As any reader of ‘‘Marriage Is a Private Affair’’ will note, the Nigeria of the early 1950s was in a period of rapid change, some of it occurring too fast for those who adhere to traditional values to understand or accept. The story, one of Achebe’s very earliest efforts, indirectly dramatizes some of the effects…
Tag: Chinua Achebe
Marriage is a Private Affair – Setting
Nigeria in the 1950s In the 1950s, Nigeria was still under British rule. The British had controlled the country since the late nineteenth century, and it was the most important of British possessions in Africa during the height of the British Empire. The British brought with them Christian missionaries, and in Ogidi, Achebe’s home village,…
Marriage is a Private Affair – Literary Devices
Nature Symbolism When the conflict between father and son first erupts, it is December, and the weather is hot and dry, the sun ‘‘parching.’’ Many years later, just before Okeke realizes the error of his ways, the weather is very different. There are black clouds, and soon the rain begins. This is the first rain…
Marriage is a Private Affair – Themes
Tradition The story centers around the clash between traditional values and a more modern way of conducting one’s affairs. It also suggests the differences between life in the city and life in the country. The theme revolves around three characters: Okeke, who represents the traditional ways; Nene, who embodies the modernity of life in the…
Marriage is a Private Affair – Characters
Nene Atang Nene Atang is the young fiance´ e and later wife of Nnaemeka. She is a Christian, and she teaches at a girls’ school in Lagos, a city she has lived in for her entire life. Nnaemeka tells his father she is from Calabar, which is a city in southeastern Nigeria. Perhaps he means…
Marriage is a Private Affair – Summary
‘‘Marriage Is a Private Affair’’ is set in Nigeria, West Africa, in the early 1950s. The story begins in Lagos, the capital city. Nnaemeka, a young man, is visiting his girlfriend, Nene Atang, in her room. The couple has recently become engaged, and Nene asks her fiance´ if he has written to his father to…
No Longer At Ease: Analysis
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…
No Longer At Ease: Setting
In the first half of the twentieth century, the empires of Europe controlled most of the African continent. Chinua Achebe depicts the roots of British rule over the Ibo people of the Niger Delta in Things Fall Apart. As colonial administrators were setting up the machinery of government, European industrialists exploited the country’s natural resources,…
No longer At Ease: Themes
Colonialism The social and psychological effects of European colonialism in African life is a central theme in all of Chinua Achebe’s writing. No Longer at Ease is set toward the end of the colonial period; two generations have passed since the white man’s initial disruption of Ibo society, the period depicted in Things Fall Apart….
No Longer At Ease: Characters
Bisi In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Bisi is a girlfriend of Obi’s friend Christopher. She and Christopher go out one Saturday night with Obi and Clara; Bisi wants to go to the movies, but agrees to go out dancing instead. They stay out until two in the morning, and Bisi is reluctant to leave; she says…