No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe: the Tumultuous Times in Post Colonialism

Achebe addresses, in his book No Longer at Ease, multiple clashes between a communal identity and an individual. Some of the parties in these conflicts are Obi, the main character of the book who gets a scholarship to study in England, Clara the partner of Obi, Isaac, Obi’s father, the Umuofia Progressive Union, or UPU, the Nigerian community, Hannah, Obi’s mother. It can be argued that the conflicts in this novel represent the tumultuous times ahead in post-colonialism. This will be done by looking into the conflicts between the individuals' Obi, Clara, Hannah, and Isaac and the communities of Nigeria and Umuofia.

Obi has been a rebellious person since his childhood. He went against the agreements of the community while he was in England: “They wanted him to read the law so that when he returned he would handle all their land cases against their neighbors. But when he got to England he read English”. This made the union that helped him get there, England, angry. Obi gets in conflict with his original community in advance after he comes back from his study time in England. Achebe addresses these situations when Obi went against the community as mistakes. On his arrival “Everybody was properly dressed in agbada or European suit except the guest of honor, who appeared in his shirtsleeves because of the heat. That was Obi’s mistake Number One.” and then he made a speech where “he spoke ‘is’ and ‘was’”. On those two examples, it is clearly shown that Obi has dissatisfied and disrespected their anticipation. Once Obi has arrived, he sleeps over in Joseph’s house even though the UPU agreed that he should “be put up in proper fashion at a hotel”. Obi has his own comprehension of how he should appear and act and the community has its own culture as well. Obi’s actions were against the community’s expectations, resulting in conflicts. These conflicts keep reoccurring.

Obi decides to get married to Clara, a woman he met while he was in England. But Clara is an outcast who was given the title an osu. An osu is a person whose “great-great-great-great-grandfather had been dedicated to serving a god”. Clara is only allowed to marry, if she wants to get married, to another outcast but not anyone out of the outcast people. The fact that Obi should not be with her is mentioned multiple times by the members of the community. Obi’s mother Hannah frightened him that he “should wait until she is dead, or else she would kill herself”. His father said “You cannot marry the girl” and also said “Osu is like Leprosy in the minds of our people.”. That is referring to being an osu to leprosy which, in Umuofia, brings shame into a family. This statement of Obi’s father reflects, the expected reaction of the community. The UPU says “you are moving around with a girl of doubtful ancestry, and even thinking of marrying her”. The community was warning Obi and Clara not to get married. Clara cried when telling Obi that she is an osu and that she cannot get married to him. This shows how much she loves him but there is a barrier for them to get married. The barrier being the community not accepting marriage to an osu. Clara thinks she will ruin his life if she gets married to him but if it is his consent she would like to marry him. Obi believes he has to marry her and he tells Joseph, “I am going to marry her”. The community is against their marriage for the reasons stated above by some of the community members. Obi says “don’t you dare interfere in my affairs again” to the UPU approving his stand against the community. Therefore, they do get married. Both go against the community culture and consent. This is the most immense conflict stated by Achebe, between community and individuals, in this book.

Achebe also uses other characters like Hannah and Isaac to demonstrate the conflict between a community and individuals. Hannah and Isaac are Obi’s mother and father respectively. They clash against the rules and get in conflict with the community. Some of the conflicts that Isaac and Hannah happened to be in, will be shown, next, in detail to support the argument. Isaac refuses the traditional religion and starts following Christianity and this is reflected throughout the novel whenever Isaac states that his house is a Christian house. During obi’s first visit to Umuofia, after his arrival, his conflict against traditional religions is explicitly indicated. Here an old man manages to break a kola nut in his house as a celebration for Obi’s return. But Isaac interrupts him saying “this is a Christian house, we do not break kola nut here”. Isaac also refuses to attend his father’s funeral and this has been recognized in the book as another conflict of going against the communal identity. It is thought in Umuofia that one of the “great gods of Aninta was Udo, who had a he-goat that was dedicated to him”. The priests believe this goat was free to go where it pleased. This goat, multiple times, “destroyed Catechist’s yam and maize crops” and Mr. Okonkwo complains to the priests of Udo, however, one day, the goat enters Mrs. Okonkwo’s kitchen and as a result got its head hewed off. She went beyond the line, drawn by the community, resulting in consequences on her social and private life. “There were angry threats from the village elders” not only that but also “the women for a time refused to buy from her or sell for her in the market”.

Obi “has become a stranger in his own country”, this was said by Joseph based on how much obi is conflicting against the community. It can be concluded that these all conflicts between the communities, Nigeria and Umuofia, and the individuals, Obi, Clara, Hannah, and Isaac, were created because the community had a solid mindset towards how individuals should act and the individuals also had solid definition how the community should be. This leads to a suggestion that if Africans bring all the pre-colonialism traditions back and manage to completely remove the post-colonialism cultures or completely follow the post-colonialism cultures, the result will be nothing but, conflict.

Thus, by looking at Obi and UPU, Clara and society, and Obi’s parents and their community the various conflicts have been discussed. Therefore Achebe suggests that times ahead in post-colonialism will be difficult unless a hybrid of the best of the two generations, the past and the present, are taken.