No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

First published: 1960

Type of work: Social chronicle

Time of work: The 1950’s

Locale: Nigeria

Principal Characters:

• Obi Okonkwo, a young, London-educated member of the Nigerian Civil Service
• Joseph, Obi’s clansman, his roommate in Lagos for a short time
• The Honorable Sam Okoli, a prosperous and corrupt minister of state
• Christopher, Obi’s friend, a member of the Nigerian Civil Service
• Clara, Obi’s girlfriend, an osu
• The Reverend Mr. Samuel Ikedi, a missionary in Umuofia
• Mr. Green, Obi’s immediate superior in the Nigerian Civil Service, a European
• Isaac Nwoye Okonkwo, Obi’s father, a retired Church of England catechist

The Novel

No Longer at Ease opens and closes at the trial of Obi Okonkwo, a young civil servant in the colonial Nigerian government who is accused of accepting bribes. Within this frame, the bulk of the novel is a retrospective look at Obi’s progress from the remote village of Umuofia in southeastern Nigeria, where he is the star pupil in the missionary school, to an English university, where he earns a degree with honors in literature, and then to a position with the Nigerian Civil Service in Lagos, where he finally succumbs to the prevalent practice of bribery and is caught.

Obi is selected as the first representative of Umuofia to receive a European education, and the expenses of his education are underwritten by the Umuofian Progressive Union (UPU), an organization of clansmen that conscientiously promotes the general well-being of the clan. The members of the UPU view their support of Obi as a means of enhancing the status of their village and as an investment that will pay economic dividends. Obi’s English education gives him access to the Nigerian Civil Service, and the UPU members expect him to use his influence to help other clansmen win white-collar jobs with the government. Yet Obi’s studies in English literature, his exposure to European culture, and his passive temperament alienate him from his homeland and from his clan.

On the ship back from England, Obi meets Clara, and he subsequently falls in love with her despite the fact that she is osu, marked by a traditional, hereditary taboo. Obi stubbornly resists Clara’s suggestion that they break off their star-crossed affair, rejecting the traditional taboo as primitive superstition, but his naive determination to be thoroughly modern places him in direct conflict with his family and with his clan.

His life is further complicated by his increasingly difficult financial situation. He is obligated to repay the cost of his education to the UPU so that the funds can be reinvested in the education of another clansman. He also feels the pressure to keep up the material appearances expected of one in his position—a European apartment, a car, and a chauffeur—even though such expenditures necessitate his living beyond his means. His inability to manage his finances forces him to ask the UPU for an extension, and this suffocating sense of dependence increases his feeling of alienation and resentment toward the clan.

When he returns home and tells his parents of his intention to marry Clara, his mother, who adheres to many of the traditional customs, tells Obi that she will die if he marries an osu. His father, once the rebellious Nwoye of Things Fall Apart (1958), now a retired Christian catechist, also opposes the marriage despite the pagan nature of osu. To Obi’s father, the dire social effects of such a marriage outweigh theological considerations. Obi’s resolve is weakened by his parents’ opposition. After his return to Lagos, Clara becomes pregnant, and the abortion for which he pays further sours their relationship.

Obi’s gradual debilitation is also apparent in his work. In his early days in the Nigerian Civil Service, he eschews the customary practice of accepting bribes, seeing it as anachronistic behavior that the new generation of educated and idealistic civil servants will eradicate, but his financial situation and his general weakening of resolve eventually lead him to accept payments. When he does give in to custom, he handles the bribery so amateurishly that he is caught. The UPU pays for his lawyer, partly to protect its investment and partly out of clan loyalty, but Obi is convicted.

The Characters

Unlike his great-grandfather, the Okonkwo of Things Fall Apart, Obi is a passive man. Whereas Okonkwo aggressively struggled to make his way in the world and impose his will upon it, Obi is indecisive, unable to free himself from the conflicting influences of the people and events around him.

To a large extent, this passivity is a result of Obi’s alienation. He has been shaped by the traditional Igbo culture of Umuofia, the Christianity of his father, the idealism of English literature, and the corrupt sophistication of Lagos, but he is at ease nowhere. As a child in Umuofia, he dreams of the sparkling lights of Lagos. In England, he writes pastoral visions of an idealized Nigeria. Disillusioned by the corruption of Lagos, he returns to his home village only to witness a lorry driver attempting to bribe a policeman and to be greeted by his parents’ rejection of his proposed marriage. Obi naively tries to maintain the idea of his own integrity as a detribalized, rational, thoroughly modern man, but his reintegration into Nigeria is a failure, because he is unable to assimilate successfully any of the competing cultures through which he passes. He finds it impossible to mediate the conflicting duties that are thrust upon him, and his steady progress in the novel is toward despair and withdrawal.

Obi’s paralyzing cultural ambivalence leaves him hanging between the traditional Igbo acceptance of communal needs and the European desire for self-realization. Obi finds his financial and social debts to the clan stifling, but he also recognizes the vacuous self-aggrandizement that can result from a preoccupation with self. Other characters provide various examples of accommodation, but none of these can work for Obi. The Honorable Sam Okoli gives himself over completely to the game of corruption, skillfully using bribery to amass money and power. Obi’s father evidences a contrasting accommodation when he atavistically ignores his Christian faith and asserts the pragmatic importance of osu.

Like a diminished version of his great-grandfather, Obi is crushed by cultural forces beyond his control, but the pettiness and ineptitude of his crime make him a tragicomic hero. Like the onlookers at the trial who cannot fathom why Obi did it, the reader is puzzled by the ironies of Obi’s downfall. His innocence makes him a criminal; his coveted education does not provide him with wisdom; the support of his clansmen increases his sense of loneliness.

Critical Context

Because No Longer at Ease differs so greatly from the highly regarded Things Fall Apart, some critics see it as a lesser work. Some have found Obi Okonkwo to be a less believable character than the protagonist of Things Fall Apart; some have suggested that the novel’s portrait of modern Nigeria is sociologically unsuccessful; others have maintained that Achebe’s depiction of urban life is less convincing than his handling of village life. Yet most critics praise Achebe’s effort to portray the bourgeois tragedy of modern Nigeria, singling out for commendation Achebe’s skillfully restrained prose, his purposeful use of Igbo proverbs, and his subtle presentation of the mundane complexities of modern existence.

Although in No Longer at Ease Achebe focuses on the urban world of modern Lagos rather than the historical past, his purpose continues to be educational: “Perhaps what I write is applied art as distinct from pure. But who cares? Art is important, but so is education of the kind I have in mind.” Achebe refutes the European stereotype of the alienated writer, insisting instead upon the traditional African model of communal, functional, utilitarian art. In No Longer at Ease, however, Achebe’s purpose is social criticism rather than cultural retrieval. In the novel, he delineates the corruption of the Nigerian Civil Service that eventually led to the Nigerian Civil War several years later. Achebe’s skills as a social critic are also displayed in A Man of the People (1966), a scathing attack on the corruption in Nigerian politics, written just before the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War. After reunification, Achebe reconsidered his position as an artist, moving into the area of social reform and abandoning the novel in favor of essays, lectures, poetry, and short fiction.

Bibliography

Carroll, David. Chinua Achebe, 1970, 1980.

Innes, Catherine L., and Bernth Lindfors, eds. Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, 1978.

Killam, G. D. The Novels of Chinua Achebe, 1969.

Njoku, Benedict Chiaka. The Four Novels of Chinua Achebe, 1984.

Ravenscroft, Arthur. Chinua Achebe, 1969, 1977.