The English try to control him as do the Union. .
The Union believes in education, and they want him to study law so that he may help them with their land cases. The irony is that he "learned" nothing about the law, studied English instead and ends up in court. This is a perfect metaphor for the novel: the idea that he left what the Umuofians wanted him to study which was law in order to pursue the language and literature of the "colonizer," which did not help his as much as bring him hardship.Obi is caught between the two extremes of culture, somewhere in the in between, where territory is being forged and where others will follow in the post- colonial world. Obi's father, a convert to Christianity at a time when such a thing was unheard of can be seen as a kind of step to where Obi is, and generations of change can be witnessed through the generations of the novel.
When Obi is in England he realizes the importance of his homeland. This is one of the main issues that have arisen within the genre of post-colonial literature. Although it is not Achebe's main concern in the novel because Obi is only away in England for a bit under four years, it is still important and worth mentioning because Achebe does choose to spend time on the subject. Obi misses home and writes romantic, lyrical poems about Nigeria during the winters in England. However, "the Nigeria he returned to was in many ways different from the picture he had carried in his mind during those four years.".
Salman Rushdie, an Indian post-colonial writer, has written an essay entitled "Imaginary Homelands," in which he talks about the homelands that arise in the memory of those who are no longer home. Obi's Nigeria, while in England, is very much one of these "imaginary homelands," fictionalized, in many ways, through memory. On his return to Nigeria Lagos is almost a strange place and Umuofia an even stranger one. When he returns to Lagos he sees the slums he has not been to and the nostalgic poem he wrote about nature and how "sweet" it is to lie under trees under the "tender glow of the fading sun," is juxtaposed against the dead carcass of a dog "the dogs that taxi drivers hit for good luck.
