Chinua Achebe: Father of African Literature 1930 - 2013 Lecture 4

Chinua Achebe: Father of African Literature 1930 - 2013Lecture 4 http://viennachinuaachebe.wordpress.com/ Derek Barker www.derekbarker.info Dr.Derek.Barker@gmail.com

Summary • Set in the 1950s, the novel opens with the trial of Obi Okonkwo on a charge of accepting a bribe. It then jumps back in time to a point before his departure for England and works its way forward to describe how Obi ended up on trial.

Summary • The members of the Umuofia Progressive Union (UPU), a group of Ibo men who have left their villages to live in major Nigerian cities, have taken up a collection to send Obi to England to study law, in the hope that he will return to help his people navigate British colonial society.

Summary But once there, Obi switches his major to English and meets Clara Okeke for the first time during a dance. Obi returns to Nigeria after four years of studies and lives in Lagos with his friend Joseph. He takes a job with the Scholarship Board and is almost immediately offered a bribe by a man who is trying to obtain a scholarship for his little sister.

Summary • When Obi indignantly rejects the offer, he is visited by the girl herself who implies that she will bribe him with sexual favors for the scholarship, another offer Obi rejects.

Summary • At the same time, Obi is developing a romantic relationship with Clara Okeke, a Nigerian woman who eventually reveals that she is an “osu”, an outcast by her descendants, meaning that Obi can not marry her under the traditional ways of the Igbo people of Nigeria

Summary • While he remains intent on marrying Clara, even his Christian father opposes it, although reluctantly due to his desire to progress and eschew the "heathen" customs of pre-colonial Nigeria. His mother begs him on her deathbed not to marry Clara until after her death, threatening to kill herself if Obi disobeys.

Summary • When Obi informs Clara of these events, Clara breaks the engagement and intimates that she is pregnant. Obi arranges an abortion, which Clara reluctantly undergoes, but she suffers complications and refuses to see Obi afterwards.

Summary • All the while, Obi sinks deeper into financial trouble, in part due to poor planning on his end, in part due to the need to repay his loan to the UPU and to pay for his siblings' educations, and in part due to the cost of the illegal abortion.

Summary • After hearing of his mother's death, Obi sinks into a deep depression, and refuses to go home for the funeral. When he recovers, he begins to accept bribes in a reluctant acknowledgement that it is the way of his world.

Summary • The novel closes as Obi takes a bribe and tells himself that it is the last one he will take, only to discover that the bribe was part of a sting operation. He is arrested, bringing us up to the events that opened the story.

Characters Obi Okonkwo - The novel's protagonist, Obi Okonkwo, is a young man who has returned to Nigeria after having studied in England. The fact that he went to England to study and has returned puts him a peculiar position, one in which he will have to face the issues of a man torn between his own country and what he has learned in the hands of those who have colonized his country (the English). The novel follows his idealistic beginnings to his unfortunate end, an end in which he is put on trial for taking a bribe.

Characters Clara Okeke - Obi's fiancée, Clara is a young Nigerian woman whom Obi met, originally, at a dance in London and later on the boat ride back to Nigeria. Clara is not intellectual but strong-minded. She has also studied abroad and has become a nurse. The main conflict with Clara is that she is an osu, which means she is an outcast that is not allowed to marry Obi. This fact causes the main struggle between Clara and Obi regarding their relationship and their marriage.

Characters Isaac Okonkwo - Obi's father, Isaac Okonkwo, is a Christian. He had left home at an early age, against the will of his father, because he wanted to join the other Christians. Isaac's Christianity is the most important aspect of his life, and it colors most everything he does and says.

Characters Hannah Okonkwo - Obi's mother, Hannah, is another woman of strong-will in the novel, with whom Obi has a special relationship. It is Obi's mother that refuses to allow him to marry Clara by threat of her own suicide. However, it was also Hannah that shared folk stories with Obi—stories that he could share at school and for which he loved her. They also have a special bond of blood, according to a story in which his mother cuts herself with a blade from his pocket.

Characters Joseph Okeke - A friend of Obi's and a clerk in the Survey Department, Joseph is an important character because of his actions. He gives Obi a place to stay and an ear to listen whenever Obi needs one. However, it is Joseph who tells the Umuofia Progressive Union about Clara being an osu. Still, Joseph may be doing this because he believes it best for Obi not to marry Clara. And, later, he acts as a friend, once again, when he brings Obi beer to help entertain the people who attend the funeral gathering.

Characters Christopher - Another friend of Obi's, Christopher, unlike Joseph is educated. He is very much like Obi in terms of education, but Christopher is very different in attitude. He is more pragmatic than Obi and less of an idealist. He believes he knows how to live in the Nigerian world of the late 1950s, and he thinks he understands the balance he must possess in order to live in between two very different cultures.

Characters William Green - Obi's boss at the Civil Service, Mr. Green is an old Englishman, accustomed to the ways of colonialism and the mindset of such. He believes that the English brought education and civility to Africa. He also believes that the African is, by nature, corrupt and even implies an inherent laziness in Africans. Nevertheless, he pays for the school fees of his steward's sons. We are told that he works very hard for the country and that he is not all together a "bad man," as Miss Tomlinson (Mr. Green's secretary) likes to remind Obi.

Characters Mr. Omo - The administrative assistant at Obi's office, Mr. Omo, is what Obi calls an "old African." Accustomed to the rule of the English, Mr. Omo is submissive to his boss Mr. Green and respectful of "old ways." He has worked for the Civil Service for thirty years and has a son studying law in England. His physical description is also unappealing—he is said to have black teeth from cigarettes and kola nuts, and one of those teeth were missing from the front.

Characters Miss Marie Tomlinson - Mr. Green's secretary, Marie, is kind to Obi. Marie often claims what a strange man Mr. Green is and, on other occasions, defends the same Mr. Green. She, like Mr. Green, represents the presence of the English in Nigeria.

Characters Sam Okoli - The Minister of State, Sam Okoli is a good looking and popular politician. He becomes friends with both Obi and Clara, through Clara's connection to him. It is from Sam that Obi borrows the money for Clara's abortion.

Themes • Corruption • Education • Traditions versus Progress • Others?

Motifs • Songs and poetry • Proverbs • Language • Others?

Symbols • Mr Green • The Umuofian Progressive Union • MrOmo • Others?

Chinua Achebe and the German Judge • Can literature do anything to solve our social and political conditions?

African Novel • Do we need to define what an “African novel” is? • For Achebe, what makes a novel an African novel? • Is “Out of Africa” an African or a European book/film? • How would you define it?

The Language Question • Is Arabic an African language? • What about Afrikaans? • And anyway, do we really need so many languages?

Corruption • How would you define corruption? Is it a foreign element previously unknown in Africa? • The protagonist of the novel (No longer at ease) begins to act in a way he once had believed was a terrible and corrupt act • Does Achebe “excuse” Obi by blaming it all on the colonists?

Influence of education • Is the influence of education represented as all bad?

Tradition versus Progress • Should Obi be allowed to marry Clara?

Question • “No longer at ease” - autobiography or fiction?

Chinua Achebe: Father of African Literature 1930 - 2013 Lecture 4