No Longer at Ease

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1960

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapters 16-19

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 13 Summary

Obi gets a two-week leave to visit Umuofia. He spends his last night in Lagos with Clara. Before sleeping, Clara starts to cry. She hesitates to speak to Obi but eventually asks him to break off their engagement. Obi is hurt and Clara pleads with him to understand. She tells him that his parents would be against it. He tells her she does not want to marry him because of his financial situation. Knowing his claim is wrong, he kisses her.

Obi leaves for his village but decides to stay only one week to save money. His financial struggles make him nervous, and he thinks how to divide his salary to cover his brother’s school fees.

Obi’s mother has returned from the hospital and is in her room. Her room is different compared to the room of Obi’s father. Isaac’s room is full of “the written word,” books, papers, and Union cards, showing his respect for “the symbol of the white man’s power” (66). Hannah’s room includes “mundane things” like coco yums, kola nuts, and pots of palm-oil. Obi tears when he sees his mother. She asks him about his life in Lagos. He tells her everything is fine.

Later that night, a group of young women pass by their house and start singing for Obi’s return. Isaac is furious and wants to send them away. Obi persuades him to calm down, and Hannah comes to listen, enjoying the song.

Chapter 14 Summary

After the family prayer, Obi is set for a serious discussion with his father. Obi sees that his father is old and cannot put kerosene in his lamp easily. Isaac asks him about Lagos and Umuofia Union and then about the girl he sees. Obi tells him he wants the family to meet Clara’s people and starts talking about their marriage. Isaac knows Clara’s name and her family. When he realizes who Clara’s father is, he tells Obi he cannot marry her. Obi says he knows she is an osu but tries to persuade his father to accept her, emphasizing that they are Christians. The Bible does not include such discrimination.

Isaac understands but says that the issue is “deeper.” Obi retorts that the osu tradition comes from the “darkness and ignorance” of their ancestors (70). Isaac says that Clara’s father is a good man and a good Christian but remains an osu. His marriage with Clara would be a curse for the next generations. Obi repeats that such customs will change. He asks Isaac why they should hold on to that tradition, since they are Christians. Obi does not sleep much at night. However, he feels happy because it was the first time he had a real conversation with his father.

Obi goes to see his mother early in the morning. She tells him about a nightmare she had. She was on a bed and saw a mass of termites eating it. Then Isaac told her that Obi was to marry an osu. She tells Obi if he wants to marry Clara he must wait for her death first, or else she will kill herself.

Obi spends the day in his room. His father comes to check on him. Obi wants to beat his father’s arguments. Isaac tells him that he sacrificed his relationship with his own father to become a Christian. He recalls that his father had killed a boy, a great friend of Isaac’s, who was given to the family as a sacrifice. His father loved the kid but obeyed tradition. Isaac did not even go to his father’s funeral.

Chapter 15 Summary

Obi returns to Lagos so perplexed he almost crashes with another car. He goes to Clara’s house. Clara gives him back the engagement ring. Obi tells her to stop being childish but Clara asks him to leave. She says there is something else they should talk about, but that she will take care of it herself. Obi visits Christopher who also says they cannot marry an osu. Obi thinks Clara is pregnant. Christopher suggests a doctor he knows.

Obi and Clara visit two doctors. The first refuses to do the operation, saying it is a crime. He asks Obi why he does not marry her, and Clara declares she will not. The next doctor asks for 30 pounds and tells Clara she must not eat if she comes. He, too, asks Obi why they do not marry.

Chapters 13-15 Analysis

Obi’s parents illustrate cultural tensions within the Igbo community. While Isaac embraces Western cultural elements, his mother remains more traditional. Isaac admires the written word, “the symbol of the white man’s power” (66). Hannah enjoys the traditional songs that Isaac rejects as “heathen music” (67).

The issue of Obi and Clara’s marriage becomes central in the story. Obi’s discussions with his parents about Clara reveal the complex boundaries and ambiguity of postcolonial identity. Isaac, a devout Christian who rejects traditional Nigerian practices, is not ready to denounce the osu system. Obi uses Christianity to counter his father and Isaac’s arguments about the “darkness and ignorance” of their ancestors to try and persuade him (70). However, for Isaac, the osu tradition is “deeper.” Obi insinuates that things will change as Nigerians reconsider their identity on the way to independence, but Isaac insists on the osu tradition: “I beg of you, my son, not to bring the mark of shame […] into your family. If you do, your children and your children’s children unto the third and fourth generations will curse your memory” (70).

However, the novel shows how Obi and Isaac are alike. Isaac reveals the conflict with his own father when he embraced Christianity. Like Obi, Isaac had also rejected Igbo practices. When his father killed a boy, a close friend of Isaac, as a sacrifice out of respect for tradition, Isaac’s relationship with his father collapsed.

Obi, despite his desire, fails to challenge his father. He strives to counter Isaac but cannot find a solid argument: “All day he had striven to rouse his anger and his conviction, but he was honest enough with himself to realize that the response he got […] was not genuine” (72). A final blow for Obi’s hopes is his mother, who cannot accept his marriage with an osu and threatens to kill herself if Obi marries Clara.

Obi finds himself in an unresolved financial and cultural crisis, and he becomes passive in the face of obstacles. When Clara learns of his family’s reaction, she breaks off their plans but hints about her pregnancy. Ultimately, they are unable to resist the expectations of Igbo culture. As the doctors they visit ask Obi why he does not marry Clara, he finds no response. Obi’s hopes and plans begin to fall apart under the pressure of socio-cultural tensions.