The Use of Proverbs and Idiomatic Expressions in Chinua Achebe’s ‘No Longer at Ease’ and ‘Arrow of God’

The main aim of this paper is to critically analyze and examine the use of proverbs and idiomatic expressions in the two novels of Chinua Achebe; ‘No Longer at Ease' and ‘Arrow of God'. It basically probes deconstructively, the sociocultural norms, traditions, and communal practices in Achebe's narratives as exemplified via proverbs and idiomatic expressions in the selected texts. It is an analytical descriptive and thematic study whereby, proverbs are carefully sorted out, explained and analyzed according the contexts of their occurrences. After a thorough analysis of the primary texts, the paper concludes that, Achebe has skillfully uses the proverbs as vessels of folklore and oral traditions and to buttress is ideas in addition to present his people's collective thoughts, beliefs, cultural values and lifestyle. Thus, understanding his novels readers are recommended to contextualize his texts and put them within the confines of his schematic cultural milieu; because Achebe has juxtaposed the meanings of these proverbs manipulatively to project some aspects of African cultural and folkloric elements against the Western stereotypes.