A Study Guide for Chinua Achebe's "No Longer at Ease"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Chinua Achebe's "No Longer at Ease," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535829632

Book preview

10

No Longer at Ease

Chinua Achebe

1960

Introduction

No Longer at Ease is the second novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It was published in London in 1960, two years after Achebe's groundbreaking debut, Things Fall Apart, a work often cited as the first great novel written in English by an African artist. No Longer at Ease is a sequel to Things Fall Apart, although set two generations later. Its protagonist, Obi Okonkwo, is the grandson of the hero of the prior book, the Ibo (Igbo) warrior Okonkwo. Obi's father is Okonkwo's estranged son Nwoye, known in this book as Isaac. Like his grandfather, Obi Okonkwo suffers a tragic fate, although the circumstances and the actions (and failures to act) that cause his demise are profoundly different.

No Longer at Ease was released in the same year that Nigeria attained its independence from the British Empire. The novel is set in modern Nigeria on the cusp of independence, after a half century of colonial rule. Where Things Fall Apart depicts the origins of the colonial enterprise, the initial subjugation of the Ibo people and their traditional way of life, No Longer at Ease reveals the extent of the damage done to African society. The corruption that pervades the modern world Achebe presents—a major theme of the novel—stems ultimately from the weakening of tribal culture under colonialism. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo confronts an overt clash between indigenous Africa and colonial Europe. By the time of No Longer at Ease, the nature of that clash has changed. It now takes the form of a contest between two incompatible value systems within the mind of young Nigerians such as Obi Okonkwo. The result is a moral crisis that vanquishes the hero's divided soul.

Author Biography

Albert Chinualumugo Achebe was born November 16, 1930, in the eastern Nigerian village of Ogidi. His parents were devoted advocates of the Christianity brought to the region by British missionaries, and as a child he attended mission schools. He showed academic promise early, beginning to learn English at the age of eight. At fourteen, he was admitted to an elite school in the city of Umuahia, with classes conducted in English, and at eighteen he joined the founding class of the University of Ibadan on a scholarship. He intended to proceed to medical school but, like Obi, switched his major to English literature. While at university he wrote his first short stories. Achebe drew on his own personal history when he created Obi Okonkwo, the main character of No Longer at Ease.

After receiving his degree, Achebe began working for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, where he became a radio producer and was later put in charge of the Voice of Nigeria shortwave service. He traveled to