[영어글쓰기2] "Dead Men's Path" Close Reading

Kim 000000

Lee 0000000

Park 000000

Oh 00000

Professor 000000 Pang

Writing 2

20 March 2024

 

Obi woke up next morning among the ruins of his work. The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near the path but right round the school, the flowers trampled to death and one of the school buildings pulled down . . . That day, the white Supervisor came to inspect the school and wrote a nasty report on the state of the premises but more seriously about the "tribal-­war situation developing between the school and the village, arising in part from the misguided zeal of the new headmaster."

 

In the start of this passage, Obi woke up not ‘to’ the ruins of his work, but rather, ‘among’ the ruins of his work. This means that Obi is part of the ruins, or located among the ruins of his work. In the next sentence, “The beautiful hedges were torn up…one of the school buildings pulled down…”, no subject is being explicitly mentioned (‘who’ did the action) when Obi is the subject of the first sentence, and the white Supervisor the last. So, the readers do not actually know who had actually destroyed the school building and the hedges. The ellipsis in the end of this sentence indicates that there may be more ruined places and structures which are not described explicitly in the text itself.

The Supervisor came to inspect the school on the day the school was ruined, which tells that the supervisor happened to be near the school premises rather than being far away. Also, the position of the Supervisor is described with a capital ‘S’, unlike the position of the headmaster, which is used with a lowercase ‘h’. The fact that when other positions in the entire story are described, they are with no mention of the specific race of the person occupying it, but the Supervisor being described as ‘white’ is noticeable.

The part “tribal-war situation…misguided zeal of the new headmaster” is used with double quotation marks, which shows that it is from the ‘nasty report’ of the white Supervisor.  The term ‘nasty’ could be subjective or objective (3. Mean, tawdry 4c. Sharply unpleasant). However, considering the term ‘misguided zeal’ in the report itself, it could be suggested that the report by the white supervisor may not be entirely objective.

           Moreover, the word "tribal-war situation" mentioned in the report indicates that there are at least two tribes involved in this situation. The significance of this expression is that, from the perspective of the "white" supervisor, the disagreement between the tribes, specifically the school and the villagers, appeared as a war that was caused by the misguided enthusiasm of the new headmaster, Michael Obi.

Obi didn’t realize someone was destroying the flowers along the path and the school district while he was sleeping, which is suspicious. Also, the coincidence that the white Supervisor came to inspect the school the exact day the school area was destroyed is very bizarre.