38 pages • 1 hour read
Chinua AchebeA Man of the People
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1966A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Chapter One begins with the narrator observing preparations to receive Minister Nanga. He is due to deliver an address at Anata Grammar School, and villagers have come to flood the school to hear him speak. In addition, there are dancers and singers performing in his honor, including one the narrator calls “Grammar-phone,” who is known for her singing acumen. She uses her song to praise Nanga’s handsome appearance. The Hunter’s Guild has also arrived in all their regalia. They carry loaded guns and the narrator observes mothers fleeing from them with their children.
The narrator explains that since the government took control four years ago, inflation has soared. He feels embittered toward the people because he thinks they’re foolish and cynical. He criticizes their opinion of Nanga: “Tell them that this man had used his position to enrich himself and they would ask you—as my father did—if you thought that a sensible man would spit out the juicy morsel of good fortune placed in his mouth” (2). The narrator believes Nanga should spit out that juicy morsel because it was not obtained through honest means.
The narrator reflects on how he was once Minister Nanga’s student, when he was in grammar school, and that he was once fond of politics, but became disillusioned after the Prime Minister’s attempt to clear his cabinet of anyone he viewed as highly educated. Nanga arrives and the proprietor and principal of the school, Jonathan Nwege, begins introducing Nanga to the school staff. When they reach the narrator, he hopes that Nanga will not remember him—but Nanga not only recognizes his former student, he remembers his name: Odili. Odili is swept up by Nanga’s charisma, and the minister insists that he and Odili meet again after his speech. He urges Odili to leave teaching, even though Nanga himself misses it, and to come work in the capital as a civil servant.
Before and after Nanga’s address, Odili makes eye contact with a young woman he finds attractive. He inquires after her identity, and learns only that she may be either Nanga’s cousin or his girlfriend. Nanga makes several important points during his address. He begins by asserting that there is no impending election, so he has not come to beg for votes. Then he laments that he must speak in English instead of using colloquialisms, and states two reasons for his choice: he is concerned that the press may distort and misquote his speech, but he also doesn’t wish to exclude anyone who might be unfamiliar with those colloquialisms.
Chapter 2 Summary
In the beginning of Chapter Two, Odili talks about why he became a teacher instead of a civil servant. He says that it provides more autonomy, which is what he wanted. He’s excited about his scholarship for a post-graduate Certificate of Education, which he will pursue in London. His friend, Andrew, attended the same program the year before and came back thrilled. Of course, the source of his excitement was that a taxi driver had not only carried his luggage, but called him “sir.” Andrew had been so overcome that he tipped the man ten shillings.
Nanga not only invites Odili to come and stay with him to talk with the Minister of Overseas Training, offering him private rooms in his manor, but reveals that in two months’ time, he will go to the United States to receive an honorary Doctor of Laws, or LL.D., degree. Following Nanga’s address, Odili speaks with Nanga, Nwege, a journalist, and a woman named Mrs. John. The latter reveals the state of affairs for women in Odili’s country when she says, “I done talk to say na only for election time women de get equality for dis our country” (18). Education, for women, changes their equality in the eyes of men. In other words, a man may be free because it is his country, but a woman must be educated for anyone to consider her free. Nanga ignores Nwege for the rest of the night, and this provides Odili with insight into Nanga’s current mental state: he cannot abide that Nwege took so long to introduce him for his address.
Back in his rooms, Odili is visited by Andrew. The two joke a bit, by themselves and also with Odili’s house boy, whose name is Peter. Peter is fifteen years old and loves big words. Peter asks Odili what he should cook, and, unable to decide, Odili says to just cook some yams. Andrew grouses that he will not help Odili again like he did in the past, and the reader learns that Andrew once had to drive Odili to the hospital after he ate too much roasted corn.
Their discussion then turns to girls, and Andrew tells Odili that the girl he spotted with Nanga is not only his girlfriend, but that Nanga intends to marry her. Nanga believes his first wife is too provincial, and wants to marry this other girl in hopes that she will be a posh hostess for his parties. Odili then reflects on a woman named Elsie, who was both his sexual partner and friend in college. He hopes that, by going to stay with Nanga in the capital, he can entertain her, despite the fact that he knows she intends to marry a man named Ralph from Edinburgh.
Chapter 1-2 Analysis
This section sets the stage for Odili’s journey to the capital, Bori. Tension between Odili and Chief Nanga comes and goes; at the start of Chapter One, Odili feels bitter not only toward Nanga, but toward the people who are celebrating his arrival at Anata Grammar School. There are dancers and singers performing to honor him, and Odili wonders how people can be so glad to see a man who has contributed to the country’s economic woes. Through Odili’s narration of the start of the inflation crisis and the corruption of the People’s Organization Party, the reader gets an instant perspective on Odili and Nanga’s differences.
Nanga was Odili’s teacher when he was a boy, and Odili is still impressed with Nanga’s charm and ability to speak directly to the people. When it comes time for Nanga to make his speech, for instance, he insists that he’s not there to beg for people’s votes. Nanga is charming, but behind closed doors he is devious. The evidence for this is when Odili tells the reader that Nanga insisted that the former Cabinet members be hanged. Odili admires Nanga’s personable character, but loathes his tendency to accept and engage in corruption. The theme of dirty politics carries throughout the story after it’s set up in these early chapters.
The reader also meets a minor character named Jonathan Nwege. Nwege, as the proprietor and principal of the school, is responsible for introducing Nanga. He speaks too long, which frustrates Chief Nanga. On a smaller scale, Nwege is frustrated that Odili already knows Nanga—meaning that his introduction becomes unnecessary.
An important contrast in this section that carries through the entirety of the novel is the difference between the educated, the intellectuals, and everyone else. Nanga is an interesting character because he was once a teacher. However, Odili considers him uneducated. Nanga is due to receive an honorary degree, and this bothers Odili and his friend, Andrew, who are both among the intellectual class.
The relationships between men and women are revisited multiple times throughout the story. When Nanga invites Odili to stay with him so that he can speak with the Minister of Overseas Training, Odili agrees despite his initial misgivings about Chief Nanga. He’s been partially won over by charm, but on the other side of the coin, Odili wants to go to Bori in order to entertain Elsie, his friend and college lover. Toward the end of Chapter Two, when Andrew visits Odili, they first agree not to talk about women but end up doing so anyway; the fact that he wants to sleep with Elsie in Bori despite the fact that she is engaged to another man reveals that for Odili, such promises don’t carry much weight. Likewise, he doesn’t want to marry Elsie; he just wants to sleep with her.
Related Titles
By Chinua Achebe
