In “Dead Men’s Path”, Chinua Achebe uses the very sudden and late introduction of a white Supervisor to depict that, in real life, what is ideal does not always happen; in theory, people see exactly what their eyes see, though because no human is truly perfect, this often doesn't even matter.

Throughout the short story, Obi appears as a very opinionated man who strongly dislikes the incorporation of tradition into education. The narrative uses numerous words with negative connotations in order to signify its distaste towards tradition, suggesting that Obi is the narrator. An example being near the middle of the story: When the village priest attempts to explain to Obi why the ancestor’s path is important to the villagers, Obi just smiles at him and says that “[their] duty is to teach [the] children to laugh at such ideas” (Achebe 3). What he is essentially saying is that they must teach children not to acknowledge multiple ideas. However, it should be that the main focus is not whether the other opinion is wrong or not, rather it’s the simple acknowledgement of why the other ideal even exists that truly matters. Obi clearly is not respecting the villager’s opinion, but that does not necessarily indicate that he means harm. It appears that Achebe uses the entire first part of the story to focus the reader’s attention on Obi and his wrongdoings towards the village, only to use a nameless character at the end to unravel the deeper meaning of the narrative. At the end of “Dead Men’s Path”, a “white Supervisor” is introduced (Achebe 4), and just from the word “white”, the sentence already seems a bit odd. Assuming that one believed Obi were an outsider, and possibly white, it would be strange for him to refer to the Supervisor as also “white”. By making the conclusion that Obi is, in fact, not an outsider, rather that he is a past resident of the village, the sentence comes across as making much more sense. The Supervisor reports a very short, negative, and simplified version of the events that transgressed during Obi’s time at Ndume. He says that the town developed a “tribal-war” situation because of Obi’s “misguided zeal” (Achebe 4). His use of the word “tribal” again supports the the idea that Obi is of the same race as the villagers. It is as if he is implying that if he were in Obi’s place, this “tribal-war” would not have developed because he is not from their village. Yet this was his “mission” as well (Achebe 1). His suggestion that Obi’s ideals were misguided is somewhat true, but the author seems to be making the point that whether his ideas were misguided or not doesn't even matter in the end. Achebe paints Obi as the villain the first half, only to reveal that though his methods were not the best, he did mean well. Except, to the rest of the world, that doesn't matter. The rest of the world is us the readers. This draws a parallel to what the reader thinks in the beginning of the narrative (that Obi is a horrible prejudiced person), to what the reader realizes is the truth by the end. What the world sees is what the Supervisor saw, or pretended to see, and may not be the whole unadulterated truth.