In the novel No Longer at Ease, author Chinua Achebe develops a work about the history of Nigeria using a character who becomes the very thing he hates most, someone who is part of the corrupt ruling class in his own country. The character of Okonkwo is an example of the tensions that are created in developing nations between modernism and traditional society, for he is highly and formally educated while most of his countrymen are not. He becomes part of the ruling elite, which is understandable, but along with this goes a new sense of possibility that leads to corruption and to the abandonment of traditional principles in the name of progress.
Chinua Achebe is one of the best known African writers in the West. He is a Nigerian novelist and poet who generally works explores the impact of European culture on African society in books that are considered unsentimental and often ironic, conveying the traditions and speech of the Ibo people. Achebe was born in Ogidi, Nigeria and educated at the University College of Ibadan (now the University of Ibadan). He later taught at various universities in Nigeria and the United States. His first novel was Things Fall Apart (1958), followed by No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987), all set in Africa and describing the struggles of the African people to free themselves from European political influences. Achebe was politically active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his works at this time considered Nigeria's internal conflict; among these works were his volumes of poetry Beware, Soul Brother (1971) and Christmas in Biafra (1973). He helped found the literary magazine Okike.
Obi Okonkwo was raised as a Christian and educated at a university in England. His family emerged from the bush country, and now he takes a position as a civil servant in Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria. He represents a new generat...