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Chapter 17
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
Clara is discharged after five weeks in the hospital and departs Lagos on medical leave. Christopher tells Obi that Clara will come around—he just needs to be patient. Obi is further distraught by the death of his mother. He does not go home for her funeral, and elders at the Umuofia Progressive Union discuss how Obi has inherited his father’s callousness.
Christopher’s easygoing attitude does not seem to accurately reflect the depths of Clara’s estrangement from Obi, estrangement that her abortion and difficult recovery seem to have exacerbated.
Themes
Obi had been shocked by the news of his mother’s death, and he decided against returning home because he wouldn’t be able to arrive in time for the funeral. Nevertheless, Joseph and then a large group of Umuofians come by his apartment to comfort him and pay their respects, which moves Obi deeply. However, the mood is dampened when Obi overhears one guest telling an allegorical story about a tortoise that clearly expresses condemnation of Obi’s failure to return home for the funeral.
Just as his decision to send money home to his ailing parents sunk him in terrible financial difficulties, Obi once again finds himself struggling This predicament drives home the impossible bind in which he finds himself as a colonial subject who has adopted the cultural norms of Western colonizers who nevertheless continue to treat Obi as an outsider. Obi originally pursued wealth and status in order to improve Nigeria for Nigerians, but that same ambition is what further alienates him his community.
Themes
Obi is once again surprised at his own emotions: he feels some guilt, but while he expects to also feel surging grief over his mother’s death, he instead feels a profound peace. He compares this to the peace the Biblical King David felt after his son’s death.
