COMPARING “THINGS FALL APART” AND “NO LONGER AT EASE”.

COMPARING “THINGS FALL APART” AND “NO LONGER AT EASE”.

Introduction

Achebe was born and raised in Eastern Nigeria, a region originally colonized by the British towards the close of the nineteenth century. He acquired extraordinary grades at school and in the wake of moving on from college, he got associated with news coverage and literature. He found himself mainly attracted to fields like the contention between customs and contemporary lifestyles, Christian history, African customary religions, and so forth.

In this work we will be focusing on what to compare between his first book “Things Fall Apart” and “No Longer at Ease”. Chinua Achebe’s works uncover the supporting importance of sacred living to his readers and welcome his audience to think about the transformation of hallowed tropes from customary to modern times. The veil in these books, is one of various tropes which speak to the moving of the locus of “the sacrosanct” from community to oneself. This figure of speech, and others like it, reflects upon the manner by which European impact has coordinated the social noteworthiness of spirituality through the concept of colonization.

1. Traditions versus Modernity

In Things Fall Apart, the protagonist is Okonkwo, an amazing and very much regarded Igbo leader who is confronted by the disintegration of his world as the British gradually assume power in Nigeria. Okonkwo was famous as a proactive man. “Okonkwo was famous through all nine villages because he was like a cat whose back would never touch the earth” (Achebe 3). He was so strongly opposed to the erosion of the native ways to adopting those of the white men. However, when he endeavored to fiercely oppose his oppressors by executing a delivery person, none of his townspeople offered their help. Okonkwo comprehended that the battle was then lost and hang himself..

The novel’s title is coined from “The Second Coming” A poem by W.B Yeats, an Irish national. A significant part of the novel is centered on Umuofia conventions of marriage, interment, and harvest. Achebe’s choice to utilize a third-person narrator as opposed to composing the book from Okonkwo’s point of view shows exactly how focal the centrality of tradition is to the book, since the third-person narrator can all the more objectively depict features of Umuofia society—their affection for proverbs or how they settle on legal choices, for instance—to the reader than Okonkwo could as an insider to these ceremonies. Despite the strength and reverence on the local customs, the white men pounce and impose their world order upon the clans forcing the Umuofia society to crumble.

Okonkwo and his child Nwoye, additionally, manifest the theme of tradition and change. Okonkwo’s character upholds the old oder, since he holds thoughts about rank, respect, and masculinity in high regard. As the book advances though, Okonkwo drops out of favor with the clans, and his fall flags the disintegrating of customary Umuofia society. His respect to customs likewise drives him to execute his own surrogate child, Ikemefuna, scaring away Nwoye all the while. Nwoye feels cold when he mulls over specific hallmarks of Umuofia society, for example, forgetting about newborn child twins to die and executing blameless people like Ikemefuna—and this lures him to join the Christians whenever he’s given the opportunity later in the novel.

In No Longer At Ease, a sequel of Things Fall Apart, comes Okonkwo’s grandson Obi who attempts to explore the connection between the colonizer and colonized. In contrast to his granddad, Obi Okonkwo endeavors to collaborate with the British and even goes to England for school. Upon his arrival back to Nigeria, however, Obi Okonkwo takes hush money and is caught in the same framework that his granddad endeavored to stand up to.

2. Rural versus Urban Values

Things Fall Apart is set in a rural society that is mainly oral while in No Longer at Ease, we are treated to an urban educated society, which shows how Achebe’s depiction of the African oral social component is not mechanical, but strategic and exceptionally manipulative.

In Things Fall Apart, we see a society that is particularly adamant to change. Its members believe so much in what they have inherited from their fore fathers and, as seen from Okonkwo’s case, some would rather die than give in to the ways of the white man. In no longer at ease, we find a city that comes with its own merits and demerits. It’s from this city, for instance, that Obi and others from his Umuofia home district are capable to gather enough cash to build up the scholarship that gives him an education in England that is hoped to be beneficial to them particularly if they became lawyers.

“It was rather sheer hypocrisy to ask if a scholarship was as important as all that or if university education was worth it. Every Nigerian knew the answer. It was yes. A university degree was the philosopher’s stone” (Achebe 105)

Another difference between the city and the rural is exhibited by the scenes with the pillowcases. Obi visits Lagos from his Iguebo home village 500 miles away while at 21 for the first time in order to fly to England for about four years of college studies. In Lagos he shares a stay with his friend from school in Umuofia, Joseph, who worked in the city around then. Obi is fascinated by the plain sexuality in “this strange and sinful new world” (Achebe 16) and when Joseph tells him about a previous sweetheart, he makes reference to that she made the pillowcases in his apartment. A word “osculate” sewed on one of the pillowcases and coupled with Joseph’s unnamed current lover create “a nasty taste in Obi’s mouth” (Achebe 17). On the other hand, at the point of Obi’s return to his parents’ home in Iguebo four years afterwards, he is confronted by the rather new white sheet and cushion slips with their delicate flowery designs which are surely done by Esther.

The city later corrupts Obi and having been a radical hater of corruption, we see him accepting bribes and this puts him at war with the law.

3. Fate and Free Will.

From the beginning, Okonkwo’s will appears to drive his climb in Umuofia society. He ascends from being the child of a debtor to being one of the top of his clan, because of his aggression and grit. He gets known for his wrestling ability. However, when things begin going bad for Okonkwo, he starts to accuse his fate. This starts with Ikemefuna’s passing who alongside the infant twins get no time to act and are instead wildly acted upon.

Obi on the other side has the will to defeat dishonesty and all that relates to it in the beginning. Fate, however, leads him to lose one of the basic elements of human decency and he harvests where he never sowed which ended him into the courts of justice.

Conclusion.

These two books , having being done by the same author, relating to the same nation and having protagonists of the same  linage in different generations have a lot to compare and contrast.

References

ACHEBE, C. (2018). THINGS FALL APART. [Place of publication not identified]: PENGUIN Books.

ACHEBE, C. (2018). NO LONGER AT EASE. [Place of publication not identified]: BLURB.