African Literature

DEATH AND THE KING'S HORSEMEN The purpose of this paper is to compare and discuss the play, "Death and the King's Horseman," by Wole Soyinka. Specifically, it will discuss the style and language used by the Praise Singer throughout the play, and show how the Praise Singer fits the understanding of oral literature and storytelling. It will also look at the part ritual suicide plays in the story. DEATH AND THE KING'S HORSEMAN Soyinka's work as a playwright, essayist and novelist won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Many critics believe he is the best writer in modern Africa. One critic wrote, "His unique style blends traditional Yoruban folk drama with European dramatic form." This play takes place in Soyinka's native Nigeria in 1946, and he based it loosely on true events. He wrote it while he was a fellow at Cambridge, England in the early 1970s, and it was published in 1975. The Praise-singer serves as a type of narrator in this play.

He moves the action along from the first page, and helps to prepare the characters (and the audience) for what is to come. He is part confidant, part sooth-sayer, and part storyteller as his beautifully written speeches are woven throughout the story. In the first scene, this is especially apparent as Elesin prepares for death and the Praise-singer spouts a flood of questions aimed at finding answers to the mystery of death. "There is only one world to the spirit of our race," the Praise-singer says.

"If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?" Here he is trying to gain understanding about what would happen if Elesin isn't successful in carrying out his death ritual. He struggles to know what their fate would be. Later, as Elesin is further into his transition into death, the Praise-singer asks him questions about what he is experiencing, hoping to gain an understanding.

"Is there now a streak of light at the end of the passage, a light I dare not look upon?" he asks.

"Does it reveal whose voices we often heard, whose touches we often felt, whose wisdoms come suddenly into the mind when the wisest have shaken their heads and murmured; It cannot be done?" He continues, "Your eyelids are glazed like a courtesan's, is it that you see the dark groom and master of life?" In these passages, the Praise-singer represents our "human" questions, and he hopes Elesin, in his half-earthly, half-heavenly state, will help him to understand. But Elesin cannot answer him, and all remains a mystery.

The theme of ritual suicide serves several purposes in the play, and as the above passage shows, the Praise-singer prepares Elesin, and later Olunde for what they see as their ultimate destinies. The basic plot all relates to the main character, Elesin Oba, who is the King's Horseman. His destiny is preordained. He knows that when the King dies, he must commit ritual suicide. Only then can he lead his King's favorite horse and dog through the passage to the world of the ancestors.

A British Colonial Officer, Pilkings, intervenes to prevent the death and arrests Elesin, preventing him from doing his duty. When Pilkings interferes, Elesin's son, Olunde, feels it is his destiny to do what his father could not, and he does indeed kill himself so he can follow his king, and allow him passage into another world. The Praise-singer, in his questioning language, has helped him prepare for his "duty," and even offered to accompany Elesin on his journey, if he only asked.

"I have prepared my going - just tell me: Olohun-iyo, I need you on this journey and I shall be behind you." However, he is not above criticizing Elesin when he is arrested, and cannot complete his duty to his king. Elesin sees his duty this way, "The world was mine. Our joint hands Raised houseposts of trust that withstood the siege of envy and the termites of time.

But the twilight hour brings bats and rodents - Should I yield them cause to foul the rafters?" We understand that he is not afraid to die; it is simply the "termites of time" that are coming for him. He has prepared for this time, and he is ready. When the British intervene, because of their own beliefs, they are depriving him of his destiny, and his life's mission. The Praise-singer's language throughout the play is melodic, mysterious, and lyrical.

It is also ritualistic and full of Nigerian meaning and beliefs. He not only prepares the characters for their destiny, he tells the stories of the Nigerians in beautifully crafted lines. "There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race.

If that world leaves its course, and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?" In other words, the Praise-singer is asking Elesin what will happen to the world of the Nigerians, if they give up their beliefs and practices. The reader knows what will happen. They will lose their traditions, and in the end, the very thing that makes them unique and special. The English cannot stop them, and cannot understand what makes them believe so strongly in their customs.

Many cultures do not write down their stories, they pass them on through storytellers and oral traditions. This oral literature is vibrantly alive in the Praise-singer's tales and comments. He is an oral historian, passing down the traditions of his people with his language, and his delightfully crafted stories. In the end, the real tragedy is that Elesin, distraught over his son's death, also kills himself. Therefore, the intervention by the British ends up causing two deaths instead of one.

This is Soyinka's way of showing us the futility of intervention, but also the waste of ritual suicide. One death to us is a waste, and two is a total tragedy. Because of a lack of understanding, and a refusal to see the ways of others, two people have died, and one of them should not have. We are shown graphically what can happen when we literally "stick out noses" in other people's business, especially when we do not really understand them, their country, or their beliefs and motivations.

The ritual suicide in the story is a symbol for so much more, for how we live our.