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Chapter 1
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 spends nearly four years in England. During this time, Nigeria comes to mean more to him than it did before. On his way out to England, Obi sees Lagos for the first time, stopping there to see his old friend Joseph Okeke. Joseph’s sexually freewheeling lifestyle in the big city surprises Obi, whose village life has been quite conservative.
Obi has the common experience of only coming to appreciate one’s home once one has spent time away. Meanwhile, his disapproval of Joseph’s loose sexual practices and toward Lagos’s generally more permissive attitude toward sex suggests Obi’s stern moral outlook at the time he first leaves home. It also emphasizes how different in urban, modern Lagos is compared to Obi’s rural village.
Themes
When Obi returns from England, he gets to know the Lagos slums for the first time. He contrasts the area’s lurid vibrancy with the lifelessness of his own neighborhood, Ikoyi, where he and others like him with “European Posts” in the Civil Service live.
Obi’s “European Post” at the Civil Service, which he obtains after returning from England, sets him apart from most other Nigerians by virtue of his close proximity to British Nigeria’s White European population. The relative lifelessness of Obi’s affluent neighborhood of Ikoyi compared to the slums of Lagos gestures toward the sense of cultural alienation Obi is experiencing despite his relative wealth and privilege.
Themes
Obi and Clara fight while driving home one night after he offends her by refusing to go with her to the movies, which he hates and she loves. Clara, meanwhile, has no interest in the poetry he admires.
Obi’s passion for English literature is clearly serious. His unwillingness to indulge his girlfriend, however, suggests his stubbornness and difficulty.
Themes
Earlier that day, Obi and his friend Christopher argued over lunch about bribery in the Civil Service: Obi maintained that the older generation are accustomed to bribery as a matter of course and are responsible for the organization’s corruption, whereas younger men like Obi and Christopher who have university educations will not follow the same path, since “they can afford to be virtuous.” Christopher rebutted with examples of young University men caught in similar scandals. Clara sat through the lunch impatiently.
Obi’s theory that modern, Western-style university educations will naturally weed out corruption among Nigerian government officials demonstrates the innocent idealism he still has at this early point in his career. It does, however, give a sense of the importance Obi attaches to his own educational experience and opportunity.
Themes
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