ACADEMIC WRITING: Death and the King's Horseman

"UNIVERSALITY, AUDIENCE AND AUTHOR
IN DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN"
by Blair Kay, 2008

Death and the King’s Horseman is a play based on actual events in 1946 Nigeria under British occupation. The story chronicles an interrupted act of ritual suicide in the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria. The structure of the play indicates the author, Wole Soyinka’s desire to centre the play on indigenous characters and mourning; not to be interpreted solely in a colonial context, as stated in the author’s note. By preceding the play with the author’s note, Soyinka frames his work in his own terms and simultaneously addresses the problematic postcolonial discourse of universality, readership and authorship in literature.

Soyinka cautions the reader that the story should not be classified as a “clash of cultures”, a label he deems as “prejudicial” but from a “reductionist tendency” (Soyinka 5). He asserts that this label “presupposes a potential equality in every given situation of the alien culture and the indigenous” (italics given 5). Postcolonial theorist and teacher of literature, Charles Larson, expands on this idea of pejorative categorization of texts in his essay, “Heroic Ethnocentrism”. Larson presents and denies the validity of the term ‘universality’ when concerned with literature read by a foreign audience (specifically African literature read by a Western audience), as he attests that “culture shapes our interpretations of literature” (Larson 78). He asserts that because “each of us was born into an ethnocentrically sealed world”, we cannot understand slight or dramatic cultural nuances that lie outside of our own culture and experience (79). For example, in the final act of Death and the King’s Horseman, the dialogue between the British officer, Simon Pilkings, and the indigenous “mother of the market”, Iyaloja, aptly illustrates the cultural divide:

PILKINGS: Alright. I am trying to make things easy
but if you must bring in politics we’ll have to do it the hard way . . .
IYALOJA: How boldly the lizard struts before the pigeon
when it was the eagle itself he promised us he would confront (Soyinka 67)

In Larson’s universal view, a Western reader might identify and empathize with the British character, Pilkings, because he speaks literally and rationally in his Western cultural idiom, whereas the indigenous character, Iyaloja, seems inaccessible to the Western reader, as she speaks in grand metaphors and images, typical of her cultural morays. However, Soyinka structures the story so that the indigenous characters begin and end the journey which the audience experiences through the play. Even the title of the play illustrates the importance of ‘death’, mourning and ritual. Moreover, the author’s note acts as a cautionary preface to the text, and dictates that the play should not be read from a ‘universal’ perspective, but one focused on “the universe of the Yoruba mind” (6).

Reading in the ‘universal’ perspective creates an unfortunate detachment between what Soyinka has written and what is available to be absorbed by the Western reader. This detachment is a symptom of the academic process by which some readers examine the text. For example, the usual task of a university student who studies literature is to uncover themes and rhetorical devices, ultimately to help form an argument on the given text. However, Soyinka directs his author’s note to the “would-be-producer” of his play, thus intending the play for dramatization, rather than solely academic analysis. The mere inclusion of the author’s note negates a presupposition with the Western reader, and intentionally denies the reader any authority on understanding a foreign event, such as ritual suicide in the play. As Larson suggests, the student is thus limited in fully understanding the themes which she simply assumes to be important, such as the experience of a tribal community or participation in ritual suicide. She is left however, to draw on her own academic background to extract the liberal or ‘universal’ ideals, such as the need to preserve tradition, religion, cultural practice, and beliefs, with which she identifies due to her own unique Western cultural experience. In this respect, by cautioning against “reductionist tendency” and to interpret the text simply in its colonial context, Soyinka presents an immense challenge to the Western reader engaged in the postcolonial discourse (Soyinka 5).

This academic approach lends itself merely to presume the author’s intent, especially one who writes in a postcolonial or neo-colonial world. There are components in the text Death and the King’s Horseman which highlight various details regarding Soyinka’s authorship. Firstly, the fact that the play is written in English rather than Yoruba, his native language, expresses anxieties Soyinka might have had about limited potential readership and production. Like other postcolonial nations’ literatures, “most African writers communicate with a tiny subculture within society” and may be subject to a low volume of African readership, limited promotion and the high cost of publication (Kotei 406). Moreover, Chinua Achebe in “The Politics of Language”, reveals that in 20th century Nigeria, the English language is essential to the nation, as it holds “more than two hundred component nationalities together through an alien language” (Achebe “The Politics of Language” 268). Thus, writing in English allows the writer a wider readership base and the potential for greater literary success. However, it is interesting to note that this particular text, Death and the King’s Horseman, was written in 1975, at the latter part of an already established and celebrated body of Soyinka’s work, most of which was written outside of his native land, Nigeria.

The play clearly illustrates Soyinka’s apt and creative use of language. By combining poetic use of language with his myriad Western-African experiences, he creates a text which can simultaneously satirize the colonizer, and celebrate the lamentation of his indigenous Yoruba history. The play, like Soyinka’s other works, may be read as a political satire on previous colonial rule. However, Soyinka’s political involvement and voluntary exile from Nigeria suggests that there was an ideological or political desire to write this script (Connolly, “Playwright: Wole Soyinka”, par. 5). Achebe, in his article “Colonialist Criticism”, explains the paradox of the “modern African myth-maker”, which is to use the knowledge of the colonizer (British literature and culture) to create his own vision of a “colonial rule” as seen through the eyes of a dually cultured indigenous person (Achebe “Colonialist Criticism” 73).

With the author’s note in Death and the King’s Horseman, Soyinka acts as an educated myth-maker, and destroys Western notions of the African disenfranchised other through this text. He is able to use his experience with English language and literary culture of the colonizer in order to frame the work as he intended it: a preservation and homage to the practices of his native people and culture which were destroyed by colonialist occupation.

WORKS CITED

Achebe, Chinua. “Colonialist Criticism”. Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Achebe, Chinua. “The Politics of Language”. Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Connoly, Michelle. “Playwright, Wole Soyinka”. Kalamazoo College. 3 Sept 2008. 5 Nov 2008.

Kotei, S.I.A. “The Book Today in Africa”. Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Larson, Charles. “Heroic Ethnocentrism”. Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Soyinka, Wole. Death and the King’s Horseman. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002.

(For ENGL*2200, Postcolonial Literatures, for K. Sheibani, November 2008)