Katherine Isobel Baxter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474420839
- eISBN:
- 9781474476478
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420839.003.0005
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
Chapter Four explores the competing demands made upon young Nigerian civil servants in the colonial administration, through an examination of Chinua Achebe’s novel No Longer at Ease. The chapter ...
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Chapter Four explores the competing demands made upon young Nigerian civil servants in the colonial administration, through an examination of Chinua Achebe’s novel No Longer at Ease. The chapter contextualizes the social and sexual pressures under which the novel’s protagonist, Obi, buckles through discussion of contemporary popular culture and the experiences of real-life Nigerian colonial administrators. The novel is also discussed in relation to the British colonial texts to which it responds, notably Joyce Cary’s Mr Johnson and Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter. Achebe’s own reflections on the social uses of fiction are also considered. The chapter argues that as readers we are invited by Achebe into judgement of Obi, and in doing so we are brought into larger debates about the nation state and the law.Less
Chapter Four explores the competing demands made upon young Nigerian civil servants in the colonial administration, through an examination of Chinua Achebe’s novel No Longer at Ease. The chapter contextualizes the social and sexual pressures under which the novel’s protagonist, Obi, buckles through discussion of contemporary popular culture and the experiences of real-life Nigerian colonial administrators. The novel is also discussed in relation to the British colonial texts to which it responds, notably Joyce Cary’s Mr Johnson and Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter. Achebe’s own reflections on the social uses of fiction are also considered. The chapter argues that as readers we are invited by Achebe into judgement of Obi, and in doing so we are brought into larger debates about the nation state and the law.
Jago Morrison
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719084362
- eISBN:
- 9781781707098
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719084362.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease were conceived by Achebe as a saga spanning three generations of an Igbo family and their struggles to survive successive waves of Nigerian nation building. ...
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Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease were conceived by Achebe as a saga spanning three generations of an Igbo family and their struggles to survive successive waves of Nigerian nation building. Reading them as interlocking parts of a single narrative reveals much that is otherwise missed about the novels and the way they comment on the damaging effects of colonialism. If pre-colonial culture in Igboland is seen as having its problems – domestic violence and infanticide being notable among them – Achebe's portrait of a modernity dominated by corruption, in which young women must prostitute themselves for advancement or undergo botched, backstreet abortions as the heroine of his second novel does, works to suggest that these have not disappeared, but merely taken new forms. Far from being expressions of nationalist commitment, as critics have often claimed, these novels offer a deeply troubled assessment of Nigeria's past and prospects.Less
Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease were conceived by Achebe as a saga spanning three generations of an Igbo family and their struggles to survive successive waves of Nigerian nation building. Reading them as interlocking parts of a single narrative reveals much that is otherwise missed about the novels and the way they comment on the damaging effects of colonialism. If pre-colonial culture in Igboland is seen as having its problems – domestic violence and infanticide being notable among them – Achebe's portrait of a modernity dominated by corruption, in which young women must prostitute themselves for advancement or undergo botched, backstreet abortions as the heroine of his second novel does, works to suggest that these have not disappeared, but merely taken new forms. Far from being expressions of nationalist commitment, as critics have often claimed, these novels offer a deeply troubled assessment of Nigeria's past and prospects.
Jago Morrison
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719084362
- eISBN:
- 9781781707098
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719084362.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Chinua Achebe has long been regarded as Africa's foremost writer. In this major new study, Jago Morrison offers a comprehensive reassessment of his work as an author, broadcaster, editor and ...
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Chinua Achebe has long been regarded as Africa's foremost writer. In this major new study, Jago Morrison offers a comprehensive reassessment of his work as an author, broadcaster, editor and political thinker. With new, historically contextualised readings of all of his major works, this is the first study to view Achebe's oeuvre in its entirety, from Things Fall Apart and the early novels, through the revolutionary Ahiara Declaration – previously attributed to Emeka Ojukwu – to the revealing final works The Education of a British Educated Child and There Was a Country. Contesting previous interpretations which align Achebe too easily with this or that nationalist programme, the book reveals Achebe as a much more troubled figure than critics have habitually assumed. Authoritative and wide-ranging, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of Achebe's work in the Twenty-First Century.Less
Chinua Achebe has long been regarded as Africa's foremost writer. In this major new study, Jago Morrison offers a comprehensive reassessment of his work as an author, broadcaster, editor and political thinker. With new, historically contextualised readings of all of his major works, this is the first study to view Achebe's oeuvre in its entirety, from Things Fall Apart and the early novels, through the revolutionary Ahiara Declaration – previously attributed to Emeka Ojukwu – to the revealing final works The Education of a British Educated Child and There Was a Country. Contesting previous interpretations which align Achebe too easily with this or that nationalist programme, the book reveals Achebe as a much more troubled figure than critics have habitually assumed. Authoritative and wide-ranging, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of Achebe's work in the Twenty-First Century.
