Adam's Writing Portfolio

Reading Log--Revere things you don’t know

Reading Log

Revere things you don’t know

After having read the article “Dead Men’s Path” by Chinua Achebe twice, I feel strongly that anyone should revere things that he doesn’t know.

    In the short story, Chinua tells us what happened on the protagonist—Michael Obi, who was appointed headmaster of Ndume central School in January 1949, then rudely insulted the local rituals of tribal life and at last met a lot of troubles which corresponded with his rudeness.

    Standing here, I asked myself why this would happen, and doubted that whether Obi is right or wrong. At first, I thought Obi is right because the educator should eradicate such fantastic ideas as “Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it.” After all, a school is the place where pupils learn knowledge but fears of the “Dead ancestors”.(P54) However later on, I reversed my opinion. I had tried thinking maybe there was some responsibilities of Obi. From this prospect, I found something covered.

    Western men believe in the Holly Bible. That’s true! Therefore, those men believe God exists. Needless to say, there is always someone who is skeptical about the existence of God. None of people have seen the God, but who can say that “The God doesn’t exist because none of us have seen him!” I’m afraid not. So we can go a little further from this. We can’t say “The dead man doesn’t exist because none of us have met them.” We can’t deny the existence and the influence of the unknown or unseen things such as “Dead men”. We don’t know things that we don’t know. It’s better for us to hold them in awe, no insults to them. What the priest said is quite reasonable—Let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch. If Obi had obeyed this rule, maybe (it’s just “maybe&rdquo that woman wouldn’t die.

    Therefore, let us keep revering the things we don’t know, and I think it should be the best way we deal with the “UNKNOWN”.

21.6.07 17:38