With great subtlety and economy, No Longer at Ease creates an intricate psychological portrait of a modern African nowhere man. Outwardly, Obi Okonkwo appears a model of success and uplift, a local boy from the bush who rises into the elite to lead a glamorous life in the city with an enviable post in the senior civil service. But by probing, almost systematically, into the thought and behavior of his protagonist, Chinua Achebe reveals the weak foundations on which Obi’s character rests. Like a sapling unable to take nourishment from depleted soil, Obi is on his own with few resources on which he can draw. Yet it is not enough to pity this character, or scorn his bad judgment. Beneath Obi’s tragedy lies a more complex one, the tragedy of a society so vitiated by decades of foreign domination that its best and brightest are as strangers in their own land.
Achebe provides enough clues for the reader to discern that a great deal of Obi’s later difficulties stem from his upbringing. His father, Isaac Okonkwo (or Nwoye, as he is called in Things Fall Apart), has built his life around Christianity, spurning his own father and the ‘‘heathen’’ ways of his people. Obi’s mother, Hannah, has set aside many of the customs with which she was raised to live as the wife of a catechist. There are clear hints that Hannah has some regrets over the compromises she has made:
“She was a very devout woman, but Obi used to wonder whether, left to herself, she would not have preferred telling her children the folk stories that her mother had told her. In fact, she used to tell her eldest daughters stories. But that was before Obi was born. She stopped because her husband forbade her to do so.”
Thus the conflicted legacy of colonial Nigeria has sown discord in the heart of Obi’s family life. As a result, Obi has no culture he can truly call his own; he grows up estranged from both tribal and Christian ways. He declines to identify with Christianity, and is unable to receive nurture from traditional Ibo culture. He is deprived of the oral tradition his mother could have imparted to him, so much so that he is humiliated at school because he knows no folk story to tell when called upon. (His mother finally teaches him a story on the sly.) Furthermore, his father so fears Obi’s exposure to tribal ritual that he forbids the boy to eat in his neighbors’ houses. These strictures are more than enough to keep the young Obi at a remove from his Ibo kinsmen.
The consequences of this alienation from his native culture become apparent on close examination of the adult Obi’s behavior. For one thing, he is portrayed as having less than full mastery of the Ibo language. When he makes a speech to his town union, he begins in Ibo but falls back on English midway through. When he asks Clara to explain a proverb, she replies, ‘‘I have always said you should go and study Ibo.’’ For an accomplished student with a college degree in English, such an educational deficit is somewhat shocking.
Not only the Ibo language, but also the prevailing mind-set and mores of his fellow Ibo elude Obi’s intuitive grasp. This becomes clear soon after he returns to Nigeria from England. Obi arrives at a reception held in his honor—a major event covered by the press—dressed in his shirtsleeves; everybody else is turned out in formal attire. He proceeds to disappoint the crowd still more with his speech, which is also too informal and fails to flaunt the prestigious education he has received. It could be said that Obi’s casual behavior reflects the mentality of a cosmopolitan ‘‘been-to’’ still under the influence of British culture. But it is equally plausible, given his upbringing, that he simply overlooks, or disdains, the respect for formality and ceremoniousness that is engrained in Ibo customs.
Lacking this instinctual sense of belonging within his clan, Obi reveals little awareness of his place in either his family or his community. The reader learns that Obi has six sisters and one brother, but he hardly interacts with them, and they do not seem to figure largely in Obi’s life. He does become aware of a responsibility to contribute a share of his salary to his parents’ upkeep, and he volunteers to pay his youngest brother’s school fees. These acts are appropriate given Obi’s high income and status. Soon, however, Obi’s growing feelings for Clara, and the complications caused by her caste position, lead to an inner conflict: ‘‘Family ties were all very well as long as they did not interfere with Clara,’’ Obi thinks to himself. He tries to convince himself that he can convince his mother to put aside her objections, so he will not be forced to choose between his blood and his heart. But he is deluding himself; he cannot avoid this choice, and it is his undoing. It is characteristic of Obi that he is not fully conscious of the depth of his connection to his mother. He is more closely bonded to her than any other person, but he takes that bond for granted until it is threatened by his stubborn passion for Clara.
Hannah Okonkwo’s revulsion at the idea of her son marrying an osu is in keeping with her identification with Ibo culture and values, an identification her husband’s Christianity could never erase. Obi is blind to his mother’s predictable reaction. No doubt his wishful thinking is caused, in part, by the blindness of love; but there is another explanation, his other blind spot—his disconnection from the values of his people.
This lack of tribal solidarity also reveals itself in Obi’s dealings with the Umuofia Progressive Union. It is because of this group’s largesse that Obi has received the opportunity to study overseas and become a big man. What do the Umuofians deserve from Obi in return for their investment in him? The union hoped Obi would study law, so when he returned he could help the village settle land claims. Traditional tribal values would imply that any valuable resource—such as, in this case, Obi’s expensive education—should serve the interest of the clan as a whole. Yet Obi shows no sign of subscribing to such values. He pursues only his own individual interests. He reads English instead of law. He appears to offer nothing back to the community, apart from his financial commitment to repay the scholarship loan—and by the novel’s end, he is even reneging on that. Moreover, he dismisses the idea that he has a responsibility to set a good example in his conduct. He becomes furious when the union president comments during a meeting about Obi’s affiliation with ‘‘a girl of doubtful ancestry.’’ The elder Umuofian clearly believes he has the prerogative to offer frank advice to the young man who has received the group’s help (and has already asked for further help at this meeting). The president is displaying the values of the tribe. Obi, on the other hand, reveals an individualistic mind-set when he interprets the president’s comments as an unjustified intrusion into his personal affairs. The exchange underscores the essential truth that modernization causes the ties of community to become thinner and more attenuated—indeed, Obi doesn’t seem to feel the least bit bound by them.
The confusion in Obi’s thinking leads him to identify in a materialistic sense with European culture, an essentially inaccurate assessment of his social status. Once ensconced in his senior service job, he does not hesitate to buy a car he can scarcely afford, and even to hire a driver. He takes a flat in an expensive European suburb of Lagos and employs a steward. Because of such profligate choices, even though he is earning far above the norm, he soon finds himself unable to pay his car insurance, and later his income tax. He realizes that it will be difficult to explain his financial problems to his fellow Umuofians whose sacrifice made his education possible:
“Obi admitted that his people had a sizable point. What they did not know was that, having labored in sweat and tears to enroll their kinsman among the shining e´lite, they had to keep him there. Having made him a member of an exclusive club whose members greet one another with ‘‘How’s the car behaving?’’ did they expect him to turn round and answer: ‘‘I’m sorry, but my car is off the road. You see I couldn’t pay my insurance premium’’? That would be letting the side down in a way that was quite unthinkable. Almost as unthinkable as a masked spirit in the old Ibo society answering another’s esoteric salutation: ‘‘I’m sorry, my friend, but I don’t understand your strange language. I’m but a human being wearing a mask.’’”
The reference to esoteric Ibo rites in this passage appears somewhat strained; much more revealing of Obi’s thought process is the phrase ‘‘letting the side down,’’ a British sports expression. Because Obi does not want to ‘‘let the side down,’’ or is afraid to, he eventually succumbs to the temptation to square his debts through ill gotten gain.
Without the support of a clear cultural identity and a stable set of values; without a strong bond to either his family or his clan; without a commitment to anyone’s interest but his own, what does Obi Okonkwo have going for him? He appears to have two strong assets, one being his intellectual prowess. But this is highly abstract, and tooled in the European fashion, through the study of the printed word. Obi ‘‘knows book.’’ He flaunts his book-smarts in his employment interview, and this appears to be the central way he earns his ‘‘European’’ job posting. But the novel repeatedly reveals that his European education is of limited use for getting along in modern Nigeria. It needs to be complemented with street smarts and common sense, both of which are somewhat deficient in Obi’s case. As a case in point: why does he not know that it is unwise to leave fifty pounds cash in the glove box of his car in a nightclub parking lot with ‘‘half a dozen half-clad little urchins’’ trolling around?
His other major strength—until it gives way—is his sense of morality. But this too proves to be a liability at times, such as when he silently interposes himself into the exchange between the police and the mammy-wagon driver. Obi’s vigilant gaze, it turns out, costs the driver eight shillings, and earns him the derision of the other passengers, who correctly peg him as ‘‘too know.’’ Once again, he is out of step with the goings-on around him.
More importantly, for all the reasons discussed above, Obi’s individual ethical stance lacks a firm foundation. He is unwittingly prophetic when he says to Christopher, speaking of his generation: ‘‘It’s not that they’re necessarily better than others, it’s simply that they can afford to be virtuous.’’ Later, when circumstances press him, he can no longer afford the cost of virtue. Like the benighted, colonial society around him, he drifts passively into corruption and decay.
Source Credits:
Sara Constantakis, Novels for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context & Criticism on Commonly Studied Novels – Chinua Achebe, Volume 33, Gale-Cengage Learning, 2010
Roger K. Smith, Critical Essay on No Longer at Ease, in Novels for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2010.