0534028
Selina Ge
June 21, 2007
Timed-writing Three
Directions: In Dead Men’s Path the priest says “let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch.” Discuss what you think he means and what this saying reveals about him.
The hawk and the eagle perch are two different kinds of animals and they have different places to rest. It is better that set them apart from each other to make them get along well. If you insist on finding one place and putting them together, there probably will be some kind of fight. It is impossible that all the people over the world have the same belief and difference exists all the time. Just as the animals, the best way to deal with people different from yourself is to keep away from them and not to disturb their life.
By saying that, the priest means that for the young headmaster, the villagers are different people who hold on different beliefs. The belief which is symbolized by the dead men’s path has existed for thousands of years and has been passed by from generation to generation. No one had the right to say that what they believe in is just some kind of superstition and the dead men’s path should be closed. The dead men’s path neither has some bad influence on the school nor does harm to the young headmaster, so the young headmaster does not have the right to close the path just because that it is a sigh of a different belief system.
From this saying, we can see that the priest is a lenient and wise person. He is old and has come across so many kinds of things in the life, so he understands more than both of the young headmaster and the villagers. He persuades the headmaster in peace ways of telling him the truth, not by quarreling with him. It reveals that he is wise and intellectual. He knows that if the headmaster insists on closing the path, the villagers will adopt some violent actions to oppose of that and the conflict will be enlarged. He hopes that the headmaster who is too young to know some truths in the world will accept his suggestions but he fails.
