Cultural Hybridity and Displacement in Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease

Abstract

Hybridity is an essential condition of post colonialism. It is an aftermath condition of colonialism. Sometimes it is easy for the coloniser and coloniser to find intermediate spaces in between in the form of cultural interchange. However, the colonized identity in general is left diffused, confused and displaced unable to find a balance between the two states.  Several postcolonial texts have created such displaced or ‘in between' characters to use the words of Homi Bhaba. Homi Bhaba has dealt at length with the problem of hybridity and mimicry. The colonial condition distorts the identity of the colonised, and  to follow Fanon's analysis, the distance creates anger that legitimizes violence. It also creates a ‘third dimension'. The post colonial condition is one of split identity.  Yet it can lead to a potpourri culture as in Rushdie's Midnight's Children. In this context the paper tries to study the displacement of Obi OKonkwo in Chinua Achebe's No Longer At Ease and his discomfiture at the hybrid condition.