Ironic (Colonial) Developments in Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman

Soyinka's tragedy Death and the King's Horseman uses dramatic irony and literary parallelism to illustrate the absurdity of labeling African culture as inferior to a Eurocentric way of life. Not only is African culture shown to be self-sustaining, and in many respects harmonious, but it is shown to be more poetic and sophisticated compared to its European antagonist headed by the aggressive and dimwitted Mr. Pilkings. Pilkings (an anagram for Kipling) of course personifies Kipling's White Man's Burden of having to "civilized" lesser or "savage" communities. The parallelism I'm referring to is present in the structure of the play's linear progression and illustrates the themes I just mentioned (African culture as flourishing vs. European culture as deficient).

The earliest example of this can be found at the beginning of the first two acts of the play. The beginning of Act 1 shows Elesin and a number of other characters speaking elegantly in poetics, mainly about how Elesin's self-sacrifice will help uphold ancient tradition and maintain a sort of cosmic balance within the tribe as the next generation begins to faze into the society.

The beginning of Act 2 however shows Mr. and Mrs. Pilkings disrespecting ancient African customs by reducing spiritual garbs/masks to masquerade props, belittling African natives on their own soil and subjecting them to insults, and speaking in a rather plain linguistic tone in contrast to the poetry that was the dialogue of Act 1. The Pilkings' are shown to be selfish and insensitive to African customs and thought and the native Africans, acting as the antithesis to the features which the Pilkings' embody, come off as much more civilized than the colonial forces which use their "superior civilization" as a means to justify colonial imposition. The justification and intention behind colonialism then shifts within the context of the play and instead of seeking to advance or educate African culture, colonialism seeks to force to Africans to act as stupidly as the British.

This motif of parallel juxtaposition flows throughout the play, providing an ironic account of Pilkings' attempt to stop the ritual suicide ceremony, since the British are depicted as much more illogical, primitive, and troublesome than the Africans they seek to oppress. The Pilkings' inability to see the similarities between Elesin's suicide and that of a white captain of a ship at sea is a fine example of this irony being put to work. The ultimate irony as far as I was concerned though, was in the death of Elesin's son since his suicide signifies 3 important themes: firstly, the initial failure of the colonial powers in the play to revoke the suicide ceremony, secondly, the destruction (or perhaps negation) of Pilkings' attempted "whitewashed" protégé, and finally, the failure of the colonial powers to extinguish African belief systems and identity altogether.