The Enduring Message of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer At Ease

Editor’s note: This essay is available in our print issue, Pan-African Dreams. Buy the issue here.

Obi embodies the convergence of multiple societal changes. Educated in 1950s England through the collective efforts of his poor kinsmen, he returns as Umuofia’s hope and as one more young Nigerian in a generation destined to lead the country after independence. He is the first of his people to get a foreign education and, subsequently, land a prestigious senior civil role. His journey and its implications are not lost on Umuofia. Not only will the repayment of his fees allow the Umuofia Progressive Union to educate others, but his senior civil service position will also open doors of opportunities to them—or so they think. The difference between their expectations and Obi’s becomes clear at his welcome event when the union secretary speaks of how their town ‘could now join the comity of other towns in their march towards political irredentism, social equality and economic emancipation,’ while Obi spouts his high ideals, preaching ‘Education for service, not for white-collar jobs and comfortable salaries.’

For Obi, four years of geographic dislocation have now given way to cultural and ethical dislocation. He neither fits in with the Africans nor the Europeans. Obi is proud of his culture; still, it is possible to love one’s heritage and baulk at certain aspects and beliefs, like his kinsmen’s insistence that he cannot marry his fiancée, Clara, because her family is considered Osu. There’s a constant ideological struggle between his education and daily reality, the Christian faith in which he was raised and the traditional customs of his people...