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Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in No Longer at Ease, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Corruption
Western Influence and Alienation
Language, Literature, and Communication
Prejudice and Discrimination
Summary
Analysis
Obi continues to lower his guard around Marie Tomlinson, who has become his workplace friend. They psychoanalyze Mr. Green behind his back. Obi has come to grudgingly admire Mr. Green’s relentless work ethic, which he struggles to understand. He speculates that Mr. Green would have made a great missionary 20 or 60 years ago, but today he is reduced to a frustrated civil servant. Obi observes similarities between Mr. Green and Kurtz from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
Obi and Marie have here fastened onto the contradictions in Mr. Green’s character that were hinted at in the opening of the novel, when he first expressed disappointment in Obi and then claimed to find his downfall totally predictable. Obi, meanwhile, finds that the English literature he studied helps him understand the racism of Nigeria’s colonial authorities—Kurtz, the antagonist of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, is a European ivory trader who in the novel embodies the greed and racism of European colonizers.
Themes
A package from Clara arrives at Obi’s desk, with £50 enclosed and a note apologizing for their fight yesterday and asking him to return his overdraft at the bank right away. Obi is mystified at how Clara could have come up with this money. When he returns home, he and Clara argue about the best course of action regarding returning the overdraft.
This scene shows Clara trying to keep Obi financially afloat, though the trial scene that begins the novel indicates that her help is not enough to spare Obi. This scene also builds tension as it leaves the reader to wonder where Clara got the money to help Obi—is she accepting bribes?
Themes
That evening, Obi and Clara go to see Obi’s friend Christopher, a womanizer, who arrives with yet another new girlfriend, Bisi. They all drive to a dance club, where street urchins act as valets. After a night of raucous dancing, Obi and Clara return to their car to find that Clara’s £50 are missing from the glove compartment.
The theft of Clara’s money from the glove compartment is an unlucky strike of fate. Increasingly, it seems that Obi will be unable to dig himself out of the hole he’s fallen into.
Themes
