Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman

Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman

In his play, Death and the King's Horseman, Wole Soyinka would have us examine every clash and conflict, save for the one involving culture. Certainly this may seem the most obvious part of the play, but we would do the general understanding of Death a disservice if we ignored one of the central conflicts in the play. Every element of the play is placed in terms of two extremes, and the cultures must be considered one of those pairs. Suicide is no exception to this examination; it must be seen in the conflicting lights that Soyinka gives us: British vs. Yoruban, physical vs. metaphysical, personal vs. social; and an expression of failure vs. a form of redemption. In examining how the play divides suicide so completely through these lenses, we can better understand the actions of Elesin and Olunde.In the Yoruban world, it is clear that everything exists in a large backdrop of history and awareness of the gods and the universe. While living is a personal experience, everyone is a fragment of reality. Thus every action has an impact on everything. All Yorubans and the entire world are interconnected. This is why the community is so close and so attentive when it comes time for Elesin to follow his king to the afterworld. Elesin's suicide is a communal act. It affects everyone, alive or dead, because it has little to do with Elesin personally. It is not his choice or decision; it is something that will happen. So, on one hand, suicide is a social act in this play.

However, if we examine the lenses that Soyinka gives us to see his play, we can see the conflicts develop. In the Western world, suicide is mainly seen as a personal experience. Although there is religion - Christianity - there is nothing that ties the death of one person to another in the supernatural world. If you kill yourself, that's it. You face God separately from everyone else; your life is viewed by itself. This is closely connected to the Western belief of free will. No one forces anyone to commit suicide; the definition tells us that this is a voluntary situation. So this is clearly the personal part of suicide that is present in Death. And we can see the line that divides personal and communal aspects of suicide in the tenuous position of British occupation of the Yoruba.But there is still a similarity - suicide is seen to affect everyone...

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... by the end of the play. This does not mean he will change, but without Olunde's - the enlightened native - suicide, there would be no chance for understanding. So, in an odd way, Olunde's suicide redeems the physical British world by creating better awareness of the problems of colonial occupation. At the end of Death and the King's Horseman, instead of presenting another pair of opposing views, Soyinka chooses to give us uncertainty. We don't know if the Yoruban culture will be repaired, or if the British will begin to realize the importance of the native culture. This is left deliberately vague, because if it were certain one way or the other, we would all be forced to come to the same conclusion about the actions in the play. If the child is born, and Pilkings becomes a benevolent lawmaker, then it is clear that Olunde died for a just cause. If, on the other hand, the child dies, and the British crush all signs of Yoruban culture, it is clearly the suicide of the first Western-educated Yoruban that contributed significantly to the beginning of the end. Because we don't know the end, we are forced to compare the consequences and benefits of suicide in light of opposing views.