Abstract:
This study adopts Postcolonial feminism to explore the personality and cultural identity of Clara as presented by Achebe in No Longer at Ease. The aim is to establish an interplay between post colonialism and feminism in a novel that has already been described by critics as “a pioneering text of postcolonial criticism.” In this context, the novel is examined as a powerful representation of the crisis of being post colonial and modern, while seeking legitimacy in the moral economy of tradition and culture. For Simon Gikandi, “if the postcolonial condition implies the location of subjects between historical, cultural and temporal spaces, then No Longer at Ease can be considered to have been the first novel to thematize this dilemma.” Apart from Gikandi’s assertion, No Longer at Ease has been reputed as a fictional representation of the complications of a society on the verge of postcolonial modernity, with much of the conversations focused on Obi Okonkwo. It is however discovered that not much, in the above regard, has been written on Clara,
the major female character in the work. This study therefore sets out to interrogate the extent to which Clara can be presented as the ultimate portrait of a pioneer modern African woman, from the Achebean narrative oeuvre, particularly in the (post)colonial sense. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations are made after the critical assessment of Clara.
