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Study Questions for Achebe's No Longer At Ease
by Thad Curtz (for Hard Decisions)

1. Proverbs

You will find, early on, that many people in this book habitually cite proverbs when they are talking about decisions. Here are a few things you might do to explore this phenomenon.

A. Pick six or eight proverbs from the book at random; see what you hypothesize about Ibo culture just on the basis of those proverbs, if you didn't know anything else about life in Nigeria.

B. What role do proverbs and similar slogans play in your decision making? List a few proverbs off the top of your head? Put down any favorite lines of your family's. (My mother always said, "If you can't say anything nice, dear, don't say anything at all.") Put down the first few advertising slogans that come to mind. Look at this list. Do you think these things affect your decision making? Why or why not...?

C. Do you think that people who cite proverbs when they are discussing decisions might somehow think differently about decision making than people who don't? (Obviously, you will have to make some speculative, preliminary guesses here.) If you think that there might be some differences, what do you think that their possible benefits or costs might be?

2. The novel

A. The plot

Achebe begins the story at the end, with Obi's trial and the loss of his case. How does this affect your experience of the rest of the story, compared to telling the story in the order in which it is supposed to have happened? Why might Achebe have chosen to structure the time sequence in this way?

B. The first scene

It's often useful to spend a little time with the opening of a novel to see how it introduces important themes or issues. What does being "fully prepared" and having "rehearsed the scene" mean to Obi? He seems to rely at lot on getting prepared in this sort of way for approaching situations; why does this matter so much to him? One incident at the trial is of interest to him - how would you describe the essence of the incident; what does it have to do with Obi's world and the rest of his experiences in the novel? Why does it interest him at this point?

Some of the language in the first page and a half about the trial seems to give us Obi's own thoughts, even though the narrator doesn't say "Obi thought to himself that ..." Which sentences do you think are actually inside his consciouness, and why?

He does not seem to be thinking much about what the verdict will be. Why not, do you suppose? What is he concerned about, and why?

It says that his mother's death and the loss of Clara had "...left him a different man, able to look words like 'education' and 'promise' squarely in the face" (p. 2). What does that mean? Assuming that he can now do that, do you think that it represents a dramatic change in him?

C. Other stories

Besides the proverbs, some other stories play significant roles in this story, including the traditional Ibo tale he chooses to recite at school and adds to himself (p. 53-54), his "favorite poem" - Housman's "Easter Hymn ", and his father's "great and significant analogy" - the story of Naaman from Second Kings (p. 121). (We have xeroxed them for you and attached them to this, since we are just getting started.) What can you figure out about why each of these comes into the story when it does, and what they can add to our understanding of Obi or the issues...

D. Obi's character -

In some ways, given the expectations and values of most of the other people around him, Obi's decision to not take bribes at first is at least as hard and interesting a choice as his later change. How far back can you trace this?

1. On page 80, a passage compares his first experience of declining a bribe with his first experience of sexual intercourse. What can you learn from the language of this passage (the comparisons, in particular) about his feelings and ideas?

2. On page 75, when the President brings up his wedding plans, Obi leaps to his feet, "trembling with rage". It says "At such times, words always deserted him." What does "such times" mean - are there other "such times" in the novel? Where does this "rage" come from?

3. His relations to his mother - the novel says, "For some reason or other, whenever Obi thought affectionately of his mother, his mind went back" to the story about the razor blade. (p. 68) Why is this the image that sums up and makes concrete his "special relationship" with her? What does that relationship contribute to his impulses and behavior as an adult?

3. His relations to his father - In what ways is he like his father? How do they differ? You might start with the incident on page 53, in which a neighbor offers him a piece of yam. How much of who he becomes is already apparent in him as a child?