The Healers Essay Breanna Santos College

Theodore Roosevelt once stated that “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” Often, illusions of comfort blockade the mind and sway an individual’s ability to clearly see the moral path that should be taken. In the novel The Healers, Ayi Kwei Armah presents readers with a moral dilemma that will either unite or destroy the Asante empire. Densu, the protagonist throughout the story, is forced to choose between two worlds. One world will potentially exterminate the Asante empire because of greed and power, and the other world will slowly heal the empire with patience and inspiration. Densu is faced against these two driving forces; Ababio, his evil and manipulative guardian, and his inclination to live simply as a Healer. Throughout this novel, Armah accentuates how traditions, values, and life cannot be conceded or mediated through his continuous examples of how greed, fraud, and deceit can destroy and divide a community.

Armah provides us with an animated tale with a simple, yet complex plot about manipulation versus inspiration, imagination versus destruction, and unity versus disunity. Critical changes occurred during this time period due to the...