African Politics: No Longer at Ease by Obi Okonkwo

In Africa, the interests of various individuals and groups have transformed the possession of power into nightmarish dimensions due to the flaws in the political structures of the societies. Although some of these degenerative weaknesses have been explained by historical experiences, there still remains the fact that the progressive development of any society depends on a conscious pruning of flawsin the organizational structure of the society by those with the power to provide guidance and direction. Moreover, this burden of leadership could elicit either patriotic parasitic tendencies in the utilization and exercise of power. (Ehling 23-25)

According to Steven Gale in his Critical Commentary ‘Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease’ where he declares:

“It is evident almost from the beginning of No Longer at Ease that Obi is not of heroic nature and that his tragedy will not be a falling in full battle but rather it will result from an inability to face up to that battle. He never rises to greatness; he only sinks further and further from it, succumbing to what he has labelled the sin of the old African” (qtd. in Asong 167)

(SEE “UNDERSTANDING T.F.A.” p9 )

See the novel and globalization culture p140

See the ch ach encyclopedia p55 ( obi between 2 forces)

In No Longer at Ease, Obi Okonkwo is clearly unwilling to abdicate the colonial elite; his education has, in fact, disposed him to treat his fellow citizens with nearly the same contempt, as do the colonialists. (Shea 100)

Each list of great African books includes at least one of his works. Along with the prelude novel, Things Fall Apart of 1958, Achebe published a sequel to his story two years later. Both stories are tragedies: a good man comes to a bad end. His weakness co...

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...ters in English.

The tragedy is that Obi fails both causes: He has not been able to remain loyal to the clan that trained him, or to the nation he was trained to serve. The tragedy is national, but that does not make Obi a tragic hero. It would not be appropriate to adopt a conventional tragic paradigm for measuring Obi’s worth as a tragic hero since, given the level of his training and social responsibility, the failure of character weighs far more than the economic pressures often cited as the cause of his tragedy. Although the various literary allusions and definitions of tragedy in the novel may indicate the novelist’s intention and the tragic standard by which to measure Obi, it seems more useful to consider Obi as the first in the literary lineage of antiheroes who have to cope with the new conditions of an urban, industrial and national culture. (Irele 42)