Category: Death and the King’s Horseman

Death And The King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka tells the story of the importance of tradition in African culture. The play follows the life of Elesin Oba, who had the career title of “The King’s Horseman”, and his obligation to follow an African tradition of a ritualistic suicide following the death of their king. As the play goes on, Soyinka illustrates the importance of this tradition in African culture and shows what it means when the tradition is not fulfilled in this culture. By demonstrating the importance of culture and rituals in this play, Soyinka demonstrates how each culture, though very different, has their own rituals and beliefs that make their society what it is.

An important aspect of rituals and cultural beliefs in African society is the history that the ritual brings along with it. In the academic journal “Death and the King’s Horseman: A Poet’s Quarrel With His Culture”, Wole Ogundele provides a brief background of the importance of this ritual in African society. He states, “Oral history tells us that originally, the olokun esin (Master of the Horse0 did not have to die along with his king for any reason at all, political or metaphysical. The first olokun esin to die did so willingly. The reason, the oral historians say, was that that particular olokun esin and the king were uncommonly close friends” (Ogundele). As the paper goes on, he explains that, “When the king died, this particular olokun esin thought that the only way to demonstrate his love and loyalty to his friend, the dead king, was to die, too” (Ogundele). However, when colonization occurred in Africa, the empire that was responsible for the creation of this tradition began to fade as new, more modern traditions began to be taught. The journal states, “The colonial religion preached an alternative cosmic order in which ritual self-immolation on behalf of society is neither desirable nor necessary” (Ogundele), thus began the demise of this tradition. However, the ritual still survived in some ways. As the journal illustrates, “Precisely because the obligation to die was now no longer a military but spiritual affair, the two aspects of the warrior ethics, which had hitherto been complementary, were now discrete entities. The rights and privileges attached to the office might still be embraced—but the reciprocal obligation recoiled from” (Ogundele). Having learned about the culture that inspired the play and the rituals that serve as a fundamental aspect in the play itself, it is important to see how Soyinka demonstrates these rituals in the play.

The descriptions of these rituals and traditions throughout the play serve as a key theme and are very important to the play itself. The play begins with Elesin, the king’s horseman, and the praise-singer, who serves as sort of the chorus of this play, describing how the king has died and now Elesin must be prepared to perform the ritualistic suicide in order to keep the tradition going. Later in this scene, Elesin gives a monologue that describes the importance of being comfortable with death and knowing that he must perform the ritual. He states, “Life has an end. A life that will outlive/ Fame and friendship begs another name./… Life is honour./ It ends when honour ends”. As the play continues, the time of the ritual comes and it is now time for Elesin to fulfill his duties. The suicide process begins to occur as Elesin dances and slowly moves into a trance with the music that is being performed at the ceremony. As he dances and moves more and more into his trance, the Praise-Singer describes how it is becoming more and more visible that Elesin’s soul is no longer present in his body, and how the death is beginning to occur. The ritual will soon be complete, however British officers soon arrive and break up the ceremony, preventing the suicide from occurring. As this occurs, the play begins to move from the more spiritual history of the culture to its more historical background. After developing more of an understanding for the cultural background of the ritual that plays a fundamental role throughout this play, gaining an understanding of the history of the play itself becomes an important detail in order to gain a full comprehension of what this play is trying to illustrate.

While the culture and rituals that are performed in this play serve as a significant theme throughout the play, it is important to remember the historical accuracies of the events that the play is based on. In the play, when the ritualistic suicide is about to occur, a British officer arrests the king’s horseman in order to prevent his suicide from occurring. This is based on a historical event that occurred as colonization was beginning to occur in many African countries. The history is described in greater detail in an academic journal by Nick Tembo entitled “History, Religion, and the Dramaturgy of Victimization and Betrayal”. Trembo states, “When the ritual was to be celebrated in 1946m the British District Officer went out and arrested the Elesin Oba and threw him into jail because, according to British law, attempts suicide was a criminal offence’ (Tembo). As the journal goes on, Trembo illustrates that “The overriding issue here is history; that something actually happened in history. [Soyinka] is also out to tell us that African history should not necessarily be looked at as something that found its true essence with the presence of the white man” (Tembo). The events of the play demonstrate this history due to the fact that Pilkings and his men are responsible for preventing Elesin from completing his ritualistic suicide. After learning of both the cultural and historical backgrounds of this play, it is important to see how Soyinka himself portrays these facts in the play itself.

While the cultural aspects of the play have already been illustrated, the historical details of the play serve as an important detail. The main historical detail that is important in this play is the inclusion of the British District officer, Pilkings, and his blatant disrespect of the African rituals and cultures throughout the whole play. This begins in scene two when Pilkings and his wife are preparing to go a party and Pilkings decides to wear an important cultural dress of the African people as a costume. Amusa, who seems to be a servant to Pilkings and his wife, sees that Pilkings is wearing the dress and begs him to take it off, explaining how it is very dangerous for anyone to be wearing this ritualistic outfit. Pilkings ignores the warning and proceeds to read the letter that Amusa has delivered. The letter explains how the Elesin Oba is planning on performing the ritualistic sacrifice, and Pilkings becomes enraged. Pilkings states, “I’ll have the man arrested. Everyone remotely involved. In any case there may be nothing to it. Just rumors”. As Pilkings learns more about the act, he continues to mock how he has interfered so much with their traditions and how nothing bad has happened to him because of the actions that he has committed. Eventually, Pilkings prevents the suicide from occurring, which leads to a huge uproar of the African people. They are all furious that their traditions cannot be completed. Elesin’s son, who has returned to see his father’s corpse and keep the tradition going, sees that his father was prevented from committing the ritualistic suicide and decides that he must kill himself in order to keep the tradition alive. The heartbreak of losing his son ends up killing Elesin. All of the African people are furious at Pilkings for preventing their rituals from happening and blame him for all of the terrible events that occurred due to the fact that he stopped the rituals and tried to change their culture.

The prevention of these rituals and the usage of the historical background of the play serve as a representation of how the colonialism that began to occur in Africa during this time ended up ruining a lot of important aspects of African culture and changed what they believe in. This can be illustrated by Iyaloja’s speech at the end of the play. She is talking directly to Pilkings after the death of both Elosin and Olunde, when Pilkings asks if this is what their people wanted to happen. She replies by saying, “No child, it is what you brought to be, you who play with strangers’ lives, who even usurp the vestments of our dead, yet believe that the stain of death will not cling to you”. This scene begins to perfectly illustrate the point that Soyinka is trying to make throughout this play, which is that the Colonization of Africa ended up greatly impacting their culture as a whole and that the white men ended up trying only to destroy the culture that they had previously created. This theme can be summed up by M.B. Omigbule in his journal entitled “Proverbs in Wole Soyinka’s Construction of Paradox”, in which he claims, “Tragedy, being a more serious form of art than comedy, provides Soyinka with an enormous opportunity in Death to examine the Yoruba metaphysics and, consequently, put to test the strength of the culture with is explained and sustained by the metaphysics in the face of the transition occasioned by modernity”. This quote is used to describe how difficult it was for the African people to keep up their tradition as colonization occurred due to the fact that the European people did no share any of the same values that the African people possessed, and they wished for the African people to be more like them.

The use of historical and ritualistic concepts of African beliefs throughout Death and the King’s Horseman allows Soyinka to make an excellent commentary on how European colonization impacted the African people and how their society lost a lot of the traditional and spiritual values that it once possessed due to European disregard for the importance of their cultural values. This play does a great job of portraying the historical prevention of the ritualistic suicide and how the colonization impacted African culture as a whole. With the inclusion of these historical and spiritual values, Soyinka is able to make a proper social commentary on the social and cultural factors that colonization destroyed in African society and how colonization as a whole had a negative impact on Africa and its people.

The Death and the King’s Horseman play is based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria when it was under the British colonial rule, where a Horseman of a Yoruba King was prevented from committing ritual suicide by the colonial authorities. In growth to the British interference, Soyinka calls the Horseman’s own fervour toward suicide into enquiry, posing a trouble that throws off the community’s balance.

Through the play of Soyinka I would try to analyse the Rasa theory. By the means and use of images and suggestions resulting in the flavour of unboundedness and bliss. The image of a Not I bird which appears where early in the play and has been elaborated about by Elesin to the Praise singer invokes a Karuna rasa as the bird symbolises death and separation from the near and dear ones, which has become the faith of Elesin who is supposed to embrace death because of the age old tradition followed in the village.

The Horseman Elesin is a man full of love and zeal who believes in the celebration of life and is in love with a girl whom he also desires to marry. This image arouses Sringara rasa in the readers where the love of life is tremendous, which is acted out by anubhavas or bodily movemets as in a dance. Unfortunately this happy rasa is accompanied by pathos or karuna rasa as Elesin has to give up his life and embrace death.

The very thought of death invokes fear in the hearts of people around Elesin which can be seen as an appropriate example of Bhayanaka rasa. The fear of death is so strong in people that they even avoid talking about it. On the other hand Elesin is brave enough to stand alone and face death which can also be casted as an example of Veer rasa which is presented in people of valour. This act of dying in the name of honour is surely an example enough of veer rasa where honour has a higher stature in comparison to death.

All the incidents and quotations of the play majorly invoke Karuna rasa as Elesin has to undertake death even in the face of zest towards life. Another rasa which can be seen to be aroused is that of Bibhasta which can be said to be an outcome of the emotion aroused by something unpleasant and undesired. This rasa is invoked in the readers or even the actors around Elesin which is caused as a resultant of Elesin’s lust towards women even when he is standing on the threshold of death. Elesin’s desire for a young betothed woman arouses bibhasta rasa.

Another striking example of bibhasta rasa is noticed by Elesin in the eyes of his son Olunde when he did not dies out of the traditional ritual.

In spite of the tragic end of the play, Soyinka focuses on the new life that is yet to come in the world in the form of the unborn child carried by the young bride. The Natyashastra is all about a celebration of life and so is the pattern of the conclusion of the play. The pain and sorrow experienced by the audience towards the destiny of the scapegoat invokes Karuna rasa majorly. Soyinka plays are said to be social plays with a vision.

As in other plays, reflecting a specific culture, “Death and the King’s Horseman” has kept close to religious and traditional issues, but it has shaped culture into a great tragedy. Aristotle defines tragedy in his book poetics as: A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.

Death and the King’s Horseman encompasses tragic events that excite the audience’s emotions. It could be inferred from “catharsis” that the aim of a tragic work is delivering the author’s thought and notions through affections, an effective device that could penetrate the soul. The feelings of pity and fear, aroused within the audience, are not mere affections towards the hero, but they enable the audience to accommodate the play’s main message and theme as well as be fully convinced of the author’s thought. Death and the King’s Horseman is a tragedy that aims to manifest the tragic consequences of disobeying the gods and not maintaining a state of order among the three worlds of the unborn, the living, and the ancestors. Greek tragic dramatists, Aeschylus and Sophocles, wrote religious dramas that were concerned with the relation between gods and the hero. Further, the play is full of poetic language and is built on real events. Hence, Soyinka’s play is very close to the Greek tragedy. A protagonist within a tragedy must be also tragic. According to Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, the tragic hero has certain characteristics.

Aristotle says that the tragic hero will most effectively evoke both our pity and terror …, and also that this tragic effect will be stronger if the hero is “better than we are”, in the sense that is of higher than ordinary moral worth. Such a man is exhibited as suffering a change in fortune from happiness to misery because of his mistaken choice of an action, to which he is led by hamartia-his “error” or “mistake of judgment” or, as it is often, although misleadingly and less literary translated, his tragic flaw.

The definition corresponds almost verbatim to the character of Elesin. Having the position of the king’s horseman, he ends up suffering and dies with shame. His demise is the consequence of his error that is the failure to fulfill his ritual duty. Elesin’s fall and agony arouse the audience’s compassion toward him and fear for themselves lest they may fall in the same mistake. Nonetheless, there is one thing that distinguishes him from the Greek tragic hero. Whereas the focus in the Greek tragedy is on the individual, the African theatre centers upon the community. In all these respects, Death and the king’s horseman is a tragic play that exposes the Aristotelian tragic hero, yet it includes one difference, differentiating it from the Greek tragedy.

The main reason behind Elesin’s tragic fate, according to Soyinka and the Nigerian ethos, is Elesin’s dereliction of duty. After having a very high position in life, Elesin’s negligence in accomplishing his ritual sacrifice decidedly begets tragic sequels.

How can that be? In all my life as Horseman of the King, the juiciest Fruit on every tree was mine. I saw, I touched, I wooed, rarely was the answer No. The honour of my place, the veneration I Received in the eye of man or woman prospered my suit and Played havoc with my sleeping hours.

Socially, he becomes prostrate with humiliation, and, spiritually, he becomes a sinner and a defiant against the gods. Besides, he causes disastrous chaos among the world of the dead, which, according to the Yoruba community, is duplicated in the world of the living. Soyinka’s Praise Singer-guardian of culture rebukes his erstwhile leader, “Elesin, we placed the reins of the world in your hands yet you watched it plunge over the edge of the bitter precipice”.

You have betrayed us. We fed you sweetmeats such as we hoped awaited you on the other side. But you said No, I must eat the world’s left-overs. We said you were the hunter who brought the quarry down; to you belonged the vital portions of the game. No, you said, I am the hunter’s dog and I shall eat the entrails of the game and the faeces of the hunter. We said you were the hunter returning home in triumph, a slain buffalo pressing down on his neck; you said wait, I first must turn up this cricket hole with my toes.

The play turns into a tragedy when Elesin is prevented from doing his ritual assignment. His son, Olunde, is the most person who pays for his father’s mistake. When he sees that his father is still alive, he is filled with shame and sadness,” I have no father, eater of left- overs” and ,thence, the climatic catastrophe happens. He kills himself in order to compensate the shame his father has caused and make a contrite apology for the ancestors and his people. Lyaloja comments on that, pointing to Elesin the consequences for what he has done.

Because he could not bear to let honour fly out of doors, he stopped it with his life. The son has proved the father Elesin, and there is nothing left in your mouth to gnash but infant gums.

Seeing the corpse of his son, Elesin is fixated on Olunde, and, thereupon, suddenly, he strangles himself with the chain before anyone can intervene. Lyaloja censures the white men for trying to stop him, commenting that he has finally gone on even though it is too late.

He is gone at last into the passage but oh, how late it is. His son will feast on the meat and throw him bones. The passage is clogged with droppings from the King’s stallion; he will arrive all stained in dung. Elesin’s “hamartia” that is the reason of the nonfeasance of his mission could be interpreted as his surrender and submission to the European colonizer. Tanure Ojaide writes: Elesin’s failure is not refusing to die, but not dying at the appropriate moment. It is a ritual and there is a time for everything. However, Elesin delays and provides the opportunity for his arrest and the excuse not to die.

Elesin in a moment of “blasphemy” surrenders to the outer forces. It is when the alien hand pollutes the source of will, when a stranger force of violence shatters the mind’s calm resolution, this is when a man is made to commit the awful treachery of relief, commit in his thought the unspeakable blasphemy of seeing the hand of the gods in this alien rupture of the world. I know it was this thought that killed me, sapped my powers and turned me into an infant in the hands of unnamable strangers. I made to utter my spells anew but my tongue merely rattled in my mouth.

Blaming the white man, his gods, and his bride, he forgets to consider his own role, “my weakness came not merely from the abomination of the white man who came violently into my fading presence, there was also a weight of longing on my earthheld limbs”. Further, in another quotation, he almost admits that he yields up his will to the European hands, “My will was squelched in the spittle of an alien race”. In addition, while Lyaloja is reprimanding Elesin, she alludes darkly to his submission and says that he has allowed them to be the dominators of the situation. In fact, Lyaloja’s words could be hitting home as when the inducement of death came from Elesin’s heart, nothing prevented him from fulfilling his duty, neither the iron bars nor the “alien race”.

The very feature that distinguishes Death and the King’s Horseman from the Greek tragedy is the thought of individualism which could be seen as a fundamental tragic crux. Yoruba religion pivots wholly on the community’s good and prosperity. The thought of individualism is considered as a great ignominy. Since they deem that the whole humankind is correlated, the individual’s selfishness afflicts the three worlds of the universe (the living, the ancestors and the unborn) and, as a corollary, the individual himself is afflicted. Therefore, there is no room for egotism.

In “The Fourth Stage” and later in Myth, Literature and the African World, Soyinka explores what he understands to be the relation in Yoruba cosmology between man, the gods, and the an- cestors. The essence of this cosmology, as he expounds it, is in direct contradiction to the Christian and European emphasis on the individual and individual salvation. For the Yoruba the emphasis is on community, and community in this context makes no distinction between the dead, the living, and the unborn. The emphasis is on continuity, on maintaining the continuous and contiguous relationship of these three stages of being.

Mark Ralph-Bowman asserts that in order to appreciate the “religious mystery” which lies at the heart of the play we must forget “the whole western tradition of individual tragedy”. Although the protagonist has the appearance of a tragic hero, “the grandeur, dignity, and pathos of Oedipus; the questing anguish of Hamlet’, one must not be misled into interpreting the play in such terms. What it asserts, according to Ralph-Bowman, is not the tragic loss of an individual, but the communal Yoruba values by which Elesin is found wanting, and condemned. “Though a creation of such stature,” Ralph-Bowman argues, “he has to be totally and unequivocally renounced”. Elesin is rejected by the world of the play because he allows himself to be di- verted by selfish individualism from the sacrificial death that his Yoruba religion prescribes.

Soyinka explicitly shows this idea in the play. Elesin illustrates to Pilkings that what he has done does not harm him only, but it afflicts the whole community,” I am stopped from fulfilling my destiny. Did you think it all out before, this plan to push our world from its course and sever the cord that links us to the great origin?”. Another instance is the story of the captain in the war that is emblematic of these opposing viewpoints: Jane sees the man’s deliberate death as unreasonable and unjustified,” Nonsense. Life should never be thrown deliberately away”, and Olunde lauds it as self-sacrifice and a great honor. The conversation between Olunde and Jane manifests these divergences. Jane asks Olunde if he can explain how he has this acceptance and satisfaction with his father’s death. Olunde replies that he started mourning for his father as soon as he heard of the King’s demise. He asserts that it is Elesin’s duty towards his community and that he mustn’t dishonor his people,” What can you offer [Elesin] in place of his peace of mind, in place of the honour and veneration of his own people?”. These divergences in thought may be the main reason behind Elesin’s tragic fate, and because the English colonizer is the stronger in this battle, he managed to interfere. Lyaloja’s ultimate words to Pilking avers that. When Pilking asks her if this tragic end is what she wants. Turning her blame and venom on him, she replies: No child, it is what you brought to be, you who play with strangers’ lives, who even usurp the vestments of our dead, yet believe that the stain of death will not cling to you. The gods demanded only the old expired plantain but you cut down the sapladen shoot to feed your pride.

Thus. Eesin tragedy could be summed up as a great man is undone for his aim is butted up against the law of the European man. In all these respects, the difference between the ideologies of the two tragedies, begetting the tragic destiny, is obvious. The Nigerian tragedy is not about the tragic fall of an individual; it is the whole community that is in distress.

The Nigerian audience would be inclined to despise such weak character as Elesin; however, Soyinka has very skillfully heightened the human interest of the play, and thus enlisted the audience’s pity and fear. It is in his suffering in prison and his son’s death that Elesin rises to the heights of the tragic grandeur, and the audience forgets his fault. For the last act of the play, the incidents and the poetic language Soyinka applies restore the fallen Elesin’s hold on the audience.in a scene of gloom, Elesin is chained up in a prison cell, in a state of melancholy. His heart is full of guilt and shame. All the people come to humiliate and admonish him, and he asks forgiveness from them, ”may the world for give me”. The people, who to a great extent are responsible for his misery, has put him in prison and confined his freedom. He is in complete paralysis and confusion; he does not know who to put the blame on his gods, or the white man, or himself. In this scene, Soyinka has laid bare the suffering soul of Elesin. In addition, the spectacle in which Olunde lays dead and his father is looking at him captures the essence of tragedy. The last act closes with two corpses on the stage, making Death and the King’s Horseman a great tragedy.

All things considered, Elesin, in all aspects, is regarded as Aristotelian tragic hero, except for the notion of individualism. He is a distinguished person who falls into misfortune on account of hamartia or a tragic flaw. The tragic destiny he ends with arouses the audience’s feel of sympathy and fear. Soyinka’s application of tragic events looms large the theme of Death and the King’s Horseman that is condemning and disparaging the European colonizer.