The Predicaments of Post-Colonialism. an Analytical Study of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease

No Longer At Ease Extract In fact, some weeks ago when the trial first began, Mr. | | Green, his boss, who was one of the Crown witnesses, had also said | | something about a young man of great promise. And Obi had | | remained completely unmoved. Mercifully he had recently lost his | | mother, and Clara had gone out of his life. The two events | 5 | events following closely on each other had dulled his sensibility and left | | him a different man, able to look words like ‘education and | | ‘promise squarely in the face. But now when the supreme moment | | came he was betrayed by treacherous tears. | | Mr. Green had been playing tennis since five o’clock. It was most | 10 | unusual. As a rule his work took up so much of his time that he | | rarely played. His normal exercise was a short walk in the | | evenings. But today he had played with a friend who worked for | | the British council. After the game they retried to the club bar | | Mr. Green had a light yellow sweater over his white shirt, and a | 15 | white towel hung from his neck. There were many other | | Europeans in the bar, some half-sitting on the high stools and | | some standing in groups of twos and threes drinking cold beer, | | orange squash or gin-and-tonic. | | ‘I cannot understand why he did it’, said the British council | 20 | man thoughtfully. He was drawing lines of water with his finger on | | the back of his mist-covered glass of ice-cold beer. | | ‘I can,’ said Mr. Green simply. ‘What I can’t understand is | | is why people like you refuse to face facts.’ Mr. Green was famous for | | speaking his mind. He wiped his red face with the white towel on | 25 | his neck. ‘The African is corrupt through and through.’ The | | British council man looked about his furtively, more from | | instinct than necessity, for although the club was now open to | | them technically, few Africans went to it. On this particular | |