The Anti-Role of Criticism in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman

Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman is the anti-Imperialism message that was not. Taken at face value the play could easily be mistaken for an anti-Imperialist message if the companion reading from Myth, Literature, and the African World and the author's critical introduction did not precede the text of the play. Soyinka succinctly makes a case for a type of literary imperialism by students of English in Myth, Literature, and the African World. He successfully lambastes the tenets of literary theoreticians' natural inclinations to reduce world literature, or he argues antipodal peoples words, to the lowest common denominator of western philosophical thinkers. However, as he points out in his argument, western political thought falls short of successfully, or cogently, portraying the words of the author in a favorable, or as Coleridge would say 'agreeable' light.

Death and the King's Horseman is a sad tale of transformation and dutiful misunderstanding. The story takes place in the empirical constraints of the British African Empire and relates the misfortunes of the family Oba. As generations before, the King's favorite horseman, Elesin Oba must commit suicide one month after the King's death. The horseman's death is to assist and usher the King's disposed body to the other side. The practice is a joyous and measured ritual for the local tribal people. However, the unwittingly and unabashed ignorance of the local British emirate, Pilkings, disrupts this ritual and manifests a horrible scene of patricidal affection.

Soyinka examines the intricacies of dual realities in a 'clash of cultures.' However, I use the term here as Soyinka will prefer it in a sense of non-understanding trans-valued moralities between the locals and outsiders. Elesin is required by faith to perform his ritualistic suicide on the thirtieth day of the King's internment. On the eve of his suicide, he is to marry a young virgin and plant his seed as a testament to the continuity of the human lifecycle. The opening of the play follows Elesin through the beginning stages of the ritualistic suicide.

However, dressed in the masks and customs of the tribal elders, Pilkings and his wife are preparing for Royal Ball when Sergeant Amusa enters the scene to inform Pilkings of the impending suicidal ritual. When Amusa finds the Pilkings dressed offensively in tribal customs that pander to the death gods, he is chastised for his tribal religious beliefs. The scene that ensues is a central harbinger to the central message of Soyinka's play.

The Pilkings poke fun and show ignorance of the beliefs of the tribal people. Although Amusa has converted to Christianity, he still harbors beliefs from his 'old' world upbringing. The clash is central to Soyinka's premise. Amusa does not understand why the Pilkings will defile his beliefs and the Pilkins sadly look down on the practice as merely a pleasant evening as costume prize winning participants at the Royal Ball.

Pilkings, moreover, does not see the suicide as more than a bother outside of the circumstance he will have to miss the ball when they had the perfectly winning costumes. Pilkings misunderstands the delicacy of the situation. He does not see the world through the eyes of the natives and misrepresents the notion of duty the locals so strongly cherish. Pilkings foresees his duty to intervene and stop the ritual suicide. While Elesin, true to his tribal custom, sees it as his duty to commit suicide. Mayhem ensues and ultimately Pilkings arrests Elesin and has him thrown into captivity to stop the suicide.

The plot thickens, however, and the depth of duty and transformation is more vividly expressed through the character of Elesin's son Olunde. The three central male characters have an unwaveringly sense of duty concerning the role of the son. Elesin believes the son's duty is take his place as the next King's horseman. However, in a dramatic turn of transvaluation, Pilkings feels it is his duty to give Olunde a better chance in society. Pilkings wife and he send Olunde to London to get a medical degree so he can return to help the tribal people. Pilkings believes giving Olunde this opportunity fills one of the greatest duties he can fulfill as the British emirate. However, Elesin sees it differently and disowns his son as not fulfilling his rightful tribal duty. Olunde is caught in the crosshairs of a transformational conundrum that fatally ends in complete misunderstanding. Ultimately, Olunde fills two rolls of duty to his people and customs and shuns the duty bequeathed upon him by the emirate.

Upon hearing of the death of his King, Olunde returns to his motherland to help during the ritual of his father's suicide and fulfill his tribal responsibilities. His greatest moral responsibility and duty is to fulfill the tribal continuity of service to the dead King. Upon his father's captivity and failure to commit his dutiful suicide, Olunde commits suicide in his father's stead. The custom of King's servant continues and the world of balance is restored to the tribal nation. In the eyes of his people, Elesin, the father, is now relegated to a tribal disgrace. Pilkings has robbed him of his beneficial duty.

At this point, Pilkings and Olunde have successfully fulfilled their duties. Pilkings the duty of educating Olunde and imprisoning, or stopping Elesin's death; on the other hand, Olunde has returned to his motherland to fulfill his father's fate and accomplish his tribal responsibilities. Robbed of his ritual dignity, Elesin has to watch as the women of the community deposit the dead body of his son, killed in duty to his father, in front of his cell. Ultimately, in a heartrending scene of fatherly love and sense of duty, Elesin hangs himself by his own arm. We are left with Pilkings desperately trying to enter the cell to keep Elesin from accomplishing his dutiful deed and in the end Olunde, the son, and Elesin, the father, accomplish their rightful duties. However, the only character unsuccessful in realizing his perceived duty is the magistrate Pilkings.

The theme of duty in Death and the King's Horseman illustrates a transitional narrative to the approaches of criticizing world literature. Soyinka desperately tries to illustrate one must use the Marxist point of view of the author's social upbringing-not the readers. He uses the staged medium of theatre to illustrate the importance of transferring the viewers' pathos to that of the characters. He argues the set, the smell, the sound, and even lighting can transport a viewer into the transitional world of the characters point of view. He asserts using the stage strips away the barriers of the audiences' sense of nationalism and equates the antipodal people of local audience and distance land to a cohesively general one state of mind. Does he succeed, I think yes. I was transported by his words and felt sympathetic to Olunde and Elesin. However, I also felt sympathy for Pilkings. His bumbling, misunderstanding of pride and ritual duty and deities of his local empirical colony made him fail his role of duty, which in the land of his rule was no duty at all.

Works Cited

1. Soyinka, Wole. Death and the King's Horseman. First ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1975.
2. Wole Soyinka. Myth, Literature, and the African World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976.