The Path In Dead Men's Path

In this novel, Dead Men’s Path the main character, Michael, tries to change the tradition of the ancient path. Michael sees a more contemporary way of doing things that the villagers don’t agree with. The author uses many techniques to later persuade the reader that closing the ancestral footpath was a terrible idea. On page 477, Michael notices an elderly woman walking along the footpath while he was admiring his newly beautiful school. Therefore, the footpath immediately upset Michael personally for distracting the attention away from the school. The elderly woman walked directly through his recently planted marigolds and hedges. Michael felt the woman was taking away the beauty from his school by walking right through the compound. Michael cared about the school and its new improvements so much that it upset him greatly to see it get disrespected by this woman. The village priest, Annie, tells Michael that the footpath is extremely significant and holds the entire village together. He says, “Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to be born.” These are the important beliefs and traditions of the footpath, Annie says, “this path was here before you were born and before your father was born.” This path is ancient and well

Was the death of the woman in childbed simply a coincidence? Were there really angry spirit ancestors, causing trouble? And lastly, why was the school the great sacrifice made to the ancestors? All these untied loose ends leave the reader to end the story himself/herself believing whatever they thought was true. Whether or not it was the crazy superstitious villagers or the angry spirits of their ancestors. This is why the ending of this story is so great, because there isn’t one. It has whatever ending you, as a reader, want it to have because the author purposely leaves it open for the reader to decide what they