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Chapter 4
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
After settling back into life in Nigeria, Obi interviews for a job at the Public Service Commission. He hits it off with the Chairman, with whom he discusses modern English literature. Obi claims that real tragedy is never as simply concluded as it is in Graham Greene’s novel The Heart of the Matter. This intellectual conversation wins Obi favor with his interviewers, but then one African man who has been snoozing awakes and asks Obi if he wants this job in order to receive bribes. Obi is vocally indignant at this implication.
This is one of the only scenes in the book in which Obi has the opportunity to discuss English literature, his area of study, with another person. It gives insight into the intellectual, curious side of his personality, which he doesn’t have many opportunities to express otherwise—no one in his home village has had any exposure to such literature. Obi’s comments about tragedy again carry some dramatic irony, as the reader knows already that Obi will suffer a tragic fall.
Themes
After the interview, Obi defends his vocal indignance to Joseph, who fears that Obi’s behavior will cost him the job. Joseph says he has given up womanizing due to the exorbitant bride price he has had to pay for his wife due to a new government policy. Obi declares he will never pay a bride price.
Obi shows his intransigent character and disregard for customary ways of doing things, both in his outspokenness during the interview and in his irreverence toward the bride price custom (in which a groom makes a payment to his prospective bride’s family).
Themes
While waiting to hear the results of the interview, Obi travels to Umuofia in a beat-up truck with several traders and their wares. When the police stop the truck, the driver’s friend attempts to bribe them, but Obi’s stern look of disapproval dissuades the police, who fear Obi could work for the government. The driver ends up having to pay them even more money later on anyhow. This makes him angry with Obi, whose presence has disrupted the normal order of business. Obi reaffirms that bribery is wrong. Inwardly, he ruminates on the hopelessness of reforming and educating his fellow citizens, wondering if an enlightened despot would be the only path towards improving Nigeria.
Obi has not yet received government position, and in any case he will not be working as a police watchdog, but his conspicuous clothes and his obvious disapproval of the transaction are enough to prevent the bribe from taking place. His moral stance alienates him from the broader culture of British Nigeria, where corruption is an accepted fact of life for greed-driven government officials and for disempowered Nigerian colonial subjects willing to do whatever it takes to get by. Obi’s internal musings show his idealism running into obstacles and growing confused.
Themes
Obi wonders about Clara’s reluctance to have anyone find out about their budding relationship. As he drifts off to sleep, the driver stops and declares that he’s struggling to stay awake himself. The passengers give him kola nuts and sing songs to keep him awake. Later, the truck stops at the Onitsha market near Umuofia, a vibrant scene of beggars and snake oil salesmen.
Obi has apparently struck up a relationship by now, but Clara remains mysteriously reticent about having it publicized. The mysteriousness of Clara’s behavior builds tension as it leaves readers to wonder what, if anything, she is hiding from Obi.
Themes
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Hundreds have gathered to give Obi a hero’s welcome in Umuofia, parading him through the town and eventually winding up in his father Isaac’s house. Obi is thrilled to hear his language being spoken, something he sorely missed in England. Villagers ask him about his travels and attempt to perform rituals with the kola nut. Isaac, a Christian, tries to block the rituals, which he calls sacrilegious. Villagers rebuke Isaac’s Christianity, but he stands firm. At last, an elder named Odogwu performs a brief prayer that incorporates Jesus and satisfies everyone.
This scene mimics the joyous welcome Obi received at the docks in Lagos, yet he feels slightly more comfortable in the setting of his home village. Meanwhile, his father’s Christianity—another consequence of colonization— creates even more distance between Obi and his fellow villagers, who practice traditional Igbo customs about which Obi is largely ignorant.
Themes
The villagers express their gratitude that Obi has not returned with a White wife. Odogwu praises Obi as a reincarnation of his great ancestor, but Isaac nervously insists that people do not return from the dead. Odogwu then shifts the conversation to the topic greatness, which he claims is planted by God and not made by mortals. Their village has been great in the past, but now greatness resides among White people, and villagers must travel to White people’s lands to acquire it, as Obi has done.
The villagers explicitly oppose intermarriage with White people, though their prejudice is understandable given their colonial subjugation by the English. Odogwu’s speech, meanwhile, takes a somewhat resigned perspective on the shifting fortunes of peoples and civilizations.
Themes
