Irony and tragedy in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease

Abstract

This paper focuses on representations of irony and tragedy in two staple novels by African writer Chinua Achebe. They are in fact his first two novels initially envisioned by the author as forming a single book. The main character of the second novel is in fact Okonkwo’s grandson, the latter being the hero of the first novel. Both stories dwell upon the clash between European colonists and African natives. This analysis targets the ending of both novels where I argue, there is a display of the ironic and the tragic which characterize the two protagonists’ destinies.