that particular corner helps him

understand things better. It gives him a clear picture and that consoles him. lt is a true
friend.

The hidden part of the soul is away from the rush of daily life and is his quiet
but trustworthy friend. This part of the soul can also be interpreted as the speaker’s
conscience. If one listens to his conscience, he will not do any wrong. Therefore, the
speaker gets joy from his friend.

The poet is trying to say that we need to be true to ourselves. We need to stop
being superficial and lead pretentious lives and instead should be in touch with our
conscience. That will make life worth living, in times of joy and sadness.
 “Struggles With Meaningless Things”
By Yosuke Tanaka

In the beginning, there was chaos. And Notebooks; And Files; And Two-
No, that’s not right. ring binders;
In the beginning, there was nothing. And Weekly magazines full of photos
An empty space spread out, big and Are the hardest to deal with.
empty. The thicker they are
Time flowed by, two years to be The more trying.
specific. Various things were brought
I like binders with two rings inside.
in.
Just use the classic two-hole punch once
Among them, a desk, a bed, a computer,
And with the satisfying click of the rings
shelves, chairs (two of them), a folding
snapping shut
table,
Papers are stored in colored binders in
An electric piano, a fax machine, and
their proper place. Neatly
then lots of newspapers.
They are put in order. However if these
Books. Magazines. Fliers advertising
files, with all their weight,
plays. Envelopes. CDs. Faxes from
Are lined up on top of the desk, they
different folks.
always fall to the left or right
Letters from different people.
Forming a slovenly angle (even when
Unimportant things. Important things.
you use bookends).
Things that might be important one day.
Push them from the left, they fall right,
(Now, all these things, no longer
Push them from the right, they fall left,
important,
Causing a snow-slide (an avalanche)
Fill all the available space.
To spread over the desktop
Cleaning the room (Pushing the whole pile of meaningless
Involves starting at the top of the piles things
and digging. Onto the floor in one fell swoop.
The various things I put in this pile one
When my bicycle key fell onto the floor,
by one
I almost cried.
Because they are handy or important or
All it did was fall down but
because I like them
It got sucked right in
Are things I love, so I cannot easily get
I moved all the files, all the books, all
rid of them.
the garbage,
Papers are harder to deal with than
Inspecting them piece by piece, then
books—that is common knowledge so
setting them down elsewhere
I just let the books be. I just wanted to
I took apart and went through the bag for
do battle with
the Hitachi Household Sweeper
The pile of papers. But the papers
Even though the “Empty Bag” light had
already in neat rectangles
not switched on yet
In other words, the ones that are bound
Oh man, it’s getting dark. And I won’t
together neatly to form
even be able to ride my bike anymore.
Booklets
This is how life gets all screwed up, just
one thing after another
These were the thoughts running
through my head as I leaned
absentmindedly on a pile of books.
They collapsed, making a mess in the
middle of the room.
Tons of things
Spread out before my eyes.
I feel like there is sand between my
teeth. What on earth is this gritty,
unpleasant feeling?
There is something over here labeled
“Shinch_ Japanese Dictionary”
And over there, something else labeled
“World of Literature”
But I no longer understand the temporal
or spatial relationship
Between these things and me who lives
among them.
Love and courage.
Courage and strength.
Those are what I really need. Ah! I want
to go outside, join hands with people
from all over the world,
And talk about these struggles with
meaningless things
Until I finally get these thoughts off my
chest. To make my way through this
wilderness.
From the other side of the room
I see the sign that says
“Take your garbage home to keep the
mountains clean.”
The paper bag from ICI-Sports. That’s
the bag I got that time I took my bike
To Jinboch_ to get some supplies to
climb Mount Nanntai in Okukuji.
My problem today, however, is what to
do with the junk back at home.
Maybe the junk is in messy piles is
because I am turning my eyes from other
problems
And trying to escape into
meaninglessness.
For instance, my worries about when
I’m going to get married
Or when I’m going to visit the dentist . .
.
It’s hot in summer alright! I bought
some very functional shelves that roll on
casters.
They’re a handy size and even have two
nice rows of drawers.
“The top surface is even heat resistant!
We use
Melamine boards.”
Oh yeah? That’s nice. There, in the only
space available,
I lead my elbow on the plasticized
surface and rest my chin on my hand
And wait, distracted, for summer to go
by.
 “To God Belongs What He Has Taken”
By Jensen Beach

“To God Belongs What He Has Taken,” Jensen Beach deftly

places us in the mind of a Stockholm woman caught up in a fantasy
about a stranger. It is a subtle and detailed snapshot of a form of
loneliness so universal that, in its confrontation, we find some relief.

David Foster Wallace said that fiction is “one of the few

experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved.” In
our March Web Exclusive story, “To God Belongs What He Has
Taken,” Jensen Beach deftly places us in the mind of a Stockholm
woman caught up in a fantasy about a stranger. It is a subtle and detailed
snapshot of a form of loneliness so universal that, in its confrontation,
we find some relief. We talked with Jensen about how that’s done by
writing other people, other voices, other cultures.
 “The Human Niche”
By Philippe Rochat

Species share the same physical environment and often the same basic resources such as
air, water, or trees. Yet, the same physical feature of the environment rarely has the same
survival meaning across species. A tree is, for chimpanzees, a place to spend the night, to hide,
or to feed. For humans, a tree is a source of energy, a material for the confectioning of multiple
artifacts, and an object of aesthetic appreciation. The same feature in the environment affords
different things and therefore has different meanings, meanings that are species specific. Note
that these meanings are not defined by the constitution of the individual per se. Rather, they are
defined by the functional relation between the individual member of a species and the
environment surrounding it, including all other members and living entities (e.g., con-specifics,
preys, or predators, in addition to physical things). This functional relation is constitutive of what
is commonly referred to by ethologists as an animal’s niche. Each species has its own unique
niche that defines species-specific meanings of an environment that might be physically the same
but is psychologically profoundly different.

In all species, individuals do not merely adapt to an independent physical environment;

they actually always contribute to its creation by transforming it. Hunting and gathering species
transform the environment by scavenging for food, constantly traveling in the quest for new,
more abundant resources for calories. They graze, they pick, they kill, and when they exhaust the
resources, they move on elsewhere.

What is unquestionably unique to humans is, for better or for worse, our unique impact
on the environment, which we transform, process, alter, in addition to destroy. The mere sight
from a plane when flying over land in most regions of the world is a crying testimony of the
uniquely human phenomenon. No other species has had such an impact on the environment,
particularly in the past couple hundred years with the advance of the industrial and now virtual
revolution, a period that is minute at the scale of biological, primate, and even human evolution
(a proportion of 0.00003 of the period since human speciation).

But what might account for the unique ratchet effect in human evolution when looking at
our impact on the environment and the explosion of the human niche in recent years? Evidently,
it is impossible to reduce the phenomenon to biological or mechanical causes. It is doubtful that
spontaneous genetic mutations or change in brain structure or brain size underlie humans’
accelerated and out of control impact on the environment that occurred in recent evolution. The
causes are cultural and come primarily from the reverberating effect of co-evolution whereby
invention and transformation of the environment are constantly re-defining the human niche in a
cumulative and exponential fashion. In addition to the transformation of the physical
environment, this niche is defined by the exponentially changing ways we communicate,
collaborate, move about, get entertained, create and produce new tools, tools that build tools. The
environment humans create and transform for themselves defines the human niche to which they
adapt. To be human is primarily to adapt to this niche that is unlike the niche of any other
animal. It is an always faster developing environment that constrains rapid adaptation via the
testimony and instruction of others. It thus entails a reliance on trust and reciprocity among
individuals. It is also an environment that emphasizes prestige and reputation. (To be human is
indeed to care about reputation). The levels of theory of mind that might be unique to humans are
byproducts of these basic survival constraints within the human accelerated co-evolutionary
niche.
 “Young Adult Science Fiction
In The Post Human Age”
By Jeffrey Kaplan
In “Is He Still Human? Are You?”:
Young Adult Science Fiction in the
Posthuman Age,” researcher Elaine Ostry
analyzes science fiction texts, written for
young adults, which deal with the tenets of
our new biotechnology age: cloning, genetic
engineering, prolongation of life, and
neuropharmacology. She discusses how
texts—young adult literature concerned with
bioethics—use the possibility of
biotechnology as metaphors for adolescence.
Specifically, these new engaging reads for
young adults discuss in vivid and clarifying
detail the ethics implied in the study and
practice of biotechnology—such as the
creation of a super class of human beings and
the delicate crossing of the boundaries
between human and animal, and that age-old
fascination, human and machine. Ostry raises
a number of startling questions and
propositions in regard to the promulgation of
young adult literature which examines in full
glory the outlines of a new and ever stranger
adult world and concludes that most of these
contemporary adolescent fictional texts place
“nurture above nature” and promote a safe
and traditional vision of humanity.
Still, danger lurks. As Ostry writes,
the potential of biotechnology to change
human form is ever present in young adult
literature that recently has seen science fiction
come to life. What their parents and
grandparents had always thought of as science
fiction, says Ostry, are now realities or
possible realities. The once time honored
“stuff of science fiction novels”— cloning,
genetic engineering, etc.,— is now the
everyday realities of young people’s lives.
Everything from artificially created limbs to
designer babies is very real for today’s
adolescents, bringing into question the eternal
question, “what does it mean to be human?”
After all, if biotechnology can change
the human form and mind, and machines can
become a reasonable part of the human body,
then the term post-human body or “techno-
body” is a distinct entity. And with the lines
crossed between organic and inorganic, Ostry
asserts, the word “human” may never be more
challenged, manipulated or questioned.
Understandably, Miranda is angry
with her parents for their implicit
deceptiveness and does not forgive them
easily. To be sure, these stories are wild and
fanciful in design, but they all, according to
Ostry, have one primary element in common;
the young adults in these books feel estranged
not just from their parents and from the
society that would likely shun them, but from
themselves as well. They feel that they are not
real because they are clones—or otherwise,
genetically engineered. “To find out your that
your life is a lie is one thing, but to find out
that your own face doesn’t even belong to
you,” says Jason angrily in Shusterman’s The
Dark Side of Nowhere, is to realize that you
are living a disguise, “down to every single
cell of my counterfeit body” (Shusterman, pg.
61).
Fears about the new biotechnology
generated world permeate new young adult
literature. As Ostry writes, the linkage
between human being and machine is always
called into question. Inevitably, the question
arises: Are we developing a race of super
humans? There is a striking example of
genetics creating a class system of super
humans in The Last Book in the Universe by
Rodman Philbrick. In this provocative read,
the world is divided into “normals” and
“proovs” The proovs are genetically improved
people, who live in Eden, the only place
where blue sky and green grass are found.
The normals live in the Urbs, concrete
jungles of violence and poverty. The narrator,
Spaz, is even less than a normal; as an
epileptic, he is a “Deef,” or defective.
Philbrick’s work is the inevitable conflict that
arises when two human beings compete for
superior status. In the end, no one wins. If
being human means feeling emotion,
continues Ostry, then losing control over
one’s emotions or having them controlled for
you, puts one’s humanity in direct
confrontation with the concept of human
freedom. Books using neuropharmacology, as
Ostry writes, exploit this idea. Upon reaching
puberty, the young adults in Lois Lowry’s
The Giver must take a pill that suppresses
sexual desires. Jonas, the story’s protagonist,
is uncomfortable with this ruling, and secretly
stops taking this pill. Suddenly, Jonas
discovers that all emotions become
heightened. Similarly, the female leaders in
Kathryn Lasky’s Star Split stop taking the
substance that calms their emotions.
In Peter Dickinson’s Eva, a mother’s
concern for her daughter’s happiness is
answered by a doctor’s order for a “microshot
of endorphin” (Dickinson, p. 10), as if mere
chemicals could alter happiness. And in
Philbrick’s The Last Book in the Universe,
the human mind is completely mediated by
chemically induced sights and emotions. This
new reality, Ostry insists, is becoming more
and more real to young adults as the world
outside their classroom door becomes more
science fact than science fiction. And this new
reality lends a new breadth and depth to
young adult literature that heretofore, has only
existed in the realm of fantasy. Most of the
characters in these post-human science fiction
books for young adults, writes Ostry, face
choices that determines the level of their
humanity.
The young protagonists display a
considerable energy and wit in their defense
of humanity. They label themselves as
human, using the standards of morality set by
the liberal humanist model. They recognize
the humanity of others, tolerating others’
weaknesses and rejecting the supremacy of
the post-human body. In these books, Ostry
underscores, scientists are seen as fallible. In
Marilyn Kaye’s Amy, young Amy’s adoptive
mother Nancy says that she thought that by
engaging in scientific experimentation with
her daughter that she was doing something
pure and noble and good.
Instead, they learned how dangerous
playing with human life forms could really
be. In Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Turnabout,
the unaging drug is supposed to be arrested by
another drug at the age desired, but,
unfortunately, the first person to try this
medical wonder pill crumbles into dust. Only
the young protagonists Melly and Anny Beth
ultimately survive the experiment as all others
choose suicide or dwell in severe depression.
Similarly, in Frank Bonham’s The Forever
Formula the aged “gummies” or old people
without teeth and wit, suffer from malaise and
beg to play “suicide bingo.” And the positive
characters in Nancy Farmer’s The House of
Scorpion are disgusted by the old men who
prolong their lives past the age of 150 years
by means of continual implants from clones.
The message that these books give to
young readers, Ostry concludes, is a
reassuring one: human values and human
nature will prevail no matter what changes the
human body endures. These values are what
literature—and the adult world in general—
attempt to inculcate in young people. Still,
Ostry insists, for the most part young adult
writers are playing it safe because inevitably,
the real world is highly more complicated.
The future of science and the body is much
less certain, Ostry asserts, than most young
adult novels would have you believe. No one
knows for sure what the personality of a clone
would be like.
Free will itself may be a combination
of genetic factors, yet these possibilities,
writes Ostry, are too complicated and radical
for the typical writer for young adults today.
They stray from the perceived notion in
young adult literature of the need to provide a
clear moral structure and a hopeful, if not
happy, ending.
For, as Ostry finishes, although these
post modern writers may push the envelope in
young adult literature in the subject matter
and grotesque imagery, most of these writers
play it very safe by showing the posthuman
body as comfortingly familiar—something
which may be as far from the truth as can
possibly be imagined. This is the world Ostry
dares to paint.