Obi Okonkwo as a ’postcolonial subject’ in Chinua Achebe’s ’No Longer At Ease’

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: A (USA = 1), Southern Connecticut State University (English Department), course: The Contemporary African Novel, language: English, abstract: Chinua Achebe’s novel No Longer At Ease describes the twilight zone between theBritish rule of ...

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: A (USA = 1), Southern Connecticut State University (English Department), course: The Contemporary African Novel, language: English, abstract: Chinua Achebe’s novel No Longer At Ease describes the twilight zone between theBritish rule of Nigeria and the country’s independence. It is a transitional period during whichthe Whites are leaving the country and the natives are getting responsible for their own lives;colonialism is giving way to a post-colonial situation. Nigerians are now forced to negotiate theclaims of both colonial modernity and their previously degraded African mode of life. Theperiod of transition is one in which binary oppositions (colonial vs. African, modernity vs.tradition) seem to be collapsing, unveiling what Mudimbe calls “the strong tension between amodernity that often is an illusion of development, and a tradition that sometimes reflects a poorimage of a mythical past” (5).No Longer At Ease was first published in 1960, the year of Nigeria's independence fromEngland. This is significant because it is a novel that pertains to a trend of literature called postcolonialliterature that still survives. There are many issues that arise out of post-colonialismissues that authors and writers around the world have had to deal with. Africa, India, and theWest Indies all have come out of the colonial era with a new literature that must address theproblems that colonialism left behind. Some of the problems in post-colonial regions concernlanguage, education, the conflict between traditional ways and Western or European ways, thepresence of the English, and corruption. Those who later moved into the land of the colonizer(for instance, Obi, while studying in England) experience an entire set of new problems such asnostalgia for home, memory, and the desire for the homeland. When Obi returns from his studiesin England, he is an honest idealistic young man. He takes a high paying job in the civil servicebut soon finds that his salary is not sufficient to meet the financial demands made upon him. Healso gets involved with a woman his parents and the clan despise. In the end he is caught takingbribes and is sent to prison. [...]