Conflicts in the Select Novels of Chinua Achebe

Abstract

               Achebe’s second novel, No Longer at Ease is intended as a sequel to Things Fall Apart, which is set in Nigeria’s capital in the late 1950s and stars Okonkwo’s grandson Obi Okonkwo, a young westernized bureaucrat divided between two cultures: the old and the modern. The new force is not an alien territory or administration, but rather the views of the young, urbanized Nigerian, who, having been released from tribal taboos via exposure to other values, begins to challenge his forefathers’ traditions and belief systems. Achebe argues that the modern Nigerian is uncomfortable in a culture that is no longer recognizably his own and continually fails to meet his idealized expectations.