Becoming an Identity Change in ‘No Longer at Ease’ Based on Deleuze’s Theory
الموضوعات :
Maryam Sadeghi
1
(Department of English Language, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran)
Fatemeh AzizMohammadi
2
(Department of English Language, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran)
Mozhgan Yarahmadi
3
(Department of English Language, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran)
الکلمات المفتاحية: desire, Becoming, Achebe, Deleuze and Guattari, Re-territorializing, Territorializing,
ملخص المقالة :
The main purpose of this essay is to investigate the role of becoming through political and social factors among the main character’s changing identity in Achebe’s No Longer at Ease. The researcher intends to depict the effects of political factors on the re-territorialization and territorialization of the main character through the framework of Deleuze’s theory. The current essay focuses on No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe to discover how becoming and transformation of identity take place throughout the novel and how the main character of the novel is going through constant change and becoming, which are the result of different forces. Moreover, the researcher intends to investigate the character’s desires that result in the becoming process of identity deriving from social and capitalist factors in society. Since Deleuze and Guattari’s distinctive definition of literature investigates how minor literature is produced in the dominant narratives of major literature, it can critically assist the present research to discuss that Achebe prepares the ground for indigenous, anticolonial voices in his novel No Longer at Ease. It can be concluded that the main character of Achebe’s No Longer at Ease is in flux due to different forces, and his identity goes through constant becoming.
Achebe, Chinua. No Longer at Ease. London: Heinemann, 1963.
Carlsson, Cecilia. “Navigating the Contradictions of Colonial Citizenship: A Study of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease Focused on Mr. Green and Obi Okonkwo.” UMEA University, 2019.
Chua, John. Cliff Notes on Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. United States: John Wiley and Sons Inc, 1996.
Curren, Randall, ed. Philosophy of Education. An Anthology. USA, UK, Australia: Blackwell, 2007.
Deleuze , Gilles and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. London: The University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1987. PDF file.
--- . Anti-Oedipus Capitalism and Schizophrenia.Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R.Lane. USA: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. PDF file.
Due, Reider. Deleuze (Key Contemporary Thinkers). Cambridge:Polity Press , 2007. PDF file.
Lane, L. Richard. The Postcolonial Novel. United Kingdom: Polity Press, 2006.
Innes, C.L. and Bernth Lindfors, eds. Critical Perspective on Chinua Achebe. London: Heinemann, 1979.
McEwan, Neil. Africa and the Novel. London: The Macmillan Press LTD, 1983.
Ogbaa, Kalu. Gods, Oracles and Divination: Folkways in Chinua Achebe’s Novels. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, Inc., 1992.
Pieterse, Cosmo and Dennis Duerden, eds. African Writers Talking: A Collection of Radio Interviews. New York: African Publishing Corp., 1972.
Uchendu, C. Victor. The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria. New York: Holt, Pineheart and Winston, 1965.
Zarrinjooee, Bahman and Shahla Khatar “Dissemination of English Culture in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease”. Advances in Language and Literary Studies. Vol. 7 No. 4; August 2016
Zehouani, Meriem and Yamina Fridjat “Corruption in Chinua Achebe’s Novel No Longer at Ease: A Postcolonial Study” MA Thesis: University Elchahid Hamma Lakhdar, 2019.
International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Research ISSN: 2322-3898-http://jfl.iaun.ac.ir/journal/about © 2023- Published by Islamic Azad University, Najafabad Branch |
|
|
Please cite this paper as follows:
Sadeghi, M., Azizmohammadi, F., & Yarahmadi, M. (2023). Becoming an Identity Change in ‘No Longer at Ease’ Based on Deleuze’s Theory. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 11 (45), 149-160. http://doi.org/10.30495/JFL.2023.703378
Becoming an Identity Change in ‘No Longer at Ease’ Based on Deleuze’s Theory
Maryam Sadeghi1, Fatemeh Azizmohammadi2*, Mojgan Yarahmadi3
1Ph.D Candidate, Department of English Language, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
2Associate Professor, Department of English Language, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
f-azizmohammadi@iau-arak.ac.ir
3Assistant Professor, Department of English Language, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
Introduction
Achebe was born on 16 November 1930 in an Igbo family in Eastern Nigeria. He was the fifth offspring of the family. His father, Isaiah Okafor Achebe, changed over to Christianity when he was not a grown-up. His folks were dedicated Christians. They were in Evangelizing church. The father was a teacher in Christian instruction in the chapel minister society. The guardians named him Albert after Prince Albert in the Victorian time era. Nevertheless, when Albert went to University, he picked the name Chinualumogo which is an Igbo name. It signifies "my soul come to battle for me" (Chua 6). Chinua had a severe Christian childhood, yet the vast majority of individuals around him carried on with a customary life. They played out the entirety of their customary and ethnic ceremonies, like contributing food to their Gods. They communicated in the Igbo language and sang psalms at their request.
Chinua Achebe is known as the most popular and widely read current African writer in both the African continent and abroad. He gained this reputation with his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), which won him the Memorial Prize as well as grants and scholarships. His rewards were not limited just to his first novel, and after the publication of his second novel, No Longer at Ease (1960), he received the Nigerian National Trophy for literature.
Known as “the father of the African novel,” Achebe is best known for his fictional works foregrounding the political struggles of Nigeria. His novels include Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savaunah (1987). His critical works include Morning Yet on Creation Day: Essays (1975) and Hopes and Interpretation: Selected Essays, 1965-1987 (1988), both include “An Image of Africa.” He wrote other criticism such as A Tribute to James Baldwin (1989), Home and Exile (2000), and three volumes directly addressing Nigerian politics: The Trouble with Nigeria (1983), The World of the Ogbanje (1986), and The University and the Leadership Factor in Nigerian Politics (1988).
Achebe’s ideas on writing and governmental issues have been kept in Conversations with Achebe, altered by Bernth Lindfors (1997). Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s Chinua Achebe: A Biography (1997) gives a point-by-point image of Achebe’s life and ventures. Catherine Innes’s Chinua Achebe (1990) presents the best basic examination of his different compositions. Simon Gikandi’s Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction (1991) look at Achebe’s books as compared to other basic expositions. The other accommodating work which can be a far-reaching guideline for various pieces of Achebe’s life and works is The Chinua Achebe Encyclopedia, altered by M. Keith Booker in 2003. Simon Gikandi communicates his acknowledgment of the high spot of Achebe and his importance in the groundwork of African writing in these words:
The more I reread the works of such figures as Rene Maran, Amos Tutuola, Paul Hazoume, and Sol Plaatje, the more I am convinced of their significance in the foundation of an African tradition of letters. Still, none of these writers had the effect Achebe had on the establishment and reconfiguration of an African literary tradition; none were able to enter and interpret the institutions of exegesis and education the same way he did; none were able to establish the terms by which African literature was produced, circulated, and interpreted. (Lane 32)
As it has been stated, Achebe was born in Ogidi, in the eastern piece of Nigeria, in 1930, and as he expressed in his article "Named for Nigeria, Queen of England," he was initially named Albert Chinualumogu. Although a considerable number of his family members and neighbors were committed to the Ibo, or Igbo individuals, religion, and customs, his father was an evangelist and church educator. Thus Achebe grew up "at the intersection of societies" (Innes 1). On one side, he was gone up against with Bible and sang psalms night and day, and on different,
his family members offered food as symbols. He chose to portray what was happening, and numerous readers could discover some helpful information on customary Ibo society in Achebe’s functions as well as values brought by white colonizers because Achebe experienced the two societies and had the option to move to start with one and then onto the next.
No Longer at Ease starts with the court of Obi Okonkwo on the charge of taking bribes. It then hops back to a point before his takeoff for England and works its direction forward to portray how Obi wound up being investigated. The individuals from the Umuofia Progressive Union (UPU), a gathering of Umuofia locals who have passed on their towns to live in significant Nigerian urban communities, have asked for money to send Obi to England to concentrate on Law, with the expectation that he will get back to help his kin by addressing them in the pilgrim’s general set of laws, especially concerning land cases. Nonetheless, Obi changes his major to English and meets Clara Okeke. After becoming aware of his mother’s death, Obi sinks into a profound gloom and does not return home for the burial service. Whenever he recuperates, he starts to take bribes in a hesitant affirmation that it is the manner of his reality. The novel closes as Obi accepts the bribe and lets himself know that it is the last one he will take, just to find that the payoff was important for a sting activity. He is captured, bringing us up to the events that opened the story.
Methodology and Approach
The approach used in the current article would be sociological and political criticism to analyze the writer’s work. This thesis also contains historical criticism as well. Sociological criticism can be seen in this article because matters like colonialism, post-colonialism, and anything related to them are all political, social, cultural, and economical, so in examining such work, all these matters are going to be discussed. The methodology used in this study is based on the library research method and relies on the qualitative investigation. Moreover, the theorist chosen in this study is Deleuze.
Gilles Deleuze (1925 -1995) was a French thinker who, from the mid-1950s until he died in 1995, composed on the way of thinking, writing, film, and compelling artwork. His most famous works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), both co-composed with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. His magical composition Difference and Repetition (1968) is considered by numerous researchers to be his magnum opus. A significant piece of Deleuze's oeuvre is committed to the perusing of different scholars: the Stoics, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and Bergson, with specific impact, got from Spinoza. A. W. Moore, referring to Bernard Williams' rules for an extraordinary mastermind, positions Deleuze among the best philosophers. Although he once described himself as an unadulterated metaphysician, his work has impacted an assortment of disciplines across the humanities, including philosophy, art, and abstract hypothesis, just as developments like post- structuralism and postmodernism
As it has been mentioned earlier, the present research aims to analyze the selected novels from Deleuze’s theory of becoming and identity. Becoming is a concept that was first developed in A Thousand Plateaus by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) and his psychotherapist friend, Felix Guattari (1930-1992). They tried to define the notion of becoming differently as: “modes of expansion, propagation, contagion, peopling” (A Thousand Plateaus 239). The theoretical framework of this research would be Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's theory on this concept, developed mainly in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
In this book, they discuss various kinds of becoming, and they firmly believe that the line of ‘becoming’ begins with ‘becoming.’ For Deleuze, Becoming happens in two stages which are de- territorialization and re-territorialization, and they need an essential plane to unleash obliteration
on. This plane is that of territorialization, the fundamental picture a spectator gets from the current snapshot of the complete cycle. Eventually, the primary thing which should be distinguished is what is happening to notice the draw and push of the powers of de- territorialization and re-territorialization on it. This is given by the Deleuzean idea of the array, which respects all the machinic and hierarchical relations that it right now has. Besides, de- territorialization happens through the lines of flight, which undermine the relations of the groups by presenting novel bearings for change among them, conveying them across the limit of their limits. If this de-territorialization is a finished one, it causes a deficiency of importance and character, and if this ruin isn't fixed, there is nothing left other than uncovered energy of Becoming with next to no being at all.
In the most Deleuzian sense, all becomings are virtual and not pragmatic. Becomings generally track down them far past the pragmatic sense. Accordingly, to comprehend this idea viably, it is critical to comprehend its fleeting construction of it. Becoming is an interaction that, step by step, causes a change in thoughts, viewpoints, and presence in the universe. This is thus the impact of a sluggish truth of society-deterritorialization. This de-territorialization revolved around a man-centric world (Chowdhury 2-3). Accordingly, "To become is not to progress or regress along a series. Above all, becoming does not occur in the imagination, even when the imagination reaches the highest cosmic or dynamic level Becomings are neither dreams nor phantasies” (Deleuze and Guattari, Thousands 238). As a result, the researcher studies the changing identity of the characters within the main character.
The other notions that the researcher investigates within the character include de- territorialization and re-territorialization. De-territorialization, for Deleuze and Guattari, implies a cycle that takes the region away from a few already existing substances, opening the wildernesses and empowering otherness also distinction. To deterritorialize is to let loose existing fixed relations and present oneself with new structures to change. It's anything but a genuine break, yet more a flight - once in a while vicious - from a given domain. (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 87-88).
Deleuze and Guattari unyieldingly contend each de-territorialization is cooperated by a re- territorialization; striated and smooth space can be hypothetically disassociated, however, are interminably weaved by and by. As far as contemporary experiences, such a rationalistic arrangement of Deleuze and Guattari's regional governmental issues stays immature. In one of the fascinating conversations about the governmental issues of Deleuze's work, Patton proposes that "Deleuze and Guattari's experienced political way of thinking may be viewed as a governmental issue of de-territorialization" (136). As a result, the researcher reviews the destruction of the old patterns and the rebuilding of the new patterns within the subject.
Review of Literature
Victor Uchendu, in his The Ego of Southeast Nigeria, tries to sketch in the life of African people in their actual life. This work can be a good source of authentic information on the life of Achebe’s subjects in his works. In C.L. Innes’ Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, different approaches to and perspectives on various aspects of Achebe’s works are presented with a sharp look at both the literary and societal properties of black people. This might be a significant source for a more thorough investigation of Achebe and his themes. Neil McEwan, in his Africa and the Novel, reviews African novels in its recent flourishing stage- the past few decades. In this work, McEwan uses a socio-literary approach to mention some critical turning points of African Literature. This can be a rich source for a contextualized study of Achebe and his works.
A brilliant source of reliable information on how Africans come to distinguish themselves can be traced in Kalu Ogbaa’s God, Oracles and Divination; Folkways in Chinua Achebe’s Novel.
Ideally, the presence (or nonappearance) of Western impact on the culture of African colonies will be understood with the association of this book. Susan Beckman’s impressive article “Language as Cultural Identity in Achebe,” which is included in Innes’ mentioned book, minutely counts elements of cultural identity as embodied in language within literary works of great figures, Achebe being one. Beckman’s essay can assist this study to find out everything regarding language and identity. To get to know the significance of Achebe’s literary endeavors among his co-African authors within the vast oeuvre of African Literature, two books can be very helpful: Dennis Duerden and Cosmo Pieterse’s African Writers Talking and Research in African Literature. The first one provides a rich collection of interviews with literary giants of Africa, including Achebe. And the latter includes Achebe’s remarks on his own historical significance for the African reading community.
In “Dissemination of English Culture in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease” by Zarrinjooee and Khatar portrays the spread of English culture in Nigeria and its impacts on the life and character of Obi Okonkwo, the Western-taught male protagonist. The center of this paper is on the dispersal of English culture and accommodation of Nigerian culture in order to speak to the mediocrity of Nigerians. Edward Said’s (1935-2003) endeavors with respect to Orientalism and Frantz Fanon’s (1925-1961) issues relating inadequacy of the innate individuals caused by colonization are utilized in this paper. The colonizers influence the life, intellect, culture, and personality of the colonized through different ways, such as education, religion, and language. Such impacts caused a few social changes and changes in the language of the colonized people.
“Navigating the Contradictions of Colonial Citizenship: A Study of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease Focused on Mr. Green and Obi Okonkwo” by Cecilia Carlsson focuses on postcolonial perspective, specifically concentrating on its hero, the colonized Obi Okonkwo, and his adversary, the colonizer Mr. Green, utilizing the speculations of the scholarly faultfinder Homi Bhabha. It contends that these two characters are crossbreeds in their irresolute contact zone by illustrating, firstly, the coinciding presence of complementary sentiments of sympathy/admiration and disdain, and besides, that they are socially crossbred individuals. Moreover, this proposal analyzes the mimicry of Obi and uncovers that it can be either strategic or intuitive in nature. It concludes that both mimicry and joke have the potential to destabilize the auxiliary power imbalance between colonizer and colonized, in this manner challenging colonial authority.
“Corruption in Chinua Achebe’s Novel No Longer at Ease: A Postcolonial Study” by Zehouani and Fridjat highlights the marvel of debasement in Africa amid the postcolonial period through the African novel No Longer at Ease (1960) by Chinua Achebe. Debasement could be a wonder that has clearly spread among Africa in the postcolonial phase. This study points to conduct a postcolonial ponder on the novel, centers on the problem of corruption within the postcolonial period, and appears the representation of debasement by the author within the African countries through the character' social, financial, and political clashes. Seeing that, the expository strategy is received in this investigate. It looks at the author's representation of debasement as a postcolonial issue and the postcolonial viewpoints in his novel. It centers on considering the connection between the colonizer and the colonized in expansion to the most character clashes among the Nigerian society after the freedom.
Discussion
No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe depicts a period of the life of a young Nigerian man who is represented in the Deleuzian process of becoming and changing. To be honest, what is important is minoritarian becoming not becoming itself. Obi personifies as a member of different cultures influenced by the majoritarian systems within which they live. Nevertheless, the process of becoming—the attempt to escape territorialization and codification—is unusual about these
characters; although Mambrol asserts that Achebe's “practical advice is that Africans should learn to cope with a changing world" (1) to cope with a changing world, a man should try to make himself free of all restrictions and norms dominated on the society. Different aspects based on Deleuze and Guattari are involved in the process of becoming and becoming minoritarian throughout No Longer at Ease. In this part, different aspects which were involved in the process of minoritarian becoming of Obi Okonkwo's social and personal life would be discussed thoroughly.
Becoming, as a significant concept by Deleuze and Guattari, can be traced throughout many of the characters in society. The people of Umuofia wanted Obi to study law so he can defend their land cases against their neighbors. But Obi studied English, and as Achebe stated in his novel, it was not the first time he pursued his self-will. Although he was brought up in a culture in which solidarity and tribal life were of prime importance, his education in England inculcated in his mind the value of individualism and self-will. In No Longer at Ease, we see becoming in the main character, Obi. There are many reasons that Obi changes during the time he studies in England and when he comes back to Nigeria. According to Biehl, "Deleuze’s cartographic approach makes space for possibility, what could be, as a crucial dimension of what is or what was" (323).
Education is one of the main reasons that has started the process of re-territorialization and becoming within the main character. Based on the meaning of Randall Curren in Philosophy of Education an Anthology, education alludes principally to the methodical directing and controlling of human exercises to work on their types of learning. Current accepts that schooling includes the transmission of culture (Curren 3). Certain individuals feel that schooling is simply placing information into the psyche, like "placing sight into the visually impaired eyes"; however, instruction is both about information and directing the understudy towards the right pass (8). Curren says that Plato, in his book Laws, has a fascinating picture of training: "A person resembles a manikin of the gods pulled about by strings, free just to the degree that schooling and the law empower that person to demonstration sanely" )8).
Kevin Harris, in his book Education and Knowledge, expressed that schooling is essentially worried about the transmission of information. The principal feature of schooling is that it is "formal," "organized," and "given by the state," and its point is to give a huge amount of information on the world (1). Instruction and education have three extraordinary functions to assist with training and education that result in expansive information about the world. In the first place, it chooses from the immense extent of information the valuable part. Then, it gives how individuals can acquire that information. In the last step, it gives mastery to spread the word. This framework exemplifies the information as a laid out and unchangeable arrangement of realities and objectively does this; however, the issue is that their work is not nonpartisan. Harris feels that the schooling system gives a unique sort of information that gives its crowd a specific perspective on the world. The school system, in his terms, is a nonneutral and political framework that gives the casing from which we take a gander at the world (2).
As has been talked about in the main section, education is one of the most remarkable philosophical forces in changing and becoming a process. The issue of our life is not the question of living in the belief system yet the question of living in what type of philosophy. Harris expressed that since there can be no getting away from philosophy, the most un-thing that we can do is to live in the one philosophy that addresses the world in the most ideal way. Once in a while, certain philosophies neutralize the blessings of a greater part in the public eye, but since of their mutilations and camouflages, individuals do not comprehend they are working in that way. In the schooling system, kids don't simply learn English, math, or history; as a matter of fact, they
realize what the decision class sees as English, math, or history and consider them as the most dependable and commendable pieces of information to learn (Harris 74).
The role of organizations in the public eye is to enable and fix the norm; to do this, they attempt to support the decision thoughts and serve their inclinations. One of the techniques which these foundations accomplish for their motivation is to depersonalize and camouflage the decision class as the genuine proprietor of the got thoughts in the public eye. These establishments are made by individuals themselves and are acknowledged by them as well (78). We can assault and respond against philosophy just when we perceive these philosophical establishments. These establishments attempt to mask a logical and objective appearance for themselves while they are serving the interests of the decision class. We should attempt to perceive what intrigues they are supporting (95). Harris accepts that education is the transmission of information, and there are two variables in this transmission: a "content element" and a "cycle factor." Both of these elements should be perceived together. By concentrating on history, math, or geology, one doesn't just learn them; he figures out how to learn history, math, or geology and what part of this information is significant (137). Harris expresses the possibility of Aristotle about training and says that morals and governmental issues figure out what ought to be the substance of instruction, by whom it ought to be considered, and how much. Harris guaranteed that training is a political demonstration, and it isn't exceptionally peculiar because schooling is given by the state, and those instructive organizations that are not given by the state are constrained by it (138-9).
Robin Usher and Richard Edwards, in the book Postmodernism and Education: Different Voices, Different Worlds, contend that schooling is especially impervious to the postmodern 'message.' They notice that instructive hypothesis and practice are established on the discourse of advancement, and its self-understandings have been fashioned by that discourse's fundamental and understood suspicions. By and large, schooling should be visible as the vehicle by which innovation's 'fabulous accounts,' the Enlightenment goals of basic explanation, individual opportunity, progress, and kind change, are validated and understood. The actual reasoning of the instructive cycle and the role of the instructor is established on innovation's self-propelled, self- coordinating, levelheaded subject equipped for practicing individual organization. Postmodernism's accentuation on the recorded subject, the decentred subject built by language, talks, desire, and the unconscious, appears to go against the actual reason for instruction and the premise of instructive movement" (Usher and Edwards 2).
The initial six sections of this novel connect with the flight of Obi from English University and his re-visitation to Umuofia. It presents the contentions between his customary African life and his newly molded thoughts in the European school system. Individuals of Umuofia believed that Obi should concentrate on regulation, so he can safeguard their property arguments against their neighbors. In any case, Obi concentrated on English, and as Achebe expressed in his novel, it was not whenever he first sought after his self-will. Even though he was raised in a culture in which fortitude and ancestral life were of prime significance, his schooling in England taught in his mind the value of independence and self-will. Obi and his family were Anglicans. The function that individuals of Umuofia hold for his appearance was not a customary custom yet a Christian petition meeting. Albeit various individuals from Umuofia, from barbarian to Christian, participated in this gathering, the reader could, without much of a stretch, vibe indications of pressure under this shallow harmony among individuals. As Carroll said in his book Chinua Achebe, even this Christianity is not an indication of triumph for the preachers since it is Africanized Christianity. Mary, who is an African proselyte, implores fascinatingly:
'Oh God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob,' she burst forth, ' the Beginning and the End. Without you, we can do nothing. The great river is not big enough for you to wash your hands in. You have the yam, and you have the knife; we cannot eat unless you cut us a
piece. We are like ants in your sight. We are like little children who only wash their stomach when they bath, leaving their back dry ...' She went on and on, reeling off proverb after proverb and painting picture after picture (9).
Even though quite a while back, at the appearance of preachers, the job and impact of Christianity were perfect, it was slowly being supplanted by the impact of training. The light that was moved to individuals by the endowment of Christianity presently emerged from schooling. Obi, who had a place in the new age, was not a severe Anglican like his dad. At the point when he was a youngster, he used to mistranslate the Bible, and now that he was an adult, his conviction and ethical quality were molded by the school system. Indeed, even the catechists living in Africa had an alternate view toward training. The Reverend Samuel Ikedi of St Mark’s Anglican Church deciphered the arrival of Obi and his certification from England as the satisfaction of the prescience and the bringing of light: “The people which sat in darkness Saw a great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death to them did light spring up” (8). They interpreted words and knowledge as the beginning of the fear of the Lord:
In times past,' he told him, 'Umuofia would have required you to fight in her wars and bring home human heads. But those were days of darkness from which we have been delivered by the blood of the Lamb of God. Today we send you to bring knowledge. Remember that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (10)
Obi’s father truly had faith in the spell of words. He had bunches of books in his room and often thought a lot about them. He said that the force of the white men is in their printed books and the words written in them. The African public is composed of extraordinary material as well, yet that blurred over the long haul. It was the printed expression of the white men that never blurred, and Isaac believed that the force of the Bible was in these words.
Perhaps the most famous thought proposed by Deleuze for schooling and investigated further by various researchers is the correlation of educ with the method involved with swimming. It must be conceded that Deleuze never composed a book or a section on education. Right at the earliest reference point of his book Difference and Repetition, he was attempting to outline the mark of impedances and convergences between the two lines: one concerning the quintessence of reiteration, the other the possibility of contrast. To put forward his viewpoint clearly, Deleuze went to the case of swimming as the case of training, exhibiting the crossing points between the distinction and redundancy.
The engine body developments of the swimmer appear to be the proliferation of the Same. Yet, Deleuze says it is a shallow end. Deleuze reminds us that even the least complex impersonation includes a distinction between inside and outside. Based on him, impersonation assumes just an optional and administrative part in the securing of a way of behaving: it allows the rectification of developments being made, yet not their prompting. Deleuze expressed: "Learning happens not in that frame of mind between a portrayal and an activity (multiplication of the Same) however in the connection between a sign and a reaction (experience with the Other)" (Deleuze, Difference and Repetition 22). Deleuze orders the heterogeneity required by signs in three potential ways: 1. the object bears or emanates signs, yet it happens essentially on an alternate level, like there were two sets of size or dissimilar real factors between which the sign glimmers. 2. A sign encompasses another 'object' inside the constraint of the item which bears it and manifests a characteristic or profound power; 3. In the reaction, they evoke since the development of the reaction does not 'look like that of a sign. The equivalent occurs with the developments of the swimming guidelines, which are repeated before entering the water on the sand.
These developments of the 'swimming on the sand' bear no connection to the developments on the wave, which the amateur figures out how to manage simply by getting a handle on the
previous practice as signs. Deleuze presumes that it "is hard to say how somebody realizes: there is a natural or gained commonsense experience with signs, and that truly intends that there is something passionate - yet additionally something lethal - pretty much all training. We don't advance anything from the people who express: "Do as I do." Our main educators are the people who tell us: 'Do it with me" and can emanate signs to be created in heterogeneity as opposed to proposing signals for us to repeat" (Deleuze Difference and Repetition 23). The same mechanism of swimming and repetition can be found in the educational system of the novel. In fact, throughout the educational system which is imposed on the African people, the ideology of the white people is reproduced and practiced at different levels with different sizes.
The European instruction had a few advantages for individuals of Umuofia who were supporting Obi to acquire his certificate from England. Individuals of Umuofia needed to safeguard their property argument against their neighbors. At the point when the ministers entered Africa and changed over certain individuals to Christianity, a contributor to this issue was settled. They offered back the grounds of Africans to them, and these terrains had authoritative archives. Even though they did this activity to mollify and control Africans better than anyone might have expected, Africans were glad to have some portion of their properties back. Presently this cycle would have been achieved by the power of information, so individuals of Umuofia believed that Obi should concentrate on regulation. Even though Obi concentrated on English rather than regulation, his European degree and his post in the common assistance that was the subsequent situation in the wake of being a European could be of help as well. The issue was that they didn't have the foggiest idea that this training, alongside its advantages, brings distance as well. Obi’s thoughts and perspective were changed, and he, at this point not had faith in his conventional lifestyle.
Becoming, as a significant concept by Deleuze and Guattari, can be traced throughout many of the characters in society. The people of Umuofia wanted Obi to study law so he can defend their land cases against their neighbors. But Obi studied English, and as Achebe stated in his novel, it was not the first time he pursued his self-will. Although he was brought up in a culture in which solidarity and tribal life were of prime importance, his education in England inculcated in his mind the value of individualism and self-will.
In No Longer at Ease, we see becoming in the main character, Obi. There are many reasons that Obi changes during the time he studies in England and when he comes back to Nigeria. According to Biehl, "Deleuze’s cartographic approach makes space for possibility, what could be, as a crucial dimension of what is or what was" (323). Obi was a naïve Nigerian boy who could get a scholarship to study in London to come back to his homeland and be the honor of his people. Obi was not eager to change when he went to England to study, although, for him, there is a big clash of values. He wanted to begin a new life there, but still, he is truthful to his nation, culture, and even customs." Four years in England had filled Obi with a longing to be back in Umuofia. This feeling was sometimes so strong that he found himself feeling ashamed of studying English for his degree. He spoke Ibo whenever he had the least opportunity of doing so" (49). In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, which Deleuze co-authored with Felix Guattari, it is stated that "a line of becoming has neither beginning nor end, departure nor arrival, origin nor destination… A line of becoming has only a middle … A becoming is always in the middle; one can only get it by the middle" (293).
Mr. Green accepted that even the informed Africans have not arrived at the degree of reasoning to help their kin. He used to articulate the word instructed with abhorrence. He faulted the Africans for squandering their cash for their government assistance and not even spending a penny of it for their country. Obi trusted that Mr. Green’s life was a misfortune and said that he needed to compose the awfulness of the Greens of his country. At the point when he was in the boat with his companion, Obi said that he had his meaning of misfortune. He accepted that
demise is not the component that makes the misfortune. It ruins the misfortune, truth be told. The genuine misfortune is rarely settled, and you have no chance to get out of it:
Yes. The real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly forever. The conventional tragedy is too easy. The hero dies, and we feel a purging of our emotions. A real tragedy takes place in a corner, in an untidy spot, to quote W. H. Auden. The rest of the world is unaware of it, like that man in A Handful of Dust who reads Dickens to Mr. Todd. There is no release for him. When the story ends, he is still reading. There is no purging of the emotions for us because we are not there. (40)
At the point when Obi was examining the awfulness of Mr. Green’s life, he was so satisfied with his thoughts. Yet, he didn't ruminate about his life condition. He had no chance to get out of his obligations and couldn't bear the cost of his living costs. He was losing the lady he cherished on account of the traditions of his country. His folks had monetary issues and wouldn't coexist with Obi’s circumstances. The genuine misfortune was Obi’s life, truth be told. But his companion nobody knew about his condition, and there was no answer to it. He reached the place where he often thought about nobody, so he took kickbacks. At the point when his mom died, his distress didn't keep going for quite a while. Following a day, he felt loose and quiet.
The role of women should not be neglected in Obi's change and becoming. Obi loved his mother and felt a great kind of responsibility toward him. "She was a very devout woman." (57). Hana- Obi's mother- was a Christian woman who even quit telling stories to her children just because of her husband's obligation. That was why Obi felt a great feeling of sympathy and love for her. "I must give them a monthly allowance from my salary." (61). Some part of Obi's conflicts and alienation are the result of his childhood upbringing. His father, Isaac, was an Anglican catechist, so he did not let his wife to narrate folk tales for his children. Even his father believed, "We are not heathens,' he had said. 'Stories like that are not for the people of the Church. And Hannah had stopped telling her children folk- stories. She was loyal to her husband and to her new faith." (58). Although Umuofian culture was mixed with Christianity, there has always been a discrepancy between this culture and Christianity.
Toward the end of the novel, when he had lost everything, he went to sleep and picked one book by A.E. Housman. There he found a sonnet that he had composed a long time back in London. It was about Nigeria. This sonnet portrayed the inconsistency of Obi’s considerations and goals when he was concentrating on England with his viewpoints after his re-visitation to Nigeria. During the long periods of concentrating on England, he got comfortable with various European thoughts like universalism and humanism. Obi, who was in some way or another impacted and formed by these thoughts, needed to make another Nigeria. The one where the barbarian and the Christian resided in harmony, the one where specific attributes of Africa were forgotten to keep up with its tranquility, and the one where the colonizer and the colonized resided joyfully together. He accepted that it is in the possession of the informed men to save Nigeria; however, things turned out very unique.
At the point when Obi was accused of taking hush money and was in preliminary, everyone was shocked by this and couldn't accept how an informed man like Obi could do such something disgraceful. Just the reader who knows about the subtleties of Obi’s life can grasp the reason why. One variable which helps this matter is the strategy for portrayal, which is the third individual. The occurrences of the novel are depicted from Obi’s eyes. We do not have the foggiest idea of what is happening in the personalities of different characters. We just investigate what is going on in light of what we see from Obi’s eyes. Among this multitude of happenings, there is one thing that truly causes us to feel sorry. At the point when the Umuofia Progressive Union assembled to take care of Obi’s issue, they were not exactly irate about Obi’s taking hush money. They could not comprehend how an informed man like Obi does not have the foggiest
idea of how to take the bribe. They said that he did not need to acknowledge it himself, yet he ought to have believed his steward should do it for him. They considered taking kickbacks as something underestimated, truth be told. These individuals who couldn't accept Obi’s circumstance said that it was unimaginable for an informed man to commit such an error. They did not realize that training was one of the significant variables which caused Obi’s defilement. This is how the system has gone through changing and becoming.
Conclusion
An attempt is made in this article to analyze Achebe's No Longer at Ease with reference to Deleuze and Guattari’s theory and concept of “Becoming.” In this story, we see becoming in the main character, Obi Okonkwo. There are many reasons that Obi changes after coming back from England. After finishing his studies and coming back to Nigeria, Obi was given a governmental job. He was always against even thinking about taking bribes and believed that only the elderlies are able to take bribes because they cannot think properly. As the story goes on, it is observed that various social, cultural, financial, and even personal problems occur for Obi that changes his point of view and his life completely. He condemned the generals. He had struggles in his mind. He was depressed and grim. Society manipulated Obi into wanting to take a bribe to prove his manhood. It is not only the government, society, and his unconscious but also his own human nature which has dragged Obi into bribery. Obi has a callow and unreal view of his hometown. Finally, he decided to become another man because he had been taught a change may bring a better life for him. In the trial day, there was no shame in his face. He tried to harmonize his actions with the heroic ideals that led him to take bribes and corruption.
Obi always believed that the true African culture, which has a deep relationship with morality and humanity, was in close connection with nature. So, this fact can be an obstacle in the way of the Nigerian people to go toward any kind of corruption. But consequently, the new way of life tried hard in order to wipe it out. Obi is a social person because he did a social action. These things made him change. It is a becoming. Obi is considered as a nonproductive individual. Because he is produced after coming back from England, he has changed a lot and even sacrifices his morality in order to have what he calls a better life without concerns of money and anything related to it.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. No Longer at Ease. London: Heinemann, 1963.
Carlsson, Cecilia. “Navigating the Contradictions of Colonial Citizenship: A Study of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease Focused on Mr. Green and Obi Okonkwo.” UMEA University, 2019.
Chua, John. Cliff Notes on Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. United States: John Wiley and Sons Inc, 1996.
Curren, Randall, ed. Philosophy of Education. An Anthology. USA, UK, Australia: Blackwell, 2007.
Deleuze , Gilles and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. London: The University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1987. PDF file.
--- . Anti-Oedipus Capitalism and Schizophrenia.Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R.Lane. USA: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. PDF file.
Due, Reider. Deleuze (Key Contemporary Thinkers). Cambridge:Polity Press , 2007. PDF file. Lane, L. Richard. The Postcolonial Novel. United Kingdom: Polity Press, 2006.
Innes, C.L. and Bernth Lindfors, eds. Critical Perspective on Chinua Achebe. London: Heinemann, 1979.
McEwan, Neil. Africa and the Novel. London: The Macmillan Press LTD, 1983.
Ogbaa, Kalu. Gods, Oracles and Divination: Folkways in Chinua Achebe’s Novels. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, Inc., 1992.
Pieterse, Cosmo and Dennis Duerden, eds. African Writers Talking: A Collection of Radio Interviews. New York: African Publishing Corp., 1972.
Uchendu, C. Victor. The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria. New York: Holt, Pineheart and Winston, 1965.
Zarrinjooee, Bahman and Shahla Khatar “Dissemination of English Culture in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease”. Advances in Language and Literary Studies. Vol. 7 No. 4; August 2016
Zehouani, Meriem and Yamina Fridjat “Corruption in Chinua Achebe’s Novel No Longer at Ease: A Postcolonial Study” MA Thesis: University Elchahid Hamma Lakhdar, 2019.
Biodata
Maryam Sadeghi is Ph.D. candidate in English literature and is teaching literature and general English courses at different universities in Mahshahr. She is faculty member of English department at Mahshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University. Her research interests in literary studies are in the areas of the literary criticism and modern and postmodern drama and fiction.
Email: m.sadeghi45@yahoo.com
Fatemah Azizmohammadi is an associate Professor in the English department at Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University. she holds a Ph.D. in English literature and is teaching literature courses at different universities in Arak. Her research interests in literary studies are in the areas of the philosophy of literature, modern, and postmodern drama and fiction.
Email: f-azizmohammadi@iau-arak.ac.ir
Mojgan Yarahmadi is an assistant professor in the English department at Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University. she holds a Ph.D. in Language Teaching and is teaching ELT courses at different universities in Arak. Her research interests in teaching studies are in the areas of the testing and teaching second language, English Language Teaching and new methods of learning. Email: m_yarahmadi@iau-arak.ac.ir
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Research, Najafabad Iran, Iran. This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY NC 4.0 license). (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by nc/4.0/).
International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 11(45), 2023 |
Islamic Azad University of Najafabad |
