Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Achebe, Chinua (Vol. 26) - Robert C. Healey

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ROBERT C. HEALEY

["No Longer at Ease"] is the bourgeois tragedy, African style, of the promising young urban executive who succumbs to temptation when he is no longer able to keep up appearances and make ends meet. Obi Okonkwo, the mixed-up young hero who is no longer at ease, is the grandson of the tough tribal chief who fought to the death against the white man and his ways in Chinua Achebe's first novel, "Things Fall Apart." Unlike his single-minded grandfather, Obi has become thoroughly confused in his loyalties and allegiances, and the white man is only indirectly to blame.

Obi has too much status, too much to live up to even on a handsome salary. He is a "been-to," the only person in his village who has been to England for a university education…. As a university graduate he enjoys a select civil service status and naturally has to live in a suitable European apartment and keep up a car and a chauffeur. He has certain obligations to his family in the...

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1. Introduction
2. The Times Literary Supplement
3. Phoebe-Lou Adams
4. John Coleman
5. Robert C. Healey
6. Time
7. Phoebe-Lou Adams
8. Ronald Christ
9. Charles Miller
10. ROBERT McDOWELL
11. Kate Turkington
12. Adrian A. Roscoe
13. Bruce King
14. John Povey
15. The New Yorker
16. Ifeanyi A. Menkiti
17. The New York Times Book Review
18. Joseph Bruchac
19. Francis M. Sibley
20. G. D. Killam
21. Jonathan Peters
22. Bruce King
23. Copyright

1. Chinua Achebe