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MANIFESTATIONS OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS

IN WOLE SOYINKA’S DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN,

THE LION AND THE JEWEL, AND THE INVENTION

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

ASLI KUTLUK

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

ENGLISH LITERATURE

AUGUST 2023

Approval of the thesis:

MANIFESTATIONS OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN

WOLE SOYINKA’S DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN,

THE LION AND THE JEWEL, AND THE INVENTION

submitted by ASLI KUTLUK in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature, the Graduate School of

Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University by,

Prof. Dr. Sadettin KİRAZCI

Dean

Graduate School of Social Sciences

Prof. Dr. Nurten BİRLİK

Head of Department

Department of Foreign Language Education

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Margaret J-M SÖNMEZ

Supervisor

Department of Foreign Language Education

Examining Committee Members:

Prof. Dr. Şebnem KAYA (Head of the Examining Committee)

Hacettepe University

Department of English Language and Literature

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Margaret J-M SÖNMEZ (Supervisor)

Middle East Technical University

Department of Foreign Language Education

Prof. Dr. Nurten BİRLİK

Middle East Technical University

Department of Foreign Language Education

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nil KORKUT NAYKI

Middle East Technical University

Department of Foreign Language Education

Assist. Prof. Dr. İmren YELMİŞ

Hacettepe University

Department of English Language and Literature

iii

PLAGIARISM

I hereby declare that all information in this document has been

obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and

ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and

conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results

that are not original to this work.

Name, Last Name: Aslı KUTLUK

Signature:

ABSTRACT

MANIFESTATIONS OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN

WOLE SOYINKA’S DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN,

THE LION AND THE JEWEL, AND THE INVENTION

KUTLUK, Aslı

Ph.D. in English Literature

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Margaret J-M SÖNMEZ

August 2023, 237 pages

This study explores three of Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka’s plays—

Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), The Lion and the Jewel (1963),

and The Invention (1959), respectively—in terms of manifestations of

double consciousness. Double consciousness as defined by W.E.B. Du

Bois at the beginning of the twentieth century is shown to resonate in

and through contemporary postcolonial theories, most significantly in

concepts explored by Stuart Hall and Homi K. Bhabha, where it is

shown to encompass a broader set of concepts and ideas. The

expanded understanding of double consciousness provides a

conceptual framework for this study and covers certain colonial and

postcolonial themes and terms—some of them indebted to Du Bois—

such as the colour line, the veil, second sight, ambivalence, mimicry,

hybridity, cultural identity, positioning, and race as a floating signifier.

This thesis argues and demonstrates how double consciousness, that

appears in a variety of ways, can be observed in its various

manifestations in Soyinka’s plays. This study finds that Soyinka’s

earlier plays condense a great number of themes relevant to double

consciousness and political contexts, whereas they are explored more

individually in later plays. Presenting analyses of the plays in reverse

chronological order allows for a structural sequencing while also

demonstrating—through retrospect—Soyinka’s development as a

playwright.

Keywords: Soyinka, Du Bois, double consciousness, (post)colonial

drama, cultural positioning

ÖZ

WOLE SOYINKA’NIN ÖLÜM VE KRALIN SÜVARİSİ,

ASLAN İLE MÜCEVHER VE İCAT İSİMLİ OYUNLARINDA

ÇİFTE BİLİNÇLİLİĞİN DIŞAVURUMLARI

KUTLUK, Aslı

Doktora, İngiliz Edebiyatı

Tez Yöneticisi: Doç. Dr. MARGARET J-M SÖNMEZ

Ağustos 2023, 237 sayfa

Bu çalışma Nijeryalı oyun yazarı Wole Soyinka’nın üç oyununu,

sırasıyla Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi (1975), Aslan ile Mücevher (1963) ve

İcat (1959), çifte bilinçliliğin dışavurumları açısından incelemektedir.

Yirminci yüzyılın başlarında W.E.B. Du Bois tarafından tanımlanmış

olan çifte bilinçliliğin günümüzün postkolonyal teorilerinde, özellikle

Homi K. Bhabha ve Stuart Hall’un kavramlarında, daha da geniş bir

kavram ve fikir grubunu kapsayacak şekilde yankı bulduğu

gösterilmektedir. Bu genişletilmiş çifte bilinçlilik anlayışı bu

çalışmanın kavramsal çerçevesini oluşturmaktadır ve (bazıları Du

Bois’dan alınmış olan) birtakım kolonyal ve postkolonyal temalar ve

terimleri—renk çizgisi, peçe, ikinci görü, muğlaklık, öykünme,

melezlik, kültürel kimlik, konumlanma, bir yüzergezer gösteren olarak

ırk gibi—kapsamaktadır. Bu tez çalışması, çeşitli şekillerde kendini

gösteren çifte bilinçliliğin Soyinka’nın oyunlarında ne şekillerde

vii

tezahür ettiğini tartışmakta ve göstermektedir. Bu çalışmada

Soyinka’nın erken dönem oyunlarının çifte bilinçlilik ve politik

bağlamları açısından çok sayıda temayı yoğunlaştırdığı, buna karşın

bu temaların daha sonraki dönem oyunlarında birbirinden ayrı

şekillerde ele alındığı bulunmuştur. Oyunların analizlerinin ters

kronolojik sırada ele alınmış olması, Soyinka’nın bir oyun yazarı olarak

gelişimini (geriye dönük olarak) gösterirken, yapısal bir sıralamaya da

izin vermiştir.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Soyinka, Du Bois, çifte bilinçlilik, (post)kolonyal

drama, kültürel konumlanma

viii

I dedicate this thesis to my dear family,

for their constant love and support.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I want to express my sincere gratitude to my

supervisor, Associate Professor Dr. Margaret J-M SÖNMEZ for her

academic guidance, encouragement, kindness, and patience

throughout my PhD journey. I have always felt that she cared about

my research, and she has always kindly responded to my questions

and queries without delay. I must add that her positive attitude was

always a relief for me while I had to deal with multiple health issues. I

am deeply thankful for our weekly online sessions, which helped me

focus on my research and move forward.

I would like to thank the members of my thesis defense committee,

Professor Dr. Nurten BİRLİK, Professor Dr. Şebnem KAYA, Associate

Professor Dr. Nil KORKUT-NAYKI, and Assistant Professor Dr. İmren

YELMİŞ for spending time and energy to read my thesis meticulously.

I am very grateful for their kind support, academic guidance, and

helpful suggestions.

I must thank Professor Dr. Nursel İÇÖZ and Professor Dr. A. Deniz

BOZER, who were former thesis committee members. I have always felt

their support, kindness, and encouragement in difficult times. I must

also say that I have been very lucky to have taken their courses during

my undergraduate and postgraduate studies, in which, I believe, I

learned a lot. I am truly grateful for their presence throughout my

research and for believing in me.

I would like to thank the University of Kent, Centre for Colonial and

Postcolonial Studies, for kindly accepting me as a visiting research

fellow back in 2011–2012 and for providing me with all the necessary

sources for my research available at the Templeman Library as well as

at other libraries around the UK. I owe a special thanks to Emeritus

Professor Abdulrazak GURNAH, who generously offered to have

meetings to discuss my research during my stay at Kent. I am very

thankful for his suggestions and comments, as well as his kindness

and encouragement. I am also very grateful for having had the

opportunity to follow (as a guest) postgraduate courses in Postcolonial

Studies given by Emeritus Professor Abdulrazak GURNAH, Emeritus

Professor Donna LANDRY, Dr. Alex PADAMSEE, Dr. Ariane

MILDENBERG, and Dr. Clemency SCHOFIELD. I believe these courses

have expanded my academic knowledge, adding to all the courses I

followed during my postgraduate studies both at Middle East Technical

University and Hacettepe University.

Since my journey has been unusually long, there are many friends and

colleagues to whom I must express my gratitude. I am lucky to have

kind and supportive friends in my life who have always shown their

love and loyalty. I would like to highlight an exceptional friend,

Assistant Professor Dr. Şermin SEZER-TORAMAN, who has been such

an affectionate companion for many years despite living in another city,

always saying hello in my difficult times, sharing my distress, and

sometimes even reading parts of my thesis. I would like to thank

Assistant Professor Dr. Elvan MUTLU, who has always been a good

friend. I will never forget how much she helped me while scanning the

sources at the Templeman Library, which I needed for my study, days

before my travel back to Turkey. I am also thankful for having met Dr.

Adesanya Moroundiya ALABI from the Yoruba culture of Nigeria. He

has kindly helped me with the translations of Yoruba words and

phrases in Soyinka’s works. I would like to extend my sincere thanks

to my dearest friends and colleagues (in alphabetical order, with

respect): Dr. Buket EREL-DOĞAN, Dr. Eda KÖKLÜ-BAYRAKCI, Emel

YÜKSEL, Hazal ORGUN-SİNAN, Dr. Merve AYDOĞDU-ÇELİK, Dr. M.

Cem KAYALIGİL, Assistant Professor Dr. Nilüfer ÖZGÜR, Assistant

Professor Dr. Özlem TÜRE-ABACI, Assistant Professor Dr. Reyyan

BAL, Assistant Professor Dr. Seda COŞAR-ÇELİK, Dr. Seda

ÖRMENGÜL, Assistant Professor Dr. Sibel KORKMAZGİL, Assistant

Professor Dr. Şule AKDOĞAN, Associate Professor Dr. Şule

OKUROĞLU-ÖZÜN, and Dr. Tuba KORKMAZ-KARAMAN.

I also would like to thank members of the Department of English

Language and Literature at Selçuk University, among whom, I believe,

I have gained professional experience.

Last but not least, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to my dear

parents, Fatma KUTLUK and Dr. Özer KUTLUK, and my dear brother,

Dr. Sezer KUTLUK, for their endless love and support. They have been

caring and helpful in all aspects of life, and they have always supported

me emotionally in my hardest times. I must also thank our precious

family member, my dear cat LILITH, for her companionship as well as

for bringing joy to my life. I cannot imagine my life without my

wonderful family.

My sincere thanks to everyone whose names are not given here but

have played a part in turning this extremely exhausting and painful

period of my life into a happy ending, with the hope that tomorrow will

be better.

xii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PLAGIARISM .................................................................................. iii

ABSTRACT ..................................................................................... iv

ÖZ .................................................................................................. vi

DEDICATION ............................................................................... viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................. ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................. xii

CHAPTERS

1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 1

1.1. Aim and Scope of the Study ................................................... 1

1.2. Socio-Political Framework of Wole Soyinka’s Writing .............. 9

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ..................................................... 19

2.1. Understanding Du Boisian Double Consciousness and

Other Relevant Concepts ...................................................... 20

2.2. Reflections of Du Bois and His Conceptualisation of Double

Consciousness in the 21st Century ...................................... 42

3. PLURAL CULTURALITY AND DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN

WOLE SOYINKA’S DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN

(1975) ......................................................................................... 47

3.1. Signifiers of Racial Difference: Elesin Oba, Iyaloja, and the

Market Women ..................................................................... 55

3.2. The Ambivalent Relation Between the Colonizer and the

Colonized: Amusa and Joseph versus Simon and Jane ......... 62

3.3. Olunde and the Refinement of Double Consciousness .......... 69

4. CHARACTERS IN NEGOTIATION WITH COLONIZATION:

THE LION AND THE JEWEL (1963) .............................................. 75

4.1. Negotiable Positions in Terms of Colonization and Gender

Issues: Lakunle, Baroka, Sidi, and Sadiku ........................... 82

xiii

4.1.1. Comic Mimicry: Lakunle ............................................ 82

4.1.2. Baroka and Societal Benefits ...................................... 89

4.1.3. Women Representing Their Continent: Sidi and

Sadiku ...................................................................... 98

4.2. The Use of Non-Human Objects for/Against the Colonising

Culture ............................................................................. 110

4.3. The Use of Theatrical Space and (Meta)theatricality in

Colonial/Patriarchal Context .............................................. 112

4.4. The Dilemma of Double Consciousness and Negotiated

Positions Within Power Structures ..................................... 123

5. THE PROBLEM OF RE-INVENTING RACE IN THE INVENTION

(1959) ....................................................................................... 127

5.1. The Problem of Race and the Misuse of Scientific Research

and Experimentation by the Powerful ................................. 137

5.1.1. Hybridity and the Loss of Skin Pigment .................... 139

5.1.2. Racism, the Colour Line as a Problem of the World,

and Ambivalent Power Relations ............................... 146

5.1.3. The Use of Human Body for Racial Experiments ....... 151

5.1.4. Racism, Female Body, and Pregnancy ...................... 154

5.1.5. The Power Play Between the Oppressor and the

Oppressed: Hardiburr as A Mad Character ............... 161

5.1.5.1. Michel Foucault on Power, Knowledge,

and Madness ............................................... 161

5.1.5.2. Hardiburr’s Madness as A Threat to the

Oppressor .................................................... 164

5.2. The Staging of The Invention at the Royal Court ................ 167

5.3. Does Race Exist? The Title of the Play as A Metaphor ......... 172

6. CONCLUSION .......................................................................... 175

REFERENCES ............................................................................. 183

APPENDICES

A. CURRICULUM VITAE .......................................................... 203

xiv

B. TURKISH SUMMARY / TÜRKÇE ÖZET ................................ 207

C. THESIS PERMISSION FORM / TEZ İZİN FORMU .................. 237

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Aim and Scope of the Study

Theatre

is widely regarded as the form of art closest to real life

experiences due to its performative and imitative qualities, which have

also placed it as a convenient medium for cultural negotiations (Brater

271; Lo and Gilbert 32). Theatre has a relatively active role in directing

individuals and communities to learn and think about themselves as

well as other cultures and lifestyles. In this respect, while “the

audience is required to search for meaning and to respond with feeling

to the demonstrated action” (12) as David A. Male suggests, theatre

turns into a space for progress both at personal and communal levels.

Furthermore,

[d]rama has a particularly strong claim as the most

appropriate means of encouraging [. . .] personal

awareness since it relies on the response of the

individual [. . .]. This process is sometimes a rather

Theatre is the bringing of a dramatic text to life through imitative performance, the

practice of which dates back to Egyptian and Greek rituals and ceremonies (Jacobus

2). Western dramatic theory begins with Aristotle’s definitions of tragedy in his Poetics

(330 B.C.), in which he describes drama as “the imitation of an action,” or “mimesis”

(10). On the other hand, some scholars specialised in African drama and performance

reject the idea of regarding Aristotle as a starting point since this approach implies

the idea that there was no theatre/drama in Africa before colonization. According to

Tejumola Olaniyan and John Conteh-Morgan, “literary drama is the art form of the

hegemonic group itself, the Western-educated elite, and Westernization is still the

most potent marker of class hierarchy, whether of bodies, cultural forms, or

discourses, on the continent” (African Drama and Performance, Introduction 2). This

discussion can further be explored in Tejumola Olaniyan’s Scars of Conquest, Masks

of Resistance (1995) (pg. 37), and Pre-Colonial and Post-Colonial Drama and Theatre

in Africa (2001) edited by Lokangaka Losambe and Devi Sarinjeive (pg. viii).

painful one with its exposure of personal doubts,

failings and encouragement” (Male 13).

In such a context, while cross-cultural interactions, especially between

the West and other parts of the world, have become more and more

evident with the increasing possibility of access to travel, information

and communication, the art of theatre has grown richer with new

possibilities in form and style. Colonial and post-colonial cultural

encounters most particularly, have paradoxically been very influential

in this formation and change. Lo and Gilbert explain this situation as

follows:

Although one could argue that all theatre is in a

sense cross-cultural in that performance work

necessitates the negotiation of cultural differences

both temporally (across history) and spatially

(across geographical and social categories), what

dominates critical and institutional interest in

cross-cultural experimentations has been the

encounters between the West and ‘the rest.’ This

Western fascination with non-Western performing

arts has a long history, beginning in the early part

of the 20th century and intensifying over the past

three decades. (32)

Post-structuralist and postcolonial

movements of the twentieth

century and after, in appreciation of diversity and multiculturalism,

have also contributed tremendously to the progress of theatre

worldwide. Theatres of the non-Western parts of the world, especially,

have become more visible internationally and stronger, with a “capacity

to renew [themselves] through dynamic international and intercultural

encounters” (Brater 271), which has encouraged “a remarkable

hybridization of the possibilities for theatre itself” (271). Hence, while

Although the term was originally hyphenated, the hyphen has been omitted by later

scholars. John McLeod suggests using “once-colonised countries” rather than “post-

colonial countries” while using postcolonialism “not in terms of strict historical or

empirical periodisation, but as referring to disparate forms of representations,

reading practices, attitudes and values” (6).

Western theatre showed progress during the late twentieth century

with “all kinds of materials drawn from non-Western cultures” (Crow

and Banfield xi), post(colonial) playwrights such as Wole Soyinka

(Nigeria)—whose selected theatrical work this thesis will explore—,

Derek Walcott (St Lucia/West Indies), Athol Fugard (South Africa),

Girish Karnad (India), Jack Davis (Australia), Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana),

Vincent O’Sullivan (New Zealand), and Kee Thuan Chye (Malaysia)

found more space for their voices and works in the international arena

(Peyma 7; Crow and Banfield xi). As Peyma explains, even though these

playwrights

reflect different cultures and histories, they share

the common condition of cultural subjection, which

has informed their dramas. In the 20th century,

postcolonial drama has developed as a challenge to

the literary superiority of the traditional English

and American canon. It resists the continuing

effects of colonialism and is a response to the

painful experience of European colonialism and the

regeneration of the colonized communities. (7)

In this respect, although postcolonial writing is a huge area of study

both in context and content, drama—and theatre—have played a

specific role “in the development of national cultures and audiences,”

especially during the decolonization

processes of formerly colonized

countries (C. L. Innes, Cambridge Introduction 19), precisely because

it is drama (arguably rather than the novel or poetry), which has raised

“the consciousness of people involved in an anticolonial struggle” by

using the power of imitation and performance, as Frantz Fanon also

Decolonization “refers to the achievement of independence by the various Western

colonies and protectorates in Asia and [Africa]” after the World War II”

(“Decolonization”). As Gina Wisker states, “decolonisation came about in response to

changes in trade and as a response to the reaction against colonialism, seen through

the claims for independence and own rule by those who were colonized, who asserted

and sought to have recognised their rights for self government” during the period of

the British Empire (23). As Wisker explains, “[d]isruption during and following the

Second World War empowered independence movements and anti-colonial

rebellions” (23).

suggests in The Wretched of the Earth

(1961) (Cambridge Introduction

19). Also, in cultures with oral traditions “with roots in precolonial

[times],” drama and performance “provide a means of reaching a much

wider indigenous audience and taping into forms and conventions

which are already familiar to them,” as C. L. Innes puts forward

(Cambridge Introduction 19).

Despite such a distinctive impact on decolonization and

postcolonialism, the genre of drama has received “relatively little

attention in postcolonial literary studies” (Cambridge Introduction 19).

This is rather unexpected because, as Innes emphasizes,

dramatic performance raises so many issues that

are central to postcolonial cultures—questions of

identity, language, myth and history; issues

regarding translatability, voice and audience;

problems relating to production, infrastructures

and censorship. (19)

Therefore, it is primarily hoped that this study will contribute to

postcolonial studies in drama.

According to Nasser Dasht Peyma, postcolonial dramatists of the late

20th century and after “have been creating drama for a range of vital

cultural functions” (7). Brian Crow and Chris Banfield state that

postcolonial dramatists have produced—and still produce—their

works to “define and affirm their people’s cultural personality—in the

face of continuing cultural, economic and political subjugation—by

recovering the past, freed from the biases of metropolitan or

Significant texts were published such as Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and Aimé

Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism in 1950, which were followed by Fanon’s The

Wretched of the Earth in 1961. It was a period when decolonization was on the rise,

in which such critical texts were considerably influential. The Wretched of the Earth,

especially, “very rapidly became the bible of decolonization, inspiring many different

kinds of struggle against domination and oppression across the world” (Robert J. C.

Young, Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction 123).

mainstream history” (17). In this respect, postcolonial dramatists,

usually writing from the margins, have revealed problematic outcomes

of the colonial past in their plays while exploring liberating ideas

against discourses of colonialism. As Peyma also argues, the rise of

postcolonial criticism (since the 1980s) has also provided “a powerful

approach to literatures written by formerly colonized people who

attempt to put into words their identity, or literature written in Western

countries, which deals with different aspects of colonization” (4).

Therefore, some common themes and topics that we see in postcolonial

literature are searching for identity and belonging, problematization of

the colonial past, writing back to the Western canon, rewriting

whitewashed history, fighting against racial discrimination and other

inequalities, celebrating multiculturalism and hybridity, and so forth,

some of which will be explored in the following chapters.

Colonial and postcolonial studies also pay considerable attention to the

long-lasting effects of colonial oppression on human psychology and

its sociological outcomes. Regarding the major arguments in

postcolonial drama mentioned so far, this study aims to explore

manifestations of double consciousness under post/colonial

circumstances, as they are observed in Wole Soyinka’s selected plays,

by approaching the texts via critical observations of William Edward

Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) on double consciousness and the

present-day conceptualisations of his terminology. Du Bois defined the

term double consciousness in his famous article “Strivings of the Negro

People”

in 1897, which also appeared later in his seminal work, The

Souls of Black Folk (1903).

Here and elsewhere in the thesis, while original quotations are accurately

reproduced, the author wishes to distance herself from the terminology of the past

that is now unacceptable; in including these words within quotations she in no way

endorses either that vocabulary or the socio-political discourses that it marks.

Although Du Bois was a thinker of the early 20th century, his ideas on

the double consciousness of black people are still relevant because of

the fact that, as David Johns puts forth, “while many of Du Bois’

contemporaries theorized about race, Du Bois applied sociological

principles to identify meaningful solutions to the problems associated

with racism” (“Why W.E.B. Du Bois Matters”).

Based on both his own experiences and his observations of other black

people, Du Bois defined the term to describe the socio-psychological

state of African American individuals, who felt an inward twoness as

an outcome of “their racialized oppression and disvaluation in a white-

dominated society” (Pittman, “Double Consciousness”). However, the

term has taken on expanded meanings by virtue of more recent studies

on post/colonial writing, and indeed, this idea and Du Bois’ writings

have been sources of inspiration for other thinkers such as Paul Gilroy,

Stuart Hall, and Homi K. Bhabha.

This study examines three plays by Soyinka: Death and the King’s

Horseman (1975), The Lion and the Jewel (1963), and The Invention

(1959) respectively. The plays reveal various manifestations of double

consciousness as an extended contemporary sociological concept,

which involves reciprocal processes between the colonizer and the

colonized. Each play selected for analysis in this thesis presents a

different aspect of double consciousness. In addition to Du Bois, some

key concepts by Homi K. Bhabha and Stuart Hall have also been

employed in the analytic chapters. Chapter 3 focuses on plural

culturality and double consciousness in Death and the King’s

Horseman. Chapter 4 involves an exploration of the characters in The

Lion and the Jewel, who negotiate their individual and cultural

positions of double consciousness with colonization. Chapter 5

analyses the representation of political, social, and gendered racism on

the international scale, as shown in one of the earliest plays by

Soyinka, The Invention, which is a dark satire on racial discrimination

in South Africa, the United States, and Britain.

The overall aim of this study is to demonstrate that double

consciousness—as we understand it today, with the help of more

recent theories on post/colonial issues—manifests in a variety of ways

as a result of mutual processes experienced by the colonizer and the

colonized, many examples of which can be found in Soyinka’s works.

In this respect, double consciousness, as we observe it in Soyinka’s

plays, is not necessarily a fixed or irremovable psychological state of

the self. On the contrary, it is the result of an encounter or interaction

between the colonizer and the colonized, affecting both sides, and, in

some cases, blurring the binary opposition—or power relations—

between the two. Furthermore, as Henry Louis Gates Jr. puts forward,

double consciousness was once perceived as “a disorder,” but today, it

can even be regarded as “the cure” for liberating oneself from the

confines of colonial existence (“The Close Reader; Both Sides Now”).

As for the theoretical framework of this study, Du Bois’s notion of

double consciousness is used as an umbrella term, which brings to the

fore more specific concepts by himself such as the veil, second sight,

and the colour line

, all of which will be employed in this thesis as

appropriate in the examination of Soyinka’s plays. Also, double

consciousness as defined by Du Bois in the nineteenth century needs

to be updated in the light of recent, twentieth and twenty-first century

understandings of colonialism and postcolonialism; especially

concepts introduced and expanded by Homi K. Bhabha and Stuart Hall

are very helpful in updating and extending the discussion of double

consciousness in the plays. These key concepts are mimicry,

This phrase was used by Du Bois as “the color-line” in The Souls of Black Folk (v,

9, 24, 111), but the unhyphenated form has been preferred in this thesis.

ambivalence, hybridity, agency, cultural identity, positioning, and race

as a floating signifier, all related to the Du Boisian double-discourse.

This thesis, therefore, aims to show in what ways double

consciousness is experienced in a colonized or formerly colonized

environment, many examples of which can be demonstrated in

Soyinka’s outstanding plays. The plays selected for this study will be

explored in reverse chronological order since Soyinka’s earlier plays,

including The Invention, involve a large number of themes that are

relevant to the concept double consciousness whereas he explores

such themes more individually, more clearly, and perhaps more

successfully in his later plays, including his masterpiece, Death and

the King’s Horseman. In fact, this reverse order of treatment brings to

light Soyinka’s professional development as a playwright while it

expands the exploration of manifestations of double consciousness in

the plays. Soyinka’s immense knowledge and proficiency in employing

Aristotelian tragedy and enriching it with African—and especially

Nigerian—cultural and performative elements is obvious in Death and

the King’s Horseman. The Lion and the Jewel written before Death and

the King’s Horseman, on the other hand, is a comedy which is

structurally just as strongly linked to theatrical conventions, this time

of comedy, but is less condensed in impact and more complex in terms

of themes and messages. The Invention, one of the earliest plays written

by Soyinka—and the last play to be analysed in this thesis—is a dark

satire that is thematically much more complex than either of the two

later plays that are analysed before it in the thesis; it involving many

historical and political references, and shows how formal, thematic and

referential complexity can, arguably, detract from the discursive

impact of the play .

According to Robert J. C. Young, the “importance of Africa as a field of

struggle against imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism” should

always be kept in mind when studying African writing (Postcolonialism:

A Very Short Introduction 125). Therefore, the next subsection focuses

on the socio-political framework of Soyinka’s writing so as to provide

the reader with an insightful understanding of Soyinka’s main

concerns.

1.2. Socio-Political Framework of Wole Soyinka’s Writing

Nigeria

has a long history of political unrest and military

disturbances, which is often addressed in the works of Nigerian

authors such as Wole Soyinka

, Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, and Femi

Osofisan. Nigerian literature, in this respect, “expresses the struggles

of a country that has survived the exploitation of colonialism and the

devastation of civil war

and authoritarianism,” through which “the

postcolonial

Nigerian writer would fulfil the traditional roles of writer

as the voice of the people and the identity constructor” (Peyma 71).

C. L. Innes states that Nigeria and Ghana have “long histories of trading contacts,

especially slave trading,” but they were not colonized officially until the late

nineteenth century (“‘Forging the Conscience of Their Race’” 121).

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka in full, born in Abeokuta, Western Nigeria, 1934.

Soyinka “was brought up, educated and worked—until the age of twenty—in what

was then called the Western region of Nigeria and in Lagos” (Gibbs, Critical

Perspectives 1).

The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War took place between

1967 and 1970. Soyinka’s Poems from Prison (1969) republished as A Shuttle in the

Crypt (1972) is about this period when Soyinka’s endeavour to act against the war

caused his imprisonment for twenty-seven months by the federal military

government in 1967, without trial. As Michael Billington states, he was imprisoned

“for supposedly conspiring with Biafran rebels” (ch. 91). A Shuttle in the Crypt is, in

this respect, “Soyinka’s twenty-five month experience of solitary confinement with its

accompanying horrors and dangers” (Sachs).

According to Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins, effects of colonization “shape

language, education, religion, artistic sensibilities, and, increasingly, popular

culture” (2). Gilbert and Tompkins also note that “post-colonialism addresses

reactions to colonialism in a context that is not necessarily determined by temporal

constraints: post-colonial plays, novels, verse, and films then become

textual/cultural expressions of resistance to colonisation. As a critical discourse,

therefore, post-colonialism is both a textual effect and a reading strategy” (2).

The years following Nigeria’s independence in 1960 were “a period of

intensive preoccupation on the part of intellectuals and dramatists

with their own indigenous traditions of performance” (Balme 40).

Soyinka was among them, in a leading position, as a prolific author

who has written (to this day) around thirty plays, three novels, five

memoirs, a great number of poems/poetry collections, many critical

essays, and a few short stories. He is also the first African to have been

awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, which he dedicated to

another important name, a freedom fighter from South Africa, who was

to outstrip Soyinka in fame, Nelson Mandela (1918-2013). Soyinka’s

reputation in literary circles remains outstanding, and he has been

given a great number of other awards, fellowships, and honorary

degrees

all around the world. In Michael Billington’s words, Soyinka

is a writer from Nigeria, “who speaks to us all” (ch. 91).

Soyinka holds an undeniably essential position

in postcolonial

drama

. He has been regarded as “the most significant literary artist

of contemporary Africa” since he started writing in the late 1950s

(Ogunba 1). For Awam Amkpa, “no African mixes political activism, art,

Other prizes include the Europe Theatre Prize 2017 (Special Category), the

International Humanist Award (2014), the Academy of Achievement Golden Plate

Award (2009), a Benson Medal from Royal Society of Literature (1990), and the

Nigerian National Order of Merit Award. Soyinka was appointed UNESCO Goodwill

Ambassador “for the promotion of African culture, programmes and communication”

in 1994 (“UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors”). He has also been a visiting professor at

universities including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, and Ibadan. He joined NYU

Abu Dhabi Faculty as Arts Professor of Theatre in 2022.

Soyinka is sometimes called Africa’s Shakespeare because of his mastery in

literature and the use of language. Further info can be found in “Publishing Wole

Soyinka: Oxford University Press and the creation of ‘Africa’s own William

Shakespeare’” (2011) by Caroline Davis; and in Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: A Biography

(2012) by Meg Greene, pg. 72.

Soyinka was awarded “a Rockefeller bursary” in 1960, and he returned to Nigeria

to study African drama (“Wole Soyinka – Biographical”). Meanwhile he “taught drama

and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, where, since 1975,

he has been professor of comparative literature” (“Wole Soyinka – Biographical”).

Furthermore, Soyinka founded two theatre groups, “The 1960 Masks” in 1960 and

the “Orisun Theatre Company” in 1964, in which he both acted and produced his

own works (Dauda and Falola 240).

and philosophical analyses with as much eloquence, energy, and

intellectual rigor as does this 1986 Nobel laurate in literature” (22).

According to Brian Crow and Chris Banfield, “no African dramatist has

wrought such fusions more often, in such prolific stylistic variety, or

to greater intellectual and aesthetic effect, than [. . .] Wole Soyinka”

(80).

Soyinka is also a playwright who is very much dedicated to Nigeria,

especially the Yoruba

culture (as it will be shown in the analysis of

Death and the King’s Horseman in Chapter 3 of this thesis). In his

writings, in this respect, Soyinka successfully “hybridize[s] a very rich

heritage from his own country, ancient myths and old traditions, with

literary legacies and traditions of European culture” (Peyma 79). Some

of his borrowings from African rituals and festivals, as Sam Ukala

explains, are “cyclical plots,” “large number of characters,” “cryptic

language,” and “symbolic music, oracular dances, sometimes by

masked figures” (135; also qtd. in Peyma 79). Commenting on

Soyinka’s Yoruba cultural background and his educational and

professional past in Britain, Amkpa, therefore, clarifies that Soyinka is

a hybridized playwright:

He is a quintessential denizen of the hybrid

interstice that I have called ‘inter-modernism.’ His

in-between location has arguably shaped his

dialectical approach to culture—his resort to

‘tradition’ to argue for change; his use of the

English language to subvert Western, rational,

epistemologies by breaking down the barriers

between past and present, the spiritual and the

material; and his recourse to Yoruba

particularisms to articulate universalist

Baba Ifa Karade underlines that Yoruba people “believe themselves descended from

goddesses and gods [called orishas], from an ancient spiritual capital, Ile-Ife” (5).

Each deity has “special worship, song, and sacrifice” (5). Karade also states that “the

greatest percentage of Africans enslaved for New World labor came from the Yoruba”

(3).

postcolonial desires. (Theatre and Postcolonial

Desires 21-22)

Soyinka writes his works in English

, and his writing has been deeply

influenced by Western literary traditions due to his extensive

knowledge of the Western canon. However, as Kwame Anthony Appiah

argued in 1993, although Soyinka employs “a European language,”

“Soyinka is not writing, cannot be writing, with the purposes of English

writers of the present” (159). In his works, Soyinka “captures the

language of the colonial, matter and manner” (Appiah 158). As Appiah

further argues,

[i]n reading Soyinka we hear a voice that has

ransacked the treasuries of English literary and

vernacular diction with an eclecticism that dazzles

without disconcerting, and has found a language

that is indisputably his own. (159)

Although Soyinka writes in English

, his works have their roots in the

indigenous Yoruba culture of Western Nigeria, as mentioned earlier.

Ogunba points out that in Yoruba culture, Soyinka “feels at home to

choose his situations and characters not only among fellow human

beings in a contemporary context, but also among gods, spirits and

demons as well as dead ancestors, illustrious and otherwise” (1). In

this respect, Soyinka “re-interprets his material, giving it his own

deliberate twist” in his works (Ogunba 1). Also, his plays often involve

an evaluation of “the traditional culture against modern

consciousness” (which will be explored in the analysis of The Lion and

the Jewel in Chapter 4 of this thesis) and “the limitations of the former

Peyma explains that “English literature has spread and has been canonized with

the expansion of the English language and later resulted in the development of

literature in English written by non-English writers” (3).

“In many parts of post-colonial Africa, English is the language of government, the

language of broadcasting, and the main language of educational instruction”

(Oyegoke 142).

in a situation of rapid change” (Ogunba 1). For Soyinka, change and

development are needed in Africa “as long as ‘virgin plots of land’ are

left for the artist to cultivate” (1).

Derek Wright explains that drama can be regarded as “the most primal

mode of artistic expression; mediated by no pigment, print, or lens, it

communicates directly through the raw material of the pulsating

human body, its rhythmic movement, sounds, and presence” (Wole

Soyinka Revisited 23). Soyinka’s Yoruba worldview “has always been

rich in these elements,” as it can be observed in his dramatic works

(Wole Soyinka Revisited 23). In a complex web of cultural, historical,

and literary intersections, Soyinka’s works are, therefore,

artistic hybrids of mixed Yoruba and European

parentage, blending African themes, imagery, and

performance idioms with Western techniques and

stylistic influences. [. . .] Though the tonality of

Yoruba—a musical language chanted rather than

spoken—does not translate into English, its wealth

of images, proverbs, and folkloric motifs survives

the transplantation to foreign forms in Soyinka’s

work. (D. Wright, Wole Soyinka Revisited 5-6)

It is also important to note that Soyinka’s works pursue a hybrid

literary style, which scholars call theatrical syncretism

, and whether

he is “a satirist,” “a tragedian,” “a Yoruba traditionalist,” “a romantic

individualist,” “a modernist” or a postmodernist writer (Whitaker 200)

has been the subject of scholarly debates. All interpretations seem

As a form of cross-cultural theatre, postcolonial theatre should be analysed under

two main categories, as Lo and Gilbert discuss: syncretic theatre and non-syncretic

theatre. Lo and Gilbert state that “[s]yncretic theatre integrates performance

elements of different cultures into a form that aims to retain the cultural integrity of

the specific materials used while forging new texts and theatre practices” whereas

non-syncretic theatre “does not merge disparate cultural forms but rather uses

imposed imperial genres/aesthetics or, less often, wholly indigenous ones, to voice

postcolonial concerns” (35-36). Sistren Theatre Collective and Derek Walcott in the

Caribbean; Girish Karnad in India; and Femi Osofisan and Soyinka in Nigeria have

produced the best examples of syncretic theatre (Lo and Gilbert 36).

appropriate and valuable: Soyinka’s works show themselves to be

diverse and colourful as a result of their skilful merging of native

cultural elements such as Yoruba myths, legends, songs and riddles

with the non-native literary forms and techniques of European origin.

Encompassing all the aspects of his works, Soyinka can be regarded

as an author who employs colonial and postcolonial issues in his

literary works by predominantly focusing on political, social, economic,

and cultural matters of Nigeria—from a broader perspective, of Africa.

Soyinka is not only a famous author, but also a human rights activist

who has fought for democracy, equality, justice, freedom of thought,

and ending discrimination throughout his life, which is reflected in

both his fictional and his non-fictional works (such as The Invention

examined in Chapter 5 of this thesis). In other words, as expressed by

Robert W. July, Soyinka has devoted all his work to “do something

about inequity and injustice” (478). Nwankwo likewise emphasizes that

we must evaluate Soyinka as “an activist, nationalist and universalist”

since “his concern for mankind transcends any other commitment”

and so he has become “an organ of protest, the voice of the oppressed

and an articulator of history” in his writing (1).

Lo and Gilbert claim that Soyinka’s work “finds its main audience

among the educated classes of Nigerian society as well as among

cosmopolitan groups internationally” (35). Soyinka has been especially

successful in drama as a genre in international scale since, as Jeyifo

explains, he has combined and synthesized “individual talent and

sensibility, formal institutional training and practical theatre

experience, and the weight of received, subliminally absorbed cultural

Due to his political thoughts and social criticism, Soyinka was imprisoned by the

Nigerian military authorities during the Nigerian Civil War, between 1967 and 1969,

a period reflected in some of his works including The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole

Soyinka (1972) and King Baabu (2001). While in prison, Soyinka “surreptitiously

wrote on cigarette packets, toilet paper, and between the lines of books he secretly

managed to acquire” (John D. Thomas qtd. in Soyinka, Climate of Fear 144).

tradition” in his plays (Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics and

Postcolonialism 83). Also, although Nigeria provides the most suitable

background “with its varied social and communal pattern” (Pushpa 9)

for Soyinka’s plays, Soyinka deals with other regional and universal

issues as well (as we will see in the example of The Invention in Chapter

5). In this respect, as Pushpa puts forward,

[t]he plays unfold, one after another, the high

drama of life. Traditional ideas mingle with new

ideas. Men with daring make a bid to welcome ideas

from the West. [. . .] Religion, politics, education,

economics, social taboos, and other aspects of life

come under the microscope of Soyinka’s vision. The

problems, the characters, the basic social structure

have a universal appeal. The issues discussed are

not peculiar to Africa, but are present in all

religions, all races and all times. (9)

One noticeable reason for Soyinka’s international success is his use of

satire in handling common political and controversial issues. Satire is

“one of Soyinka’s chief artistic weapons” (Ogunba 2). Although Soyinka

addresses “his most biting satire” to Nigeria and Africa, he “comments

on issues that affect mankind the world over,” which makes his works

“remarkable both for its universality and its particularity” (Nwankwo

329).

Soyinka chooses his themes and topics with great mindfulness, and he

shows an artistic ability to combine different views of world cultures

through which he reflects his assertions. Most important themes in his

works are relevant to colonialism and postcolonialism such as tradition

versus modernity, power relations, destructive results of colonialism,

racism, discrimination, exploitation, problems of identity and

belonging, political corruption, and so forth. In his plays, while

handling such themes, Soyinka employs satire—as also mentioned

above—“consistently to expose the crudities and sufferings of a society

in a state of transition” (Ogunba 2), and the society usually moves

“from a state of colonialism to a new age of political and cultural

awareness whose aim is, ostensibly, to restore the lost dignity of the

individual and rehabilitate an erstwhile battered culture” (Ogunba x).

Theatre creates a communal space where the audience can

contemplate over social and political matters. Harvey Young states that

“theatre, as the most consistently popular form of community

engagement in human history, serves as the ideal medium through

which to study the fascination, anxieties, and concerns related to

cultural difference and race” (17). Soyinka’s plays should be taken into

consideration from this perspective. He has always been aware of the

significant relation between theatre and politics as a postcolonial

playwright and activist; and he therefore intentionally uses literature,

especially drama, to reflect his political concerns. Nwankwo argues

that “the turbulent and unstable African socio-political milieu provides

him with a setting and materials for (most of) his satirical plays” (329).

In this respect, as Onookome Okome argues, a chronological study of

Soyinka’s plays can provide readers with a study of Nigerian politics at

the same time (113). However, other categorisations are also possible.

For instance, for Amkpa, Soyinka’s plays can be divided into three

main parts that are “broad but fluid categories” (24):

Plays such as Dance of the Forests, Kongi’s Harvest,

The Lion and the Jewel, Trials of Brother Jero/Jero’s

Metamorphosis, Opera Wonyosi, Play of Giants,

Requiem for a Futurologist, From Zia with love, The

Beatiﬁcation of Area Boy, and King Ubaku

may be

classiﬁed as ‘political satire.’ Others including The

Strong Breed, Madmen and Specialists, The Road,

The Bacchae of Euripides, and Death and the King’s

Horseman may qualify as ‘metaphysical drama.’

The third category consists of ‘political street

Awam Amkpa has stated in a personal interview (with the author of this thesis)

that he used the title King Ubaku instead of King Baabu in his book Theatre and

Postcolonial Desires (2004) since it was, in fact, the title of the working script of

Soyinka’s King Baabu (“Re: King Ubaku”).

theatre’ skits, which are numerous and include

prominent examples like Before the Blackout/After

the Blowout, Priority Projects, Trials and

Tribulations, and Rice. (Theatre and Postcolonial

Desires 24)

What is common to all of Soyinka’s plays, according to Amkpa, is that

“he has consistently sought an adequate language of resistance and

the description of an esthetic comprising mythology, politics, and

activism” (Theatre and Postcolonial Desires 24).

Unlike Amkpa, Oyin Ogunba divides Soyinka’s plays written until 1975

into two categories: “his pre-1960 writings and the ones starting with

A Dance of the Forests” (2). According to Ogunba, Soyinka searched for

a common theme throughout the first category although “these early

plays already show the potentials of a great artist in terms of a mastery

of dramatic technique, a sense of humour and even an urge to

experiment with new material” (Ogunba 2). Ogunba evaluates the

second category as Soyinka’s “mature plays,” in which the tone

“changes from conventional social criticism to acute anxiety about the

shape of the present and the fortunes of the future,” and Soyinka

“becomes a man wide awake to the realities of modern Africa and he is

often ready to stake everything for the regeneration of his community”

(Ogunba 3).

In addition to the categorizations of Amkpa and Ogunba, it should also

be noted that Soyinka’s more recent plays such as King Baabu (2002)

and Alápatà Àpáta: A Play for Yorubafonia, Class for Xenophiles (2011)

focus more on internal Nigerian problems which are indirect and

ongoing results of colonialism but still remaining unsolved, such as

military regimes, corrupt politicians, loss of traditional and linguistic

values rather than more direct problems of post/colonial identity and

consciousness.

To conclude, Soyinka’s political criticism dwells insistently on

post/colonial problems of Africa (especially Nigeria), as well as

problems caused by regional military and political oppression. As

Patrick Ebewo argues, therefore, Soyinka writes his works to awaken

people:

As a self-proclaimed moralist and watchdog in his

society, Soyinka is a concerned observer of the

corruption, oppression, hypocrisy, injustice and

the other absurdities in his society—be they social,

political, sexual or religious absurdities. (194-95)

In this context, Soyinka’s three plays—the names of which have

already been given—will be examined closely in the analytic chapters

of this thesis, by taking into consideration the socio-political

framework of Soyinka’s writing mentioned so far in this subsection.

CHAPTER 2

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

From the second half of the twentieth century onwards, writers from

(formerly) colonized countries have produced works of literature

regarding colonial and postcolonial issues such as problems of identity

and belonging; the dichotomic relationship between the West and the

rest of the world; racism; establishing national consciousness; and

discrimination and exploitation in various forms—especially including

gender and class problems. Soyinka is among such writers, as

explained in the previous chapter, and this thesis will analyse three

Soyinka plays selected for their remarkably clear explorations and

demonstrations of how double consciousness manifests in a variety of

ways under colonial/postcolonial circumstances. This chapter

prepares the way for the analyses and discussions by explaining the

conceptualisation of double consciousness that will be employed in

this thesis. Although double consciousness is not a new concept, and

Du Bois coined and used the term, in the last century, only with

respect to the experiences of African American people, there are

connections between Du Boisian double consciousness and some

much later and more up-to-date postcolonial concepts put forward by

Bhabha and Hall. This thesis explores double consciousness as an

umbrella concept with a broad meaning that involves the ideas of all

three theorists. This chapter will therefore explain the key terms

referred to in this thesis and which originated in the writings of Du

Bois, Bhabha, and Hall. These are: the colour line, the veil, the second

sight, agency, mimicry, ambivalence, cultural identity, and race as a

floating signifier.

2.1. Understanding Du Boisian Double Consciousness and Other

Relevant Concepts

Double consciousness is a concept that was first used by W.E.B. Du

Bois (1868-1963) to describe the double-sided inner conflict of black

individuals in America

, who tended to define themselves through the

eyes of the other—when, it was postulated, under the shadow of racial

oppression. Du Bois was a sociologist, civil rights activist, historian,

economist as well as the leading figure of Black Cultural Studies in the

first half of the twentieth century. Having written “21 books and

countless journal articles

” (National Archives), Du Bois, as Aldon

Morris states, “sustained global impact on sociological, literary, and

political knowledge” (11), and “attempted virtually everything possible

to overcome western racism” through his critical work (Buchanan 138).

Above all, what makes Du Bois unique—and a significant name for this

study—is that “[b]y turning the analytic lens on subaltern populations,

Du Bois emerged as the first American sociologist to articulate the

agency of the oppressed” (Morris 15).

The term double consciousness emerged when there was European

colonialism in addition to racial segregation in the USA. It first

appeared in Du Bois’s article “Strivings of the Negro People” in The

Du Bois’s conceptualisation of double consciousness is innovational in that it is

“part of an account of the life-experience he ascribed to ‘black folk’ in America

generally in then-current social circumstances—Jim Crow in the south, de facto

[emphasis in original] segregation in the North, and the threat and actuality of racist

violence throughout the nation” (Pittman, “Double Consciousness”).

Ian Buchanan claims that Du Bois wrote “over 4,000 articles in his lifetime, but

most of these pieces (many of which are minor editorial essays written while he was

editor of Crisis, the organ of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People), of which he was a co-founder) are hard to find and astonishingly

there is no collection of his works” (138).

Atlantic Monthly in 1897, which later became the first chapter of his

most famous work, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

, under the title of

“Of Our Spiritual Strivings.” As Brent Hayes Edwards points out, “Of

Our Spiritual Strivings,” together with Du Bois’s speech “The

Conservation of Races” (1897), was an attempt

to make sense of the position of peoples of African

descent in the world at the turn of the century, and

to consider the proper role of the African American

intellectual as an advocate for, and leader of, his

people. (xii)

Du Bois’s definition of double consciousness rests on the idea that

black individuals in the segregated USA experience(d) an unrelenting

conflict of two divided selves in one black body. Marc Black interprets

Du Boisian double consciousness as follows:

DuBois

explains that African Americans are

forced to view themselves from, and as, the negative

perspectives of the outside society. Having two

antagonistic identities means that a lot of time and

energy is spent negotiating and enduring the

conflicts between who one is as a person and how

one struggles to live with the misrepresentations of

the outside world. Having one’s own sense of self

and also having imposed contempt for an ascribed

self, having twoness, is what DuBois calls double

consciousness. (394)

Edwards defines The Souls of Black Folk as “the definitive text of the African

American literary tradition” (vii). As “one of the very rare books that marks the

threshold of its historical era,” it has given Du Bois “international prominence as an

authoritative voice on what was then termed the N[----] problem” (Edwards vii). It is

also a work that carries an “unusual polyphony of genres––autobiography, history,

political criticism, sociology, ethnography, biography, eulogy, fiction––the book has

had a formative influence on the entire tradition of African American writing that has

followed in its wake” (vii).

Spellings of this name without a gap between its two parts are quite commonly

found, but Du Bois scholars generally prefer the two-word version, and this is also

how he appears in the Library of Congress records.

In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois draws attention to the main cause

of double consciousness in black Americans, which is, apparently,

racial discrimination. In this respect, Du Boisian double consciousness

can be perceived as a psycho-social situation of defining “one’s

existence as that of inclusion by exclusion” (Eze 885).

Although Du Bois writes about the African American situation of

double consciousness in The Souls of Black Folk, his ideas on double

consciousness and racism can encompass situations in other parts of

the world as well. In fact, Du Bois’s work shows that the racial

segregation in the United States was “an early example of apartheid,

the system of racial separatism eventually perfected by white

colonialists in South Africa” (Eze 885)—which will also be discussed in

the analysis of Soyinka’s The Invention in Chapter 5. As we learn from

Du Bois’s work, racial discrimination was being directed against black

people more than any other ethnic group in the United States. The

following passage from The Souls of Black Folk includes the term

double consciousness for the first time while also explaining the

multiplied level of racial discrimination against black people:

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and

Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the N[----] is a

sort of seventh son, born with a veil, gifted with

second-sight in this American world,—a world

which yields him no true self-consciousness, but

only lets him see himself through the revelation of

the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this

double-consciousness, this sense of always looking

at one’s self through the eyes of others, of

measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that

looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever

feels his two-ness,—an American, a N[----]; two

souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings;

two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged

strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

(The Souls 2)

Emphasizing the impact of Du Bois’s thoughts on the relation between

racism and double consciousness, Edwards states that this passage is

“one of the most often quoted in twentieth-century American literature”

(xiii). Keya Ganguly interprets Du Boisian double consciousness as “a

form of double vision that is seen as both produced by and providing

the privilege of racialized otherness” (179). Lively, furthermore,

acknowledges that this doubleness that Du Bois describes is merely

an “existential” (170) problem:

It describes a split or ‘doubling’ between ‘true self-

consciousness’ or authenticity and the false

consciousness of seeing oneself through the eyes of

others, of living by the definitions that others put

on us [. . .]. But by formulating in this way the

problem of identity for the American N[----], Du

Bois was also anticipating a general question that

has preoccupied artists and intellectuals in the

twentieth century: is there a true ‘self’, or are we

composed of the shifting roles that a complex

society forces us to play out? Can we be ‘true’ to

ourselves, or are we lost in a hall of mirrors? Are

we—like the hero of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man,

who can only believe in his own existence by

illuminating himself with hundreds of light bulbs—

forever alienated from ourselves? It is a

preoccupation reflected in modernism’s taste for

surfaces, for masks and pastiche, and it has strong

roots in the black experience. (Lively 170)

According to Du Bois’s conceptualisation, then, black Americans suffer

from double consciousness, by being conscious of their actions as both

“black” and “not-white” (Buchanan 136). They feel the alienation

caused by the difference of their skin colour. This situation implies the

idea that they carry the burden of a racial construction—of being an

American (by stereotyping and implication, allegedly white) and an

African at the same time. This double consciousness, this feeling of

twoness, Du Bois postulates, inevitably draws them into a problematic

state of mind in which they begin to believe that they are the problem.

They feel like they are a problem both for themselves and for the white-

dominated societies they live in. Thus, as Du Bois argues, black

Americans constantly feel the discomfort of being stuck in the black

skin, which prevents them from feeling complete and being an integral

part of the community.

In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois explains his own inner conflict and

not being able to find a proper solution to this problem, either:

Between me and the other world there is ever an

unasked question: unasked by some through

feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty

of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round

it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way,

eye me curiously or compassionately, and then,

instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a

problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man

in my town; [. . .] At these I smile, or am interested,

or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion

may require. To the real question, How does it feel

to be a problem? I answer seldom a word. (1;

“Strivings of the Negro People” 194)

Du Bois wrote both on the grounds of his own experiences and as a

result of his critical observations on the psycho-social state of black

people in the segregated USA, throwing also light upon the states of

black people in other parts of the globe. He goes on sharing his own

crisis as a black individual in The Souls of Black Folk, exclaiming, “Why

did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?” (2).

Du Bois was one of the 12 million black Americans living in the USA

in the 1920s—the majority living in the south; although slavery had

ended earlier, in 1865, racial discrimination was still affecting black

people’s lives in many ways, including inequity at hospitals, schools,

parks, cemeteries, toilets, restaurants, and other public places, which

was also a result of the legalisation of racial segregation by the Jim

Crow laws (“Life for Black Americans”). It was a time when, as Edwards

puts forth, “a collective desire for participation in the modern ‘kingdom

of culture’ [was] repeatedly undermined by a relentless tide of racism—

blocked by what Du Bois terms a ‘Veil’ of prejudice” (x). In this context,

Du Bois was compelled to “find somewhere else to eat” on various

occasions, like many other people of African descent, in the USA (T. O.

Moore 754). Frantz Fanon’s explanation of the treatment of black

people is also relevant to Du Bois’s experience of discrimination:

Out of slavery the N[----] burst into the lists

where his masters stood. Like those servants who

are allowed once every year to dance in the drawing

room, the N[----] is looking for a prop. The N[----]

has not become a master. When there are no longer

slaves, there are no longer masters.

The N[----] is a slave who has been allowed to

assume the attitude of a master.

The white man is a master who has allowed his

slaves to eat at his table. (Black Skin, White Masks

171)

Despite the unfavourable sides of double consciousness caused by

racial discrimination, Du Bois, in fact, shows a complicated but

revolutionary look towards the issue of double consciousness. What

Du Bois implies by his work is that double consciousness is, indeed, a

gift—as an innovational and progressive idea for emancipation of the

mind and societies—a separation from the fabricated discourse of

genetic/scientific racism with roots in the nineteenth century. In this

respect, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” is a more complex text than it

seems, and it indicates that

double consciousness is at once a deprivation (an

inability to see oneself except ‘through the eyes of

others’) and a gift (an endowment of ‘second-sight’,

that seems to allow a deeper or redoubled

comprehension of the complexities of ‘this

American world’). In this reformulation, we are

reminded that ‘alienation––raised to a conscious

level, cultivated, and directed––has revolutionary

potential’. And we are provided with a vision of the

goal: a ‘merging’ of these ‘unreconciled strivings’ in

a ‘better and truer self’, allowed to participate as a

‘co-worker in the kingdom of culture’. (Edwards xiv;

Holt, “The Political Uses of Alienation” 306)

Hence, Du Bois explains in The Souls of Black Folk that black people

in America want to keep their different selves together without being

despised or degraded by white people. They long for self-consciousness

so very deeply that they have a desire to blend both selves in one black

body with authenticity, which would make the world a better place for

humanity, as Du Bois suggests:

The history of the American N[----] [or black

communities in general] is the history of this strife,

—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to

merge his double self into a better and truer self. In

this merging he wishes neither of the older selves

to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for

America has too much to teach the world and

Africa. He would not bleach his N[----] soul in a

flood of white Americanism, for he knows that N[--

--] blood has a message for the world. He simply

wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a

N[----] and an American, without being cursed and

spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors

of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. (The

Souls 2-3)

In other words, as Black observes, “true self consciousness” which is

prevented by this doubleness “may be a merging of two positive

identities (black and American) without the harmful ascription,

contempt and negation from the outside world” (394).

As for the analogies and the extensions of Du Bois’s conceptualisation

of double consciousness, there is a noticeable parallelism between the

concept of double consciousness and the early twentieth-century

notion of “the looking-glass self” (183) which was developed by Charles

Horton Cooley (1864-1929). Watching children’s interactions with

adults and other children, Cooley noticed that children were “seeking

cues in other people’s behavior that reflect their own,” and he

“reasoned that as we mature, the overall pattern of these reflections

becomes a dominant aspect of our identity—that is, of how we conceive

of ourselves” (Kornblum 105). The term the looking-glass self was first

used by Cooley in Human Nature and the Social Order (1902):

In a very large and interesting class of cases the

social reference takes the form of a somewhat

definite imagination of how one’s self—that is any

idea he appropriates—appears in a particular

mind, and the kind of self-feeling one has is

determined by the attitude toward this attributed

to that other mind. A social self of this sort might

be called the reflected or looking-glass self:

‘Each to each a looking-glass

Reflects the other that doth pass.’

As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass,

and are interested in them because they are ours,

and pleased or otherwise with them according as

they do or do not answer to what we should like

them to be; so in imagination we perceive in

another’s mind some thought of our appearance

manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so

on, and are variously affected by it. (183-84)

Cooley’s notion of the looking-glass self is a reflection of ourselves “that

we think we see in the behaviors of others around us” (Kornblum 105).

According to Cooley, society functions as “a mirror that reflects to us

who we are and on the basis of which we form our self-image” (Stolley

246). In this context, Du Boisian double consciousness can be

evaluated as a concept regarding both sides of the looking-glass self—

that of the black individual and of (his image in) the white-dominated

society.

It should be noted that Du Bois omitted the term double consciousness

completely from his works after publishing The Souls of Black Folk;

however, traces of his conceptualisation of double consciousness can

be observed in the theories of many other influential thinkers after him,

including Henry Louis Gates Jr., Paul Gilroy, Homi K. Bhabha, and

Stuart Hall.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel West write in The Future of the Race

(1996), for instance, that “[a]ny serious examination of black culture”

should begin with Du Bois’s conceptualisation of the efforts and

determination of black people “to survive and subsist, the tenacious

will to persevere and persist, and maybe even prevail” (79-80). They

also explain—by referring to double consciousness—that

the specificity of black culture [. . .] lies in both the

African and American character of black people’s

attempts to sustain their mental sanity and

spiritual health, social life and political struggle in

the midst of a slaveholding, white supremacist

civilization that viewed itself as the most

enlightened, free, tolerant, and democratic

experiment in human history. (The Future of Race

79)

There is an apparent connection between Fanon’s ideas regarding

colonized people and Du Bois’s notion of (African American) double

consciousness. As Marc Black argues, in Black Skin, White Masks

(1952) and The Wretched of the Earth

(1961) Fanon shows us that

“double consciousness is also a condition of colonized people” (393).

Due to his education in Psychiatry in France and then his service at a

psychiatric hospital in French Algeria (1953), where he witnessed the

results of colonialism and torture on individuals, Fanon gained

“unique insight into both sides of the colonial situation” from a

psychological perspective (Lane 87).

C. L. Innes states that long before Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), Fanon

described in The Wretched of the World “the colonial world as a Manichaean world,

in which the world of the native is the negation of the world of the settler” (“‘Forging

the Conscience of their Race’” 122).

Both intellectuals—Fanon and Du Bois—wrote about the burden of

living with double consciousness although Fanon wrote primarily

about the experiences of black people from French colonies in the

Caribbean. They both fought for the liberation and recognition of black

people by trying to raise an African self-consciousness. As Robert J. C.

Young also explains,

Although he was against racialism in any form, Du

Bois emphasized the raising of African

consciousness and the empowering power of an

African cultural identity. His notion of a double

consciousness, of ‘always looking at one’s self

through the eyes of others’, constituted the first

substantial African‐American critique of the

alienating effects of dominant white culture on

black Americans, and anticipated Fanon’s more

thoroughly psychological analysis of the

mechanisms of the production of inferiority effects

among colonized peoples in a colonial culture in

Black Skin, White Masks of 1952. (Postcolonialism:

An Historical Introduction 221)

In this respect, although the resemblances between Fanon’s and Du

Bois’s ideas will be explained in the following paragraphs, it will be

done with the aim of clarifying and extending the discussion of Du

Boisian double consciousness since this thesis aims to focus more on

the sociological aspect of double consciousness—because we observe

sociological aspects more in the selected plays—than the psychological

outcomes of the colonial process. Furthermore, Du Bois’s terminology

seems more accurate and applicable for this study of Soyinka’s plays.

In this context, double consciousness is not just about how black

Americans see themselves through others’ eyes “while those others do

not have to share such a burden or such second sight,” but it is

experienced by the colonized in other parts of the world as well (Black

396). Hence, Fanon’s ideas reveal that

the positions of African Americans, and people of

color in general, are in at least one way similar to

the positions of colonized people. Americans do not

think [their] country practices colonialism, but the

common experience of double consciousness

among oppressed peoples illuminates the common

position of whiteness, and white people, as that of

oppressor both in the U.S. and abroad, now and in

the past. Also, the double consciousness link

strengthens the claim that African Americans are

colonized within their own country. (Black 393)

Although Du Bois had a lifelong involvement in Pan-Africanist

movements opposing colonialism in Africa, he did not directly associate

his observations of the double consciousness of African American

people with double consciousness in other parts of the world (Black

393-94). Fanon, on the other hand, “did not recognize” double

consciousness as a generalized situation (394). However, he has

explanations which are similar to Du Bois’s notion of double

consciousness: one such explanation is found in “On National Culture”

(in The Wretched of the Earth), where Fanon talks about having roots

in two different nationalities merged together—, such as an

intellectual’s speaking as a Senegalese—or an Algerian—and a

Frenchman:

The intellectual who is Arab and French, or

Nigerian and English, when he comes up against

the need to take on two nationalities, chooses, if he

wants to remain true to himself, the negation of one

of these determinations. But most often, since they

Gina Wisker defines it as “a uniting belief and movement which recognises and

emphasises the shared African heritage of peoples across the world, and by so

highlighting helps to encourage an embracing and enacting of African political,

cultural, religious and social beliefs and behaviours” (52). In other words, it is “a

movement seeking unity in Africa. It became a positive force with the London Pan-

African Conference of 1900” (E. Wright 485). Another important gathering happened

in Manchester, 1945, at the Pan-African Congress. 32 independent nations founded

the Organization of African Unity later in 1963, “by which time Pan-Africanism had

moved from being an ideal into practical politics” (E. Wright 485). Some important

names of the movement include Marcus Garvey, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah,

and “the father of Pan-Africanism”—W.E.B. Du Bois (E. Wright 485).

cannot or will not make a choice, such intellectuals

gather together all the historical determining

factors which have conditioned them and take up a

fundamentally ‘universal standpoint.’ (Fanon 176)

Likewise, in “The Fact of Blackness” (in Black Skin, White Masks)—

which, fifty years after Du Bois, provided a psychoanalytic approach to

the problem of having a dual consciousness—Fanon writes that

not only must the black man be black; he must be

black in relation to the white man. [. . .] The black

man has no ontological resistance in the eyes of the

white man. Overnight the N[----] has been given two

frames of reference within which he has had to

place himself. [. . .] The black man among his own

in the twentieth century does not know at what

moment his inferiority comes into being through

the other. (82-83)

Like Du Bois, Fanon expresses his own inner struggle of being between

two states of consciousness, and being stuck between not being white

enough and no longer adequately black:

Without a N[----] past, without a N[----] future, it

was impossible for me to live my N[----]hood. Not

yet white, no longer wholly black, I was damned.

Jean-Paul Sartre had forgotten that the N[----]

suffers in his body quite differently from the white

man. (Black Skin, White Masks 106)

Du Bois’s and Fanon’s works, thus, are both significant in terms of

understanding the concept of double consciousness.

Despite the disappearance of the phrase double consciousness from

Du Bois’s works after The Souls of Black Folk, there are some other

specific Du Boisian terms and ideas that come from his double

consciousness conceptualisation and that are useful and directly

relevant to the main subject of this study. These are the colour line,

the veil, and the second sight.

Seunghyun Song argues that race, which is scientifically explained as

“physical dispositions that are hereditarily passed on from one

generation to the next” has today lost its validity in defining one’s racial

identity, due to critical theory and race studies (49). However, it

“persists as a category of our perception [even today], as a social

currency that divides society into two groups: ‘us’ and ‘them’” (Song

49). In this context, a well-known sentence from Du Bois’s The Souls

of Black Folk is, “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem

of the color-line” (v, 9, 24). His delineation of the race concept—that

appears as the colour line—helps to capture the essence of (multi)racial

tension that continues to be relevant, unfortunately, even in the 21st

century. Hence, the colour line, or the colour bar as it was also called,

is still a useful concept as a signifier of those skin colour differences

that are perceived as identifiers of social difference, a direct reference

to one visual aspect of racial discrimination, despite being an old-

fashioned term no longer used in 21st century theoretical studies.

The colour line is defined by Du Bois as “the relation of the darker to

the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands

of the sea” (The Souls 9). Clearly, Du Bois describes it as a global

problem. Brent Hayes Edwards states that Du Bois used this phrase

for the first time during the first Pan-African Conference in London,

July 1900, where he gave a speech entitled “To the Nations of the

World” (xiv-xv):

In the metropolis of the modern world, in this

closing year of the nineteenth century there has

been assembled a congress of men and women of

African blood, to deliberate solemnly upon the

present situation and outlook of the darker races of

mankind. The problem of the twentieth century is

the problem of the colour line, the question as to

how far differences of race—which show

themselves chiefly in the color of the skin and the

texture of the hair

—are going to be made,

hereafter, the basis of denying to over half the world

the right of sharing to their utmost ability the

opportunities and privileges of modern civilisation.

(Du Bois, “To the Nations of the World” 639)

On the other hand, Du Bois also suggests a visionary and progressive

look towards the problem of the colour line. In his sentences below, he

draws attention to the ambivalent state of power relations between the

colonizer and the colonized, as being on the two sides of the colour line

and bound by it. In other words, white people are also restrained by

the colour line:

The white man, as well as the N[----], is bound and

barred by the color-line, and many a scheme of

friendliness and philanthropy, of broad-minded

sympathy and generous fellowship between the two

has dropped still-born because some busybody has

forced the color-question to the front and brought

the tremendous force of unwritten law against the

innovators. (Du Bois, The Souls 111)

In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon employs a term that is similar to

the (Du Boisian) colour line, although his focus is on the psychological

results of the imaginary line of racism. It is “epidermalization” (Fanon

4). According to Fanon, epidermalization depends on the

internalization processes of colonial oppression, resulting in inferiority

complex in black people, which is also called the epidermalization of

inferiority. In the following passage, Fanon draws attention to racial

discrimination based on epidermalization, and economic factors:

Du Bois’s mention of “the color of the skin and the texture of the hair” (“To the

Nations of the World” 639) as signifiers of racial differences will be employed later in

Chapter 5, in the analysis of The Invention.

The analysis that I am undertaking is

psychological. In spite of this it is apparent to me

that the effective disalienation of the black man

entails an immediate recognition of social and

economic realities. If there is an inferiority complex,

it is the outcome of a double process:

—primarily, economic;

—subsequently, the internalization—or, better, the

epidermalization—of this inferiority. (4)

Paul Gilroy brings a more up-to-date perspective to the problem of the

colour line in Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color

Line (2000). He notes that “[r]acial hierarchy is still with us,” and

humans are still being divided into different identity groups, despite all

the progressive steps and movements since World War II (1). Now,

however, in some parts of the world at least, the colour line has been

slightly altered, as Gilroy argues: Today, “patterns of conflict” are

“connected to the consolidation of culture lines rather than color lines”

(Gilroy 1). These lines are more widely concerned with “the operations

of power” that “have become entangled with those vain and mistaken

attempts to delineate and subdivide humankind” (1). In this respect,

Gilroy’s thoughts on the colour line—or culture lines—as a twenty-first

century problem sheds light on the approach taken in this thesis to

the concept of the colour line as it appears in Soyinka’s plays.

The veil is another metaphorical concept which Du Bois employs in not

only The Souls of Black Folk, but also his other works including Dark

Water: Voices from Within the Veil (1920). In The Souls of Black Folk,

Du Bois hypothesises that black people are “born with a veil, gifted

with second-sight in this American world,” which lets them see

themselves “through the revelation of the other world” (2). At another

paragraph, he describes the concept of the veil as follows:

Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness

that I was different from the others; or like,

mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out

from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no

desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I

held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived

above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering

shadows. (The Souls 2)

For Du Bois, the veil is what separates black and white people living in

the same country from each other. However, this separation does not

necessarily involve negation, it is not necessarily a curse, because

unlike American whites, American black people have an ability to see

the world both from within and outside the veil, due to their position

in terms of double consciousness. It also means that, unlike holders of

this gift, white people are never able to perceive, fully understand

and/or internalise the full extent of racial oppression affecting black

populations.

The second sight is also a Du Boisian key term that is relevant to

conceptualisation of double consciousness, and emerges from the

concept of the veil. Although Du Bois uses the phrase) in The Souls of

Black Folk, he expanded upon it later in Darkwater: Voices from Within

the Veil (1920). As mentioned earlier, Du Bois suggests that black

people are born with a gift of perspective, an ability to see the white

world both from outside and inside due to the ambiguous position of

the veil. He calls this the gift of “second-sight” (2), which is, evidently,

connected to his conceptualisation of living behind and beyond the veil

that he describes in The Souls of Black Folk. For Du Bois, this double-

sided, and gifted, perspective is not something white people are able to

possess since theirs remain within the borders of a single

consciousness in which they define themselves through their own

reflections. Therefore, this privileged double-sided perspective of black

people creates the possibility of destabilizing white dominancy, which

has caused tragic results for ages, affecting both black and white

peoples of the world.

As John McLeod underlines, “[t]exts rarely embody one point of view

[. . .]. Texts can bring into play several different ways of seeing without

always firmly deciding which is the true or most appropriate one” (61).

Hence, although double consciousness is the main issue of this study,

some terms used with specialised meanings in contemporary

postcolonial writings, such as agency, mimicry, ambivalence, and

cultural identity, open up new ways for reading themes and references

related to double consciousness in Soyinka’s plays. In addition to Du

Bois’s key concepts, these terms and concepts will be employed in this

thesis to clarify and extend the topic of the manifestations of double

consciousness.

Agency refers to “the ability to act or perform an action” (Ashcroft et

al., Post-Colonial Studies 8). Agency raises “the question of whether

individuals can freely and autonomously initiate action, or whether

things they do are in some sense determined by the ways in which their

identity has been constructed” (Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies 8).

In postcolonial theory, agency refers to “the ability of post-colonial

subjects to initiate action in engaging or resisting imperial power”

(Ashcroft et al. 8). In this respect, postcolonialism as a term refers to

“the concurrent project to reclaim and rethink the history and agency

of people subordinated under various forms of imperialism” (Ivison,

“Postcolonialism”).

The term ambivalence is used “to describe a continual fluctuation

between wanting one thing and wanting its opposite” (Ashcroft et al.,

Post-Colonial Studies 12). Bhabha has adapted the psychological use

of the term to postcolonial theory, making the term denote “the

complex mix of attraction and repulsion that characterizes the

relationship between colonizer and colonized” (Ashcroft et al., Post-

Colonial Studies 12). Bhabha explains in “The Other Question” in The

Location of Culture that colonial discourse functions as “an apparatus

of power” (reminding us of Althusser’s term “ideological state

apparatuses” (1970)) which “turns on the recognition and disavowal of

racial/cultural/historical differences” (100). Bhabha further argues

that

[t]he objective of colonial discourse is to construe

the colonized as a population of degenerate types

on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify

conquest and to establish systems of

administration and instruction. Despite the play of

power within colonial discourse and the shifting

positionalities of its subjects (for example, effects of

class, gender, ideology, different social formations,

varied systems of colonization and so on), I am

referring to a form of governmentality that in

marking out a ‘subject nation’, appropriates,

directs and dominates its various spheres of

activity. Therefore, despite the ‘play’ in the colonial

system which is crucial to its exercise of power,

colonial discourse produces the colonized as a

social reality which is at once an ‘other’ and yet

entirely knowable and visible. (“The Other

Question” 101)

However, as McLeod summarizes, “this important aim [of colonial

discourse] is never fully met” (63). It is because there is an ambivalent

relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, which is never

fixed or stable. In this unstable relationship, “the colonized subject is

never simply and completely opposed to the colonizer” (Ashcroft et al.,

Post-Colonial Studies 12). In this respect, as Ashcroft et al. emphasize,

[r]ather than assuming that some colonized

subjects are ‘complicit’ and some ‘resistant’,

ambivalence suggests that complicity and

resistance exist in a fluctuating relation within the

colonial subject. (Post-Colonial Studies 12-13)

Therefore, as McLeod explains, “within colonialist representations the

colonised subject is always in motion, sliding ambivalently between the

polarities of similarity and difference, rationality and fantasy” (64). In

other words, the colonized subject “will simply not stand still” (65).

Thus, although “stereotypes are an attempt to arrest this motion and

fix the colonised once and for all,” “the operation of such stereotypes

will always fail to override the ambivalence of colonial discourses” (65).

Another significant key term that needs to be explained is mimicry.

Mimicry is a term that is related to the ambivalent relationship between

the colonized and the colonizer. Bhabha gives a clear definition of

mimicry in his essay “Of Mimicry and Man”:

colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed,

recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that

is almost the same, but not quite. Which is to say,

that the discourse of mimicry is constructed

around an ambivalence: in order to be effective,

mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its

excess, its difference. The authority of that mode of

colonial discourse that I have called mimicry is

therefore stricken by an indeterminacy: mimicry

emerges as the representation of a difference that

is itself a process of disavowal. Mimicry is, thus the

sign of a double articulation; a complex strategy of

reform, regulation and discipline, which

‘appropriates’ the Other as it visualizes power.

Mimicry is also the sign of the inappropriate,

however, a difference or recalcitrance which

coheres the dominant strategic function of colonial

power, intensifies surveillance, and poses an

immanent threat to both ‘normalized’ knowledges

and disciplinary powers. (The Location of Culture

122-23)

Under the light of Bhabha’s definition, Ashcroft et al. explain that the

colonial discourse wishes to

produce compliant subjects who reproduce its

assumptions, habits and values—that is, ‘mimic’

the colonizer. But instead it produces ambivalent

subjects whose mimicry is never very far from

mockery. (Post-Colonial Studies 13)

In that respect, there is also an unstable, ambivalent connection

between “mimicry and mockery,” which has the capacity to unsettle

the colonial dominance (Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies 13).

Therefore, “it is not necessarily disempowering for the colonial subject;

but rather can be seen to be ambi-valent or ‘two-powered’” (13).

Colonial discourse has a need to remain ambivalent, as Ashcroft et al.

explain, because “it never really wants colonial subjects to be exact

replicas of the colonizers—this would be too threatening” (Ashcroft et

al., Post-Colonial Studies 13). In other words, ambivalence-caused

mimicry is a disturbance to “the clear-cut authority of colonial

domination because it disturbs the simple relationship between

colonizer and colonized” (13). Therefore, ambivalence—when

associated with mimicry—becomes “an unwelcome aspect of colonial

discourse for the colonizer” (13).

Another useful concept that is relevant to some themes and

characterisation in the following chapters is encapsulated in Stuart

Hall’s use of the term cultural identity, which depends on different

cultural positionalities of the self. In “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

(1990), Hall claims that identity is not fixed but transformational, and

dependent on different positionalities. He explains that “[p]ractices of

representation always implicate the positions from which we speak or

write” (222); therefore,

[i]dentity is not transparent or unproblematic as we

think. Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an

already accomplished fact, which the new cultural

practices then represent, we should think, instead,

of identity as a ‘production’, which is never

complete, always in process, and always

constituted within, not outside, representation.

This view problematises the very authority and

authenticity to which the term, ‘cultural identity’,

lays claim. (Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

222)

Hall goes on explaining that “[w]e all write and speak from a particular

place and time, from a history and culture which is specific. What we

say is always ‘in context’, positioned” (222). Hall, then, mentions his

own background in the black diaspora—and of Caribbeanness—in

England, which has affected his lifetime’s writing in cultural studies,

to explain one view of cultural identity. Emphasizing the ‘oneness’ of a

shared past in identity formation, Hall claims that

our cultural identities reflect the common historical

experiences and shared cultural codes which

provide us, as ‘one people’, with stable,

unchanging, and continuous frames of reference

and meaning, beneath the shifting divisions and

vicissitudes of our actual history. This ‘oneness’,

underlying all the other, more superficial

differences, is the truth, the essence, [. . .] of the

black experience. (“Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

223)

According to Hall, the perception of cultural identity in this way “played

a crucial role in all the post-colonial struggles which have so

profoundly reshaped our world” (223).

Apart from the idea of “oneness,” Hall suggests a second view of

cultural identity, which focuses on differences rather than similarities.

In this second view, Hall claims, cultural identity “is a matter of

‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’” (“Cultural Identity and Diaspora” 225).

In other words, it is “more unsettling” (226). It is because “[w]e cannot

speak for very long, with any exactness, about ‘one experience, one

identity’, without acknowledging its other side—the ruptures and

discontinuities” (225). In this respect, cultural identities belong “to the

future as much as to the past,” and “they undergo constant

transformation” (225). He also adds—in a way that is very well suited

to analysis of some issues in Soyinka’s plays—that

[i]t is only from this second position that we can

properly understand the traumatic character of

‘the colonial experience’. The ways in which black

people, black experiences, were positioned and

subject-ed in the dominant regimes of

representation were the effects of a critical exercise

of cultural power and normalisation. [. . .] They [the

West] had the power to make us see and experience

ourselves as ‘Other’. (Hall, “Cultural Identity and

Diaspora” 225)

Therefore, according to Hall, “[c]ultural identities are the points of

identification, the unstable points of identification or suture, which are

made, within the discourses of history and culture. Not an essence but

a positioning” (“Cultural Identity and Diaspora” 226).

There is one last concept which should be mentioned as related to all

the above key terms and to the analyses and discussions of Soyinka’s

plays. It is race as a floating signifier. Floating signifier is a term coined

by Claude Lévi-Strauss and defined as “the disability of all finite

thought (but also the surety of all art, all poetry, every mythic and

aesthetic invention)” (63). In Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory,

“floating signifier” is described as “a signifier without a specific signified

[. . .] [a]lso known as an ‘empty signifier’” (Buchanan 173). It “absorbs”

meanings that are imposed upon it (Buchanan 173). It is similar to

Jacques Derrida’s earlier term and concept of the free play of

meaning

, which forms the basis of Deconstruction. According to Hall,

race is a floating signifier because it depends on the free play of

meanings that are imposed upon it. Race, in this respect, cannot be

Introduced in “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”

(1966).

fixed. Instead, it depends on cultural positionings and contexts. In his

lecture “Race: The Floating Signifier” (1996), Hall refers to Du Bois’s

and Fanon’s ideas on race, and he argues that the concept of race

functions “like a language,” and “skin colour is a signifier” which gains

meaning within a culture, while “the meaning of skin colour changes

with the context” (“Race: The Floating Signifier”).

Du Bois’s 1903 conceptualisation of double consciousness resonates

and is reflected in 21st century scholarship and understandings, since

problems related to racial discrimination continue, despite all

contemporary, mind-developing theoretical and philosophical studies

and attempts to carry humanity a step closer to acceptance of

universal equality. The next section of this chapter focuses on the

reflections and receptions of Du Bois’s ideas on double consciousness

in today’s world.

2.2. Reflections of Du Bois and His Conceptualisation of Double

Consciousness in the 21st Century

Du Bois’s writings on black experiences in the early twentieth century

USA have been significant for fighting against unequal divisions and

injustice both in the American society of his time and in contemporary

societies elsewhere. As has already been mentioned in this chapter, Du

Bois’s notion of double consciousness has also opened the way for a

deeper understanding of the colonial situation (especially in Africa

)

and its social—and psychological—results. In this respect, Du Bois’s

ideas are innovational, and “Du Bois stands out as an icon of the

twentieth-century black freedom struggle, which resonates so deeply

Robert J. C. Young explains that “Du Bois gradually extended his domestic goals

to elaborate an international programme for Africa based on ideas of self‐

determination, racial, social and political equality, and democratic socialism”

(Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction 220).

across geographical and cultural boundaries” (Porter 6). After all, as

Scott noted in 2007, “today it is well nigh impossible to consult the

most popular African American or African diaspora magazines,

newspapers or journals without finding references to him” (35). His

writings

are mostly studied within the fields of Africana Critical

Theory, Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, and Diaspora Studies.

Du Bois has anticipated the enduring processes of racialised double

consciousness that have affected both the past and the present.

Although Du Bois’s analyses of sociological situations in the Black

American context are “bound by history,” and although he lived in “a

world that was materially, socially, and ideologically different from ours

[today],” he was “aware of the ways that elements of racial regimes

largely consigned to the past could make their way into new social

formations,” as we can also observe in the present day (Porter 15).

Gilroy’s concept of culture lines in the contemporary world (as an

expansion and updating of the Du Boisian concept of the colour line)

is evidence of Du Bois’s continuing presence in critical theory today.

Gilroy claimed

that Du Bois’s ideas on race and double

consciousness can be extended to the whole black diaspora (Buchanan

138), and John P. Pittman, drawing attention to the contemporary

presence of Du Bois’s conceptualisation of double consciousness,

notes that it is related to not only the black individual in a particular

situation, but to a whole black community, or communities (especially

the ones that were racially segregated or colonized in the past):

Any account of double consciousness rooted in the

sweep of Du Bois’s writings must acknowledge his

taking it as both a state of consciousness of

Porter also states that the texts of 1940s and 1950s are re-examined widely today

(11).

In The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Verso, 1993.

individual African-Americans as members of an

oppressed group and also as a form of social

recognition of an entire social situation in which

that group finds itself. (Pittman, “Double

Consciousness”)

Although Du Bois’s wording of the assumptions that form his discourse

are very often debatable or seem outdated in the current discourse of

postcolonial theory, the attitudes that his writings reveal remain at the

core of theoretical discussions related to issues of identity and self-

consciousness to this day. This is because although double

consciousness is the outcome of a mental conflict, it is at the same

time “adaptive as a survival technique” (T. Owens Moore 752). Since it

is adaptive, it can be explored in more recent and comprehensive ways

in studies in colonialism and postcolonialism.

In order to understand the situation of double consciousness in today’s

world—and as present-day readers of Du Bois’s writing who are aware

of contemporary theoretical issues—we should develop our own

methods for discussing issues of identity, culture, blackness, racial

discrimination, and so forth. In other words, as Porter also suggests,

we should have a “self-conscious reflection on method” so that we can

“bring those ideas to the present” (13). Thomas Holt, likewise, states

that “the concepts and tools we have developed for understanding the

racism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (The Problem of Race

4) cannot be “adequate for the twenty-first” (4); and, thus, academic

studies of today should focus on

new anomalies, new ambiguities, and a new

ambivalence in contemporary life that our standard

definitions of race and racism simply cannot

account for, and which even render them

somewhat anachronistic. (Holt, The Problem of Race

Such a renewal is necessary because, although “familiar hatreds

persist and even expand in the twenty-first century” (12), as Porter

explains,

globalization, neoliberalism, and new migration

and immigration patterns have complicated things

immensely, drawing out new forms of racial

anxieties and hostilities, and in some cases

changing race’s embodiment. (13)

There was no salient, apparent shift between the roles of the white and

the black, or between those of the colonizer and the colonized, in Du

Bois’s time, which means that a space for change was almost

unimaginable despite the efforts of critical thinkers like Du Bois

himself. Nevertheless, today, post-structuralist and postcolonial

studies have provided the means for a different perspective on the

issues regarding race and double consciousness.

In this respect, as Holt underlines, “race no longer follows a color line”

in the twenty-first century, unlike the early twentieth century, and

“[t]he racialized other may well be white and hail from the Caucasus”

(The Problem of Race 100). Therefore, when studying Du Bois’s writings

today, we should focus more on “the fluid and unstable nature” of

identity, “the numerous contradictions and multiple allegiances of

which the postcolonial writer and critic is constantly aware” (Barry

196).

To conclude this chapter; Du Bois’s transformational writings on black

identity and double consciousness have opened the way for more

theoretical and comprehensive discussions of colonial and postcolonial

issues. Du Bois’s philosophy of double consciousness, by way of

explanation, has evolved into a shift from the perception of a racialized,

undermined, and fragmented (black) identity into a better and deeper

understanding of the self in colonial and postcolonial contexts.

Therefore, regardless of the academic and/or journalistic discourse,

the issues that Du Bois exposed in the previous century still appear to

be just as relevant to the lived experience of peoples of especially

African origin, as evidenced by their resonance with the contemporary

theories of Gilroy, Gates Jr., Hall, and so forth.

Therefore, the concept of double consciousness can be used in the

expanded and adapted ways discussed above, to explore colonial and

postcolonial literature. In this spirit, this thesis seeks a deeper

understanding of both the concepts and how literature reflects

(post)colonial issues by analysing selected plays of Wole Soyinka,

associating the notion of double consciousness with relevant colonial

and postcolonial issues.

We can observe various manifestations of double consciousness in

Soyinka’s selected plays, the names of which have already been given

in the previous chapter, both from a Du Boisian perspective and from

contemporary interpretations and extensions of Du Bois’s ground-

breaking ideas. While this more up-to-date methodology developed in

this thesis provides us with the opportunity to read various texts

dealing with (post)colonial issues in terms of double consciousness, it

should also be noted that studying Soyinka’s works from this

perspective will bring a new insight to Soyinka studies as well. On the

grounds of the theoretical background discussed so far, the next

chapter focuses on Soyinka’s masterpiece, Death and the King’s

Horseman.

CHAPTER 3

PLURAL CULTURALITY AND DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS IN

WOLE SOYINKA’S DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN (1975)

When Soyinka began writing in the 1950s, parts of Africa, including

Nigeria, were still under the rule of various European countries, which

invested African writers with a certain responsibility as representative

cultural voices potentially revealing or exploring African and European

political issues as well as the difficulties of transitions from colonialism

to national independence. Literature was regarded as a powerful tool

by African writers to show European perceptions of Africa and

blackness, and to provoke collective cultural consciousness without

suppressing the self. Equipped with the knowledge of both European

and African literary traditions and aware of the ideological dynamics

between the West and the rest, Soyinka became a leading literary figure

of Africa at such a time

. During African independence movements of

his time, Soyinka’s “pronouncements on culture and politics became

the moral barometers by which the claims and limits of postcolonial

political order were judged” (Gikandi vii). For this reason, it is possible

to say that Soyinka shows “a remarkable mastery of Western and

African cultures” (Gikandi viii), but Soyinka’s fictional and non-

fictional writings expose his efforts as a writer to challenge established

notions of identity, culture, and nationalism. An example of this is

Death and the King’s Horseman. The play is especially regarded as a

Although Soyinka supported independence movements of his time in Africa and

especially Nigeria, he has always distanced himself from idealising national identity,

unlike thinkers of the Négritude movement such as Léopold Senghor and Aimé

Césaire (Gikandi ix).

“masterpiece”

(George xvi; Banham and Plastow xxvii; Lombardo 98;

Irele, The African Imagination 236) reflecting Soyinka’s main

considerations as a writer: his “broad cultural perspective, the poetic

overtones of his work, and his concern with the drama of existence”

(Gikandi vii).

Soyinka’s cultural perspective is based on plural culturality principle,

which he expresses in one of his speeches:

And here within in those same cultures we have

voices raised against an unacceptable ‘cultural

practice.’ See, those who talk about culture are

sometimes very selective. These are the ones in fact

who are against the cultural plurality principle, the

manifestation of culture in all its forms, because

they deny other people their own interpretation of

their own cultural basis of existence. (“The

Universality of Human Rights and Cultural Rights”,

Artists at Risk Connection)

This chapter argues, in this context, that Death and the King’s

Horseman presents different manifestations of double consciousness

characters go through—including both the colonized and the

colonizer—on account of plural culturality. The characters’ experiences

of double consciousness are shaped by their cultural positionalities,

with respect to issues of race, class, and gender.

In Christine Podollan’s words, the play has “elements of a Greek tragedy,” but the

playwright “has adeptly created a unique work of drama. Written in five acts, and

performed without interruption, the play contains dialogue interspersed with choral

songs (in free verse, to be accompanied by drums). The chorus reiterates what has

been said previously, offers historical background, and provides foreshadowing. This

hybrid drama—Greek choral tragedy, Yoruba efe and idan sketches, English

drawing-room comedy and Vaudevillian slapstick—is a singular contribution to

twentieth century theatre” (“Death and the King’s Horseman”). In Craig McLuckie’s

words, the play, “in its free use of ife and idan (Yoruba dramatic styles), its

borrowings from Elizabethan theatre, and its careful depiction of the individual’s

responses to and apparent rejection of social mores, demonstrates the author’s

theatrical mastery. This play is the fullest demonstration of Soyinka’s aesthetic,

particularly in its seamless fusion of the populist and metaphysic elements” (“Wole

Soyinka”).

In Death and the King’s Horseman, Soyinka recounts the story of a

tragic event that happened in Nigeria in 1945, upon the death of Alafin,

the king

(Banham and Plastow xxv). When the king died, his

horseman

, Olokun Esin Jinadu, was expected

to commit ritual

suicide to accompany the king in his post-humous journey, according

to Yoruba beliefs. However, suicide was illegal under the colonial rule,

and the British Colonial District Officer of that time

prevented

Olokun’s ritual death. When Olokun’s last born son, Murana, heard

about his father’s failure, he took his own life to fulfil the community’s

expectations. Soyinka decided to write Death and the King’s Horseman

after hearing about this tragic incident in 1960 (Plastow xxvii; Gates

Jr., “Semantics of Death” 68). According to Gates, Soyinka “adapted

the historical event rather liberally in order to emphasize the

metaphorical and mythical dimensions, outside of time” (68). In

Soyinka’s play, Olokun is represented by Elesin Oba, and Murana is

represented by Elesin’s son, Olunde.

The political leader/king of the people of the Oyo Yoruba State was named “Alafin”

or “Alaafin” in Yoruba language. Oyo Kingdom was founded in the 1300s and it

collapsed in 1837 (Franz).

According to J. C. Cooper, horse is an “ambivalent” animal, and the horse is “both

a life and a death symbol” (85). Among other characteristics, it also symbolizes “the

swift passage of life. [. . .] At a later date the horse replaced the bull as a sacrificial

animal” (85). The horse also “typifies fertility and power of the ruler” (85).

According to oral historians, “originally, the olokun esin (Master of the Horse) did

not have to die along with his king for any reason at all, political or metaphysical.

The first olokun esin to die did so willingly. The reason [. . .] was that that particular

olokun esin and the king were uncommonly close friends. Such was the friendship

that the olokun esin enjoyed all the rights and privileges that the king himself had,

plus all the good things of life available in the empire. When the king died, this

particular olokun esin thought that the only way to demonstrate his love and loyalty

to his friend, the dead king, was to die, too. Thus was established the political custom

in which a man had all the social rights, privileges, and power of a king without the

necessary political and moral restraints of that state” (Ogundele 49).

The British Colonial District Officer was Captain J. A. MacKenzie, and the Alafin’s

name was Oba Siyenbola Oladigbolu, as stated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (“Being,

the Will, and the Semantics of Death” 68).

The play opens with a marketplace scene where Elesin Oba is

preparing

for his honorary suicide, surrounded by market women

and a Praise-Singer, thirty days after Alafin’s death. As the “second-in-

command” (Larsen 99) according to “the demands of tradition” (Larsen

99), Elesin is expected to accompany the dead king to “the world of

shadows” (Larsen 99) through the “transitional gulf”

(Plastow xi),

which is “the passage between the world of the living and that of the

ancestors” (Plastow xi). In other words, Elesin is expected to be “a

messenger between the living and the dead” (Larsen 99). Elesin’s death

is hoped to ensure the perpetual balance between the two worlds

according to Yoruba beliefs. Although Elesin expresses his readiness

for his brave death, he is distracted by a beautiful girl among the

market women and asks for spending a final night with her. Although

the girl has already been promised to Iyaloja’s son—the son of the chief

market woman—, Elesin should not be denied his will since he is

preparing for a devoted and communal death according to Yoruba

customs.

Scene Two opens with a tango by Simon Pilkings, the British Colonial

District Officer, and his wife, Jane, both in Egungun

costumes while

Elesin Oba is in the marketplace “to change his old clothes for new and splendid

ones” (Larsen 99).

In an introductory note to the play, Soyinka explains that “[t]he confrontation in

the play is largely metaphysical, contained in the human vehicle which is Elesin and

the universe of the Yoruba mind—the world of the living, the dead and the unborn,

and the numinous passage which links all: transition. Death and the King’s

Horseman can be fully realised only through an evocation of music from the abyss of

transition” (253; qtd. in Larsen 100).

The usual way of expression and communication in indigenous cultures is mostly

through public performances held throughout the year. The performances include

“sagas” performed by storytellers and musicians, “dance theatre” and “puppetry”

(Brockett and Hildy 470-71). Egungun or Egungen ritual dates back to the thirteenth

century of Nigeria, which “refers to ancestors and establishes a spiritual link between

the living and the dead, the present and the past” (Brockett and Hildy 471). Martin

Banham et al. comment that “the most important masquerades are those through

which spirits enter the human world” (The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean

Theatre 4). With mask, a masked performer becomes “the embodied spirit”; therefore,

practising for a fancy-dress ball that is going to happen that night.

Reading the report given by Amusa, Simon realizes that a suicide is

going to be performed by the king’s horseman. Since suicide is illegal

and barbaric for Simon, and since he does not want to miss the ball as

His Royal Highness is expected to attend—“one of those rare social

occasions on the margins of the Empire, a ball graced by the Prince of

Wales” (Msiska, Postcolonial Identity 60)—, Simon sends Amusa to

arrest Elesin and solve the problem. In Scene Three, Amusa is mocked

and criticised by the market women for his attempt to arrest an

important person like Elesin.

Scene Four opens at the British Residency, during the fancy-ball, with

a band poorly playing “Rule, Britannia” (stage direction, Death 49). The

Pilkingses’ Egungun dance is appreciated by the other guests,

including His Majesty. Jane is surprised to see Olunde there, who has

recently come back from Britain, where he studies medicine with the

Pilkingses’ sponsorship, against his father’s wishes. Olunde is, in fact,

back for his final duty as the eldest son and second-in-line upon the

king’s death according to his native customs. Meanwhile, Simon

manages to get Elesin arrested to prevent the expected suicide.

Scene Five opens with Elesin chained in an old slave cell, accompanied

by the girl, his recent wife. Although the Pilkingses are not able to

understand the importance of Elesin’s failure for the harmony of the

Yoruba universe, Yoruba people are devastated by Elesin’s lack of

success. Meanwhile, the market women carry a burden for Elesin up

to the residential hill. When the burden is uncovered, Olunde’s dead

body appears. Olunde has committed suicide after his father’s failure,

to save the family honour and to preserve the balance of the universe

according to Yoruba beliefs. As Stephan Larsen explains, Olunde’s

“this supernatural and secret ability makes the mask, the masker and the

masquerade sacred and powerful” (Banham et al., Cambridge Guide 4).

body has been carried to Elesin Oba’s cell “so that he may utter the

sacred words of the ancient ritual over the person who has sacrificed

himself” (99). Seeing his son’s dead body, Elesin strangles himself in

chains. While the father and his son die tragically at the end of the

play, Elesin’s young wife is believed to be pregnant

. Despite the

pessimistic atmosphere of two deaths, “the play ends on the affirmative

note of regeneration” in Joel Adedeji’s words (111).

Although Soyinka expresses his rejection of the idea that the play is

based on a cultural clash between Western and African civilisations or

a conflict between modernism and tradition, and although he

considers “the Colonial Factor” in the play as simply “a catalytic

incident” (Soyinka, “Author’s Note” to Death 3), the colonial and

postcolonial involvement of the characters cannot be disregarded. In

the play, characters’ lives and psychologies are deeply affected by

colonialism. According to The Chicago Tribune, “through poetry,

chorus, politics, and storytelling, Soyinka both entertains and asks

subtle questions about mass psychology, individual psychology, and

universal human struggles of the will,” as seen in the play (qtd. in 1987

publication of the play published by Hill and Wang, cover page).

Therefore, we as the readers of the play witness the psychological

struggles of both the colonizer and the colonized who try to exist under

colonial living conditions.

Soyinka’s characters in the play are not free from postcolonial

questions even though he primarily aims at drawing attention to the

universal theme of the importance of having a sense of one’s duty, and

Soyinka’s play was published in 1975 although a Yoruba language playwright,

Duro Ladipo, wrote about this tragic incident in his Oba Waja (“The King is Dead” in

English) in 1964 (Banham and Plastow xxvi; Kerr 121). Soyinka has changed some

factual details for dramatic purposes in the play: “the deliberate emphasis of the

setting in the context of the Second World War, the presence of the Prince of Wales,

the Fancy Dress Ball at the Residency, and the placing of the Elesin’s son, Olunde,

as a medical student in Britain are all Soyinka’s invention” (Banham and Plastow

xxvi).

thus, Death and the King’s Horseman shows us different

manifestations of double consciousness characters go through in a

colonial space. How the characters experience double consciousness

depends on how they are positioned in terms of race, culture, class,

and gender, all of which are affected by the colonial rule.

Characters in Death and the King’s Horseman display different

positionalities, and they have been divided into three main groups in

this chapter. The first subsection of this chapter deals with Elesin Oba,

Iyaloja and the market women, who represent signifiers of racial

difference between the colonizer and the colonized. These characters

use almost the same expressions in their dialogues with the colonizer.

We witness their resistance towards the colonizer by frequently

reminding us of skin colour differences, which also coincides with Du

Bois’s term the colour line in his conceptualisation of double

consciousness. Their actions show us the positioning of the colour line

rather than the double discourse. On the other hand, these characters

have built their cultural identity by positioning themselves in terms of

racial differences—which is also relevant to Stuart Hall’s ideas on

cultural identity and race—, and the characters seem to show no

psychological change in the course of the play. In other words, they all

show in their actions that they strictly belong to Yoruba culture as the

owners of the land. It is also important to note that besides their racial

positioning, the market women’s gender-based resistance against

colonial power—especially their ridiculing treatment of Amusa as a

mimic representation of the colonizer—show us another aspect of the

relation between positionality and double consciousness.

The second subsection of the chapter focuses on the ambivalence of

the colonized, covering the characters of Amusa and Joseph, as well as

the ambivalence of the colonizer, covering the characters of Simon and

Jane. Although I have formulated my thoughts on the ambivalence of

the colonized and the ambivalence of the colonizer separately, I have

collected these four characters under the same subsection as they are

inseparable in their relationships. Amusa and Joseph are natively

Yoruba, but Amusa has converted to Islam and Joseph to Christianity,

and both work under Simon Pilkings’s command. These two are

characters stuck between cultural codes of two different civilisations—

or even more due to their conversion—, and their psychological state

exposes the ambivalent relation between the colonizer and the

colonized. Although their cultural in-betweenness gives them the

power of knowing what the colonizer does not know, the dualistic state

drags them into difficult situations in their encounters with colonized

Yoruba characters. So, they are the characters who are not accepted

by the either side. On the other hand, the theme of the ambivalence of

the colonizer involves Simon and Jane. Although they belong to the

more powerful side of the colonial dichotomy, they also ironically

experience double consciousness. Their relationships with native

people—Amusa, Joseph, Elesin, and Olunde—reveal their dualistic

state, although Jane and Simon are, to some extent, different in their

understanding of local customs and people. Jane is a more empathetic

character towards colonized people, and she continuously attempts to

advise Simon to do the right thing in his relationships with native

characters.

The third and last subsection of this chapter concentrates on Olunde,

who is the most complex character of the play. We see the refinement

of double consciousness in both colonial and postcolonial ways in the

character of Olunde. Olunde’s positionality is relevant to Du Bois’s,

Hall’s and Bhabha’s terms altogether. As a natively Yoruba but hybrid

character who has got his medical education in England, he is able to

see both sides of “the veil” in Du Bois’s terms. By recognizing the

colonizer’s culture, he has gained—again in Du Boisian terms—“the

gift of the second-sight” (The Souls 2) that comes with the dualistic

state of consciousness. On the other hand, he is a character who holds

on to his native cultural codifications despite his Westernized

education, which coincides with Hall’s ideas on cultural identity.

However, his cultural positioning as a Yoruba brings his tragic

sacrificial death at the end of the play for the sake of the Yoruba

community’s expectations. Hence, the third subsection examines

Olunde with regard to Du Bois, Hall and Bhabha.

3.1. Signifiers of Racial Difference: Elesin Oba, Iyaloja, and the

Market Women

Jonathan Scott Holloway states in his introduction to Du Bois’s The

Souls of Black Folk that Du Bois’s ideas on racial issues are still

relevant today because the world still struggles with problems of racial

discrimination:

Even while we must place Du Bois’s ideas in their

proper historical context, we will find many as

relevant today as at the time of their first

publication. His insights into the nation’s psyche

tell us as much about our present as they do

about the past. His deft interpretation of how

social fundamentals—education, labor, violence—

‘colored’ his world needs little updating. (xxix)

As Du Bois suggested in his writings, the problem of the twentieth

century—in which Soyinka also wrote Death and the King’s

Horseman—has been the problem of “the color-line” (The Souls 9, 24,

111). From this perspective, it would not be too anachronistic to

inquire into racial issues in Soyinka’s plays.

This subsection focuses on Elesin Oba, Iyaloja, and the market women

in Death and the King’s Horseman, whose words and actions draw us

to Du Bois’s conceptualisation of the colour-line as well as Hall’s

problematisation of the issue of race. Elesin, Iyaloja, and the market

women challenge the ideologies of white supremacy by using their

position of being black as opposed to the white. We also understand

from their actions that they claim Yoruba values as cultural identifiers

to fight back to the colonial oppression. In this respect, their

positionality in terms of ethno-racial questions in the play recalls Hall’s

idea that race is a “floating signifier” because it is never fixed, and it

depends on cultural positioning and context. By referring to Du Bois

and Fanon in his 1996 lecture, Hall argues that “race works like a

language,” and “skin colour is a signifier which has meaning in a

culture,” and “the meaning of skin colour changes with the context”

(Race: The Floating Signifier).

Within this frame of reference, Elesin Oba, Iyaloja and other market

women in Soyinka’s play use markers of race such as skin colour,

accentual and dressing-style differences to claim their agency. These

are signifiers that have gained meaning in a particular time and space.

They claim to be the real owners of the land, and they do it by criticising

and despising the colonizer or anyone assimilated under colonial

dominancy. Elesin and Iyaloja use almost the same expressions in

their encounters with the colonizer, in which they frequently

emphasize the difference of the skin colour. The confrontation of the

market women with the colonial power is slightly different than that of

Elesin and Iyaloja. Market women reject the power of the colonizer

through mockery, especially by pointing to the differences in clothing

style as well as accentual differences.

Elesin is a character who wishes “nothing to do with the white man’s

colonial world”; however, he turns out to be the one who is affected by

the colonial oppression the most (Plastow xxix). His title as the king’s

horseman has given him a life of power and prestige, which ends in a

tragic way, with the deaths of both himself and his son

. This is partly

because of his own tragic flaw—of his not being able to leave worldly

pleasures—, and partly because of the colonial intervention

Elesin is strictly Yoruba, and he takes his communal responsibilities

very seriously although he fails to accomplish his duty towards the end

of the play. His resistance against the colonizer is so strong and stable

that he has even rejected his own son, Olunde, after Olunde’s decision

to get medical education in England with the help of the Pilkingses.

Moreover, Elesin draws a harsh, visible line between himself and the

colonizer, especially Simon, by highlighting the difference of their skin

colour, which is what Du Bois calls the colour line. He often draws

attention to Simon’s white skin colour by name-calling him. Simon is

not only a white body for Elesin, but he is also a ghost-like figure that

is disturbing:

ELESIN. White man, take your hand from my body!

[. . .] Give me back the name you have taken away

from me you ghost from the land of the nameless!

[. . .] Take your albino’s hand from me you. (Death

65-66)

Elesin similarly likens Simon’s skin colour to the moon: “Yes, ghostly

one. Your twin-brother up there engages my thoughts” (Death 67).

However, how Elesin and Simon perceive their environment changes

considerably according to their cultural background, which draws us

to Hall’s ideas on cultural positioning. As an example, Simon and

Elesin perceive the silence of the night in two different ways in one of

Obi Maduakor argues that in the play, “Soyinka subordinates relevant elements

from history to his goal of effecting a resolution of emotional crisis in the audience”

(272). Maduakor also notes that the District Officer prevented the horseman from

committing suicide in the original story, but “such an ending would not suit

Soyinka’s artistic purpose” (272).

For Plastow, Elesin’s tragedy is a criticism of the corrupt politicians Soyinka has

written about so often” (xxix).

their conversations. For Simon, the night’s quietness is beautiful and

peaceful with “the light on the leaves” while “[t]he night is not at peace”

for Elesin as a Yoruba because Simon has “shattered the peace of the

world for ever” and “[t]here is no sleep in the world tonight” (Death 67).

Simon is proud to have saved a life while Elesin believes Simon has

destroyed his life by preventing his ritual death. For Elesin, the district

officer’s interruption has brought disaster to not only his life but all

Yoruba people’s lives while Simon expresses that they see their

responsibilities in two distinct ways:

ELESIN. And not merely my life but the lives of

many. The end of the night's work is not over.

Neither this year nor the next will see it. If I wished

you well, I would pray that you do not stay long

enough on our land to see the disaster you have

brought upon us [. . .]. You did not fail in the main,

ghostly one. We know the roof covers the rafters,

the cloth covers blemishes; who would have known

that the white skin covered our future, preventing

us from seeing the death our enemies had prepared

for us. The world is set adrift and its inhabitants

are lost. Around them, there is nothing but

emptiness. (Death 68-69)

Similarly, while Elesin sees his encounter with his son as “the reunion

of shame [. . .] when the world reversed itself and the father fell before

his son, asking forgiveness” (Death 69), Simon interprets the situation

as “the heat of the moment” and believes that “[Olunde] wishes he

could cut out his tongue for uttering the words he did” (69), which is,

certainly, not true for Olunde, who is not disengaged from his Yoruba

roots.

As for Iyaloja—the mother of the market for Yoruba people—, her

attitude towards the colonizer is not different from Elesin’s attitude.

She is deeply disappointed with Elesin’s failure in his communal duty;

however, she often uses phrases that are similar to those uttered by

Elesin, emphasizing differences of the skin colour with phrases like

“white one” (Death 78, 79, 80). Also, Iyaloja addresses Simon as “child”

in their dialogues, although Simon is regarded as her superior in the

colonial order. Her attitude shows us that she sees Simon as someone

who still has to learn about the Yoruba culture.

In a dialogue between Simon and Iyaloja, the difference between their

look towards the issue of death is apparent. Seeing Iyaloja’s resistance

against the colonial authority, Simon warns Iyaloja against causing

problems by going against his orders: “I hope you understand that if

anything goes wrong it will be on your head. My men have order to

shoot at the first sign of trouble” (Death 80). For Iyaloja, Simon’s threat

is pointless, however; Iyaloja explains that they have their own king,

and she associates Simon’s attitude with his whiteness:

IYALOJA. To prevent one death you will actually

make other deaths? Ah, great is the wisdom of the

white race. But have no fear. Your Prince will sleep

peacefully. So at long last will ours. We will disturb

you no further, servant of the white King. Just let

Elesin fulfil his oath and we will retire home and

pay homage to our King. (80)

The market women—who function as a chorus, although they are

integrated within the action of the play—have also been examined in

this subsection because their long conversation with Sergeant Amusa

in Scene Three shows us their ways of claiming their agency and

standing against the colonial oppression. The stage direction at the

beginning of Scene Three tells us that Amusa and his two constables

use their batons “as a pressure against the Women” (Death 36).

However, the women show resistance. The stage direction makes clear

that “the Women take a determined stand and block all further progress

of the men. They begin to tease them mercilessly” (36). They make fun

of Amusa’s clothing style that mimics the colonizer as well as his being

a servant of the colonial order: “Haven’t you learnt that yet, you jester

in khaki and starch?” (39). For the women, Amusa is a clownish figure,

and they mock Amusa’s broken English, too, in which—again—Amusa

mimics the colonizer:

GIRLS. (in turn. In an ‘English’ accent): Well well it’s

Mister Amusa. Were you invited? (Play-acting to one

another. The older women encourage them with their

titters.)

– Your invitation card please?

– Who are you? Have we been introduced?

– And who did you say you were?

– Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name.

– May I take your hat?

– If you insist. May I take yours? (Exchanging the

policeman's hats.) [. . .]

All right then. Off with his knickers! [. . .]

IYALOJA. My children, I beg of you . . .

GIRL. Then tell him to leave this market. This is the

home of our mothers. We don’t want the eater of

white left-overs at the feast their hands have

prepared. (40-42)

The women further call Amusa the “white man’s eunuch” (36),

insulting his manhood. They imply that he is impotent by drawing

attention to the slave/servant relation between the colonizer and the

colonized. At another instance, they even insult Amusa by referring to

his sexual relationship with his own wives: “Perhaps his wives are still

waiting for him to learn” (39).

The market women constantly show resistance towards the colonial

authority through the character of Amusa. They make a comparison

between the preparations for Elesin’s ritual death and Amusa’s official

business of preventing Elesin’s death according to the colonial rule:

“Official business is taking place where you want to go and it is a

business you wouldn’t understand” (36). They prioritize their own

cultural position and this is another example of how cultural values

shape the actions of the characters in the play. Although Amusa tries

to do his job as a decent officer, his imitational propensities disturb

the market women. They react with their own Yoruba interpretation of

the situation they are in, by teasing Amusa’s working for the colonizer,

his words and actions, and by owning their Yoruba look towards the

situation. For the market women, this is their own land, and they are

the ones who have the right to speak, but it has been invaded by the

colonizer. They believe that Amusa has lost his touch with Yoruba

cultural values, unlike themselves:

WOMAN. Oh there was something. You know that

handbell which the white man uses to summon his

servants. . . ?

AMUSA. (he manages to preserve some dignity

throughout) I hope you women know that

interfering with officer in execution of his duty is

criminal offence.

WOMAN. Interfere? He says we’re interfering with

him. You foolish man we’re telling you there's

nothing there to interfere with.

AMUSA. I am order you now to clear the road.

WOMAN. What road? The one your father built?

WOMAN. You are a policeman not so? Then you

know what they call trespassing in court. Or—

(Pointing to the cloth-lined steps.)—do you think

that kind of road is built for every kind of feet.

WOMAN. Go back and tell the white man who sent

you to come himself. (37)

The market women also emphasize in their dialogues with Amusa that

the colonizer and the colonized are equally humans that share the

same world, and that suppressing the other is pointless. They show

their dignity as members of the Yoruba community by their rejection

of the colonial authority throughout their conversation with Amusa:

WOMAN. Is it not the same ocean that washes this

land and the white man’s land? Tell your white man

he can hide our son away as long as he likes. When

the time comes for him, the same ocean will bring

him back.

AMUSA. The government say dat kin’ ting must

stop.

WOMAN. Who will stop it? You? Tonight our

husband and father will prove himself greater than

the laws of strangers. (38)

To sum up, there is a parallelism among the conversations between

Elesin and Simon, Simon and Iyaloja, and Amusa and the market

women. All the dialogues show us the importance of cultural

positionality in manifestations of post/colonial double consciousness.

3.2. The Ambivalent Relation Between the Colonizer and the

Colonized: Amusa and Joseph versus Simon and Jane

Although Amusa and Joseph are minor characters in Death and the

King’s Horseman, they are important to show us the ambivalent nature

of the relation between the colonizer and the colonized. Amusa works

in the colonial police under Simon’s order while Joseph is the

Pilkingses’ houseboy. Joseph has formerly converted to Christianity

while Amusa has chosen to be a Muslim.

Amusa and Joseph are two characters of the play who are more

complex than they seem at first sight. They are represented as clownish

figures with their mimicking behaviours and their inability to explain

themselves in English. Although they expect acceptance by other

people, they are not respected as dignified human beings by the

colonizer or the colonized. As Olakunle George argues, they

come across as inarticulate, obsequious fools who

provide comic relief, and their structural purpose

lies in being the dramatist’s vehicle for pointing up

certain natives’ self-submission to the colonial

machine. At one level, one can say that they

embody the consequences of such a submission,

namely, docility and intellectual confusion. In

being so unimpressive, they are set up as a mirror

against which the lyricism of, say, Iyaloja [. . .] or

Elesin, acquires full visibility. It would however be

reductive to understand both characters in this

way. (155-56)

George further states that these two characters draw attention to the

“complexities underneath the cultural or metaphysical conflict that

bestride the surface of the play” (156). Due to their conversions and

their work serving the colonizer, their Yoruba identity is rejected by

other Yoruba characters, especially the market women, as explained

in the previous subsection. Nevertheless, they have not gained

recognition by the colonizer either, which is obvious in their dialogues

with Simon. Therefore, Amusa and Joseph “belong to both camps and

to none” (George 156).

Although Amusa has converted to Islam—which does not bring him

any closer to the colonizer—and serves as a colonial police officer for

the British, he still has strong cultural and emotional ties with his

native Yoruba culture. This is exposed in Scene Two, when Amusa sees

Simon and Jane dancing a tango as they are dressed in the Egungun

costume. The stage direction tells us that seeing the couple, Amusa

“stiffens suddenly, his expression changes to one of disbelief and

horror” (Death 24). Egungun is the ancestral masquerade of Yoruba

people, and it is one of the most important public performances held

annually during religious festivals in Nigeria for the remembrance of

“deceased members of a lineage” (Mitchell 107). Likewise, as Ulli Beier

explains,

The Egungun society is also a very serious affair. Its

main function is to deal with the worship and

appeasement of the dead. The great masks are

impersonations of ancestors. They are sacrosanct

and to touch them could mean death. (244)

In this context, wearing the Egungun as if it were a fancy-dress shows

disregarding for its cultural and religious importance. It is still

dangerously blasphemous for Amusa, despite his religious conversion.

For Simon and Jane, however, it is merely an exotic costume to be

worn in the upcoming ball. Jane thinks that their costume has

“shocked [Amusa’s] big pagan heart” while Simon believes Amusa, as

a Muslim, should not believe in such foolish, Yoruban ideas (Death 25):

PILKINGS. Nonsense, he’s a Moslem. Come on

Amusa, you don’t believe in all this nonsense do

you? I thought you were a good Moslem.

AMUSA. Mista Pirinkin, I beg you sir, what you

think you do with that dress? It belong to dead cult,

not for human being.

PILKINGS. Oh Amusa, what a let-down you are. I

swear by you at the club you know—thank God for

Amusa, he doesn’t believe in any mumbo-jumbo.

And now look at you!

AMUSA. Mista Pirinkin, I beg you, take it off. Is not

good for man like you to touch that cloth. (25)

Amusa does not want to talk to Simon while he is in the Egungun

costume, but Simon otherizes both Islamic and Yoruba cultures—and

especially the latter—in their dialogue. He threatens Amusa with facing

colonial disciplinary action if he goes on with his stubborn behaviour:

AMUSA. Sir, I cannot talk this matter to you in that

dress. I no fit.

PILKINGS. What’s that rubbish again?

JANE. He is dead earnest too Simon. I think you’ll

have to handle this delicately.

PILKINGS. Delicately my…! Look here Amusa, I

think this little joke has gone far enough hm? Let’s

have some sense. You seem to forget that you are a

police officer in the service of His Majesty’s

Government. I order you to report your business at

once or face disciplinary action.

AMUSA. Sir, it is a matter of death. How can man

talk against death to person in uniform of death?

Is like talking against government to person in

uniform of police. Please sir, I go and come back.

(25-26)

Jane is more empathetic towards the Yoruba people. She tries to

understand Amusa’s behaviour and asks why Amusa is so afraid of the

costume. Amusa makes it clear that he still has respect for the Yoruba

Egungun: “That egungun itself, I no touch. And I no abuse 'am. I arrest

ringleader but I treat egungun with respect” (26). Simon calls Amusa’s

insistent behaviour “hopeless,” like “hammering against a brick wall”

(26), and he finally gives up the conversation: “Come on Jane. We only

upset his delicate sensibilities by remaining here” (26).

This Egungun scene involving the colonizer and the colonized becomes

more of an issue due to the fact that it shows us how cultural positions

shape one’s perception of certain events and environment. Simon does

not have a clue of the religious importance of the Egungun, but he does

not seem to want to learn, either. Unlike Simon, Amusa still has

respect for Yoruba gods, which makes him a culturally more complex

character than Simon. As George puts forward,

what Amusa reveals here is that his conceptual

universe remains, at the least, deeply tied to

traditional Yoruba culture even though the secular

demand of his job requires him not only to

repudiate that culture, but also to subject it to the

discipline of colonial modernity. (158)

Indeed, Amusa experiences triple consciousness as being culturally

Yoruba, religiously Muslim and officially a secular colonial police

officer. Amusa's Islamic religion should render him immune to the

implications of the Egungun costume, and yet religiously, too, he shows

ambivalence in this scene. Hence, his ambivalence is not merely that

of the colonized subject but also that of a convert to another religion.

Amusa’s native cultural values prevent him from becoming the same

as the colonizer despite colonial oppression, which causes ambivalence

for Simon, too.

The Egungun scene gets more complicated in terms of the ambivalent

relation between the colonizer and the colonized when Joseph comes

forward to the scene, and drums are heard from afar. Simon first asks

Joseph whether seeing him in the Egungun masquerade affects him

badly as it does Amusa. When Joseph says it does not have any power

over him, Simon is relieved that Joseph is a good Christian with “some

sanity at last” (Death 28). However, Simon’s apparent regard for Joseph

is superficial, for it disappears when Simon and Jane try to understand

whether the drums have a specific purpose, and Joseph cannot, or will

not, answer them:

PILKINGS. Let’s ask our native guide. Joseph! Just

a minute Joseph. (Joseph re-enters.) What's the

drumming about?

JOSEPH. I don’t know master.

PILKINGS. What do you mean you don’t know? It’s

only two years since your conversion. Don’t tell me

all that holy water nonsense also wiped out your

tribal memory.

JOSEPH. (visibly shocked): Master! (32)

Joseph is offended by Simon’s criticism of Christianity, which is

noticed by Jane, who sees things slightly differently than Simon does:

JANE. It isn’t my preaching you have to worry

about, it's the preaching of the missionaries who

preceded you here. When they make converts they

really convert them. Calling holy water nonsense to

our Joseph is really like insulting the Virgin Mary

before a Roman Catholic. He’s going to hand in his

notice tomorrow you mark my word. (32)

Simon finds Jane’s words “ridiculous” (32) because for him all religion

is superstition. But he is also inwardly scared that his faux pas will

cause problems. Colonialism relies on ambivalence while it is also

threatened by the power it gives to the colonized. Therefore, Simon’s

conflicting thoughts about Joseph reveal his (somewhat weak) double

consciousness, or the ambivalence of the colonizer.

The double effect of mimicry is also disturbing and alarming for the

dominance of colonial discourse (Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man”, The

Location of Culture 122). Although Simon finds Jane’s criticism

ridiculous, he cannot disregard it either. He is aware that he should

understand the native people’s culture in order to control them. He

apologizes to Joseph for his inappropriate behaviour, which

demonstrates the shift of power between the colonizer and the

colonized, a result of their ambivalent relation:

PILKINGS. Oh er . . . Joseph.

JOSEPH. Yes master?

PILKINGS. (between gritted teeth) Er . . . forget what

I said just now. The holy water is not nonsense. I

was talking nonsense.

JOSEPH. Yes master. (Goes.) (34)

Simon’s inability to understand the meaning of the drumming and

other native cultural elements makes him unconsciously nervous and

puts him into a weaker position despite his colonial supremacy.

Yoruba characters have “the gift of the second sight” in Du Boisian

terms since they know the local culture while they also recognize the

colonizer’s cultural behaviours; however, Simon needs native people’s

knowledge in order to understand and control what goes on around

and not to have further problems with his superiors:

JANE. (laughs) I know you better than that Simon.

You are going to have to do something to stop it –

after you’ve finished blustering.

PILKINGS. (shouts after her) And suppose after all

it’s only a wedding? I’d look a proper fool if I

interrupted a chief on his honeymoon, wouldn’t I?

(Resumes his angry stride, slows down.) Ah well,

who can tell what those chiefs actually do on their

honeymoon anyway? (He takes up the pad and

scribbles rapidly on it.) Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!

(Some moments later Joseph puts in a sulky

appearance.) Did you hear me call you? Why the

hell didn’t you answer? (33)

Another important aspect of the colonial process is that it produces

different responses to ambivalence: the colonial experience is not the

same for Jane and Simon. Jane constantly warns Simon for his faulty

behaviour as she is more aware of the slippery state of colonialism. She

is also more empathetic towards Amusa, Joseph, and Olunde later in

the play, which shows that she has better communication skills. When

she does not understand certain cultural behaviours and events, she

does not reject them either. Instead, she asks native characters why

they behave in particular ways although their cultural attitudes are far

from European cultural/behavioural norms. In that respect, it is

important to note that her different look towards colonial subjects is

possibly linked to her gender: Simon not only constantly otherizes

native people, but he—as the epitome of absolute masculine

authority—also otherizes Jane

throughout the course of the play.

In conclusion

, all four characters experience mental disharmony, and

they all have simultaneous conflicting feelings and reactions, resulting

According to Anne McClintock, “[t]he vast, fissured architecture of imperialism”—

and also colonialism—was gendered by white men who “enforced laws and policies

in their own interests” (6). However, as McClintock further argues, “the rationed

privileges of race all too often put white women in positions of decided—if borrowed—

power, not only over colonized women but also over colonized men. As such, white

women were not the hapless onlookers of empire but were ambiguously complicit

both as colonizers and colonized, privileged and restricted, acted upon and acting”

(6). McClintock’s explanation clarifies Jane’s ambivalent relationship with Simon in

Death and the King’s Horseman.

Theatre director Rufus Norris’s National Theatre production of Death and the King’s

Horseman in 2009 draws attention due to an all-black cast. The actors who played

the part of colonialists (Simon and Jane) wore whiteface makeup in this production,

which, in fact, shows us how a theatre director’s attitude (and work) can be included

from the colonial oppression. On the other hand, their double/triple

consciousnesses work against the flattening effects of the colonial

process.

3.3. Olunde and the Refinement of Double Consciousness

This subsection concentrates on Olunde, the most complex character

of the play, with whom we see the refinement of double consciousness.

Olunde can be analysed in the light of Du Bois, Hall, and Bhabha

together since his colonial experience is different from all other

characters. Unlike other Yoruba characters, Olunde is a European-

educated person studying medicine in Britain—Simon and Jane being

his sponsors—, which has provided him with a more complicated

experience of colonialism. He returns home when he learns about the

death of Alafin as it means that his father, the king’s horseman Elesin,

should now commit a ritual suicide, according to Yoruba customs.

Although the main character of the play is Elesin as emphasized in the

title of the play, Olunde acts almost like a second protagonist, and he

emerges as the one who completes Elesin’s mission when Elesin fails

to commit the ritual suicide. In Yoruba customs, Olunde has a

responsibility of dying as Elesin’s eldest son and the second-in-line

following his father’s failure, which he does silently towards the end of

the play. For people who believe in Yoruba religion, Elesin’s not being

able to die causes disharmony in the Yoruba universe:

IYALOJA. Ah. So you do know that. There are

sights in this world which say different Elesin.

in the discussion of double consciousness in this thesis. Norris’s use of this

Brechtian alienation technique is also striking as it (symbolically) reminds us of

Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. Michael Billington also states that Norris’s use of

this technique “took us away from a simplistic cultural collision and allowed us to

focus on the issues Soyinka was addressing: above all, the idea that the living, the

dead and those still to come exist not in separate compartments but in a state of

mysteriously numinous co-existence” (ch. 91).

There are some who choose to reverse this cycle of

our being. Oh you emptied bark that the world once

saluted for a pith-laden being, shall I tell you what

the gods have claimed of you? (77)

However, Olunde’s suicide means that the universal harmony can be

reconstructed, and the preservation of the family honour before the

community’s eyes is possible.

IYALOJA. (moves forward and removes the

covering) Your courier Elesin, cast your eyes on the

favoured companion of the King.

Rolled up in the mat, his head and feet showing at

either end, is the body of OLUNDE.

There lies the honour of your household and of our

race. Because he could not bear to let honour fly

out of doors, he stopped it with his life. The son has

proved the father, Elesin, and there is nothing left

in your mouth to gnash but infant gums. (Death 82)

Therefore, despite the tragedy of double deaths—of Olunde, and later

of Elesin who, seeing the dead body of his son, strangles himself with

chains—, the Yoruba cosmos

can (possibly) heal and become whole

again, which is symbolised by the emphasis of the unborn child at the

end of the play:

IYALOJA. Now forget the dead, forget even the

living. Turn your mind only to the unborn. (84)

In Yoruba culture, “the unborn” are regarded “as real as the living and

the ancestors,” and “[t]hey are part of the unity of creation” (Plastow

89). Yoruba characters in the play believe that the bride carries Elesin

Oba’s child, symbolising hope for the future.

When we examine Olunde’s speeches, we see that Olunde is a strong

character who has not forgotten his native cultural values despite

According to Yoruba belief, the aim of life is the “harmony that can only be

guaranteed through constant communion with gods” (Maduakor 274).

being the only Yoruba character who has seen the colonizer’s culture

in the colonizer’s country. His education in a foreign country has

provided him with a perspective of the other side, and he has gained

his own particular vision of colonialism from both sides:

OLUNDE. (mildly) And that is the good cause for

which you desecrate an ancestral mask?

JANE. Oh, so you are shocked after all. How

disappointing.

OLUNDE. No I am not shocked Mrs Pilkings. You

forget that I have now spent four years among your

people. I discovered that you have no respect for

what you do not understand.

JANE. Oh. So you’ve returned with a chip on your

shoulder. That’s a pity Olunde. I am sorry.

(An uncomfortable silence follows.)

I take it then that you did not find your stay in

England altogether edifying.

OLUNDE. I don’t say that. I found your people quite

admirable in many ways, their conduct and

courage in this war for instance. (54-55)

This is, in fact, what Du Bois calls the gift of the second sight: Olunde

has explored the meaning of being black in the colonizer’s country in

addition to the meaning of his Yoruba blackness in his own country,

resulting in a thorough-going double-consciousness.

Olunde is, on the other hand, a hybrid character but his hybridity is

different from Amusa’s and Joseph’s. We learn from the stage

directions in Scene Four that Olunde appears as “a young black man

dressed in a sober western suit” (54). He is not only dressed like the

colonizer, but he also uses proper English, unlike the mimicking

characters of the play.

Olunde’s double vision has broadened his world, but we still see

differences in the ways of thinking of Olunde and Jane. When they talk

about a captain’s blowing himself up in a ship to save hundreds of the

coastal population, Jane says that “[l]ife should never be thrown

deliberately away” (Death 56). Unlike Jane, Olunde finds this event

“rather inspiring” and believes that “it is an affirmative commentary on

life” (56). Their different ways of thinking reveal how they position

themselves culturally in Hall’s terms. However, Olunde is not like

Elesin and Iyaloja, whose attitudes are not based on a double-sided

observation. Olunde is not like Amusa and Joseph either. Amusa and

Joseph are liminal characters who work for the British, stuck between

the two cultures and not respected by the either side. Unlike Amusa

and Joseph, Olunde is respected by the Yoruba community since he

has not forgotten his Yoruba roots despite his Westernized education.

Furthermore, Olunde can communicate with both sides thanks to his

doubled cultural position.

As a result of his unique cultural positioning, Olunde emerges as a

second protagonist who comes up with a solution to the communal

crisis: he has a strong sense of responsibility, and he is ready to die for

the sake of his people. His departure for education in England had

formerly caused a disagreement with his father, to the point of

disinheritance; but as a strong character, Olunde has never fully

submitted himself to the colonizer’s culture.

Olunde’s complicated position in Death and the King’s Horseman

brings to the fore another dimension of the play, as a ritualistic

Yoruba tragedy. Soyinka argues in Myth, Literature and the African

As Obi Maduakor explains, life is “a ritual” in Yoruba belief, which has “prescribed

pattern[s]” (275). Maduakor emphasizes that “Soyinka holds the traditional view that

drama originated from [. . .] ritualized activities”, and “[t]he first ritual actors are the

primordial deities, Ogun, Obatala, Sango, whom Soyinka calls ‘the ritual archetypes’”

(275). According to Elleke Boehmer, African writers (like Soyinka) use oral traditions

of pre-colonial Africa (regarding myth and history), and these writes are aware that

“the gods, daemons, half-children, warriors, and strange beasts of local legend and

oral epic still h[o]ld explanatory power, despite the efforts of missions and schools to

eradicate them” (202). In this respect, such writers “offered a rich source for cultures

seeking redefinitions of self” (Boehmer 202).

World that “[m]an exists [. . .] in a comprehensive world of myth, history

and mores” (xii). In his exploration of Yoruba myths, in this respect,

Soyinka “draws on ritual prototypes and the major characters assume

archetypal roles” (Asagba 94). Ogun is “the first hero-god” of the

Yoruba pantheon, whose “passage-rites” cause “tragic consequences

for him” (Maduakor 275). According to an old myth,

when the gods decided to settle on earth they found

thick impenetrable forest barring their way. Ogun,

the god of iron, made an axe and also a hatchet and

with these tools he cut a path through the bush.

(Knappert 185)

The same myth is told in a slightly different way in another source,

according to which Ogun

used to come down from heaven by a spider’s web

and hunt in the marshes, in the olden days when

the earth was a watery waste. Later, the earth was

formed by Great God, who set about arranging

everything in order. But he came to thick forest that

his tools could not cut, since they were only bronze.

Ogun alone, whose axe was iron, was able to clear

a way, and he only did this after the other gods had

promised to reward him. So when they built their

sacred city of Ilé-Ifé, they gave him a crown.

(Parrinder 81)

As seen in both versions, Ogun is known as “Pioneer of the Gods”

(Knappert 185). Paradoxically, Ogun is also “the embodiment of a

destructive essence” (Msiska, Postcolonial Identity xxxi). Appropriately,

Mary Cuthrell Curry also argues that “Ogun is an “Orisha of paradox

but paradox of different nuances,” and Ogun is “the embodiment of

violence and creativity and yet the soul of complete integrity” (68).

Furthermore, as Msiska argues, Ogun’s power is based on his being

the god of all spaces of transition, the in-between

spaces that need to be inhabited, transgressed and

overcome as one moves between one mode of

existence and another, between death and life, or

between the condition of political oppression and

the possibility of freedom. (Postcolonial Identity

xxxi)

With everything considered, it can be claimed that Ogun is represented

by Olunde in Death and the King’s Horseman. Like Ogun, Olunde has

dualistic—and transgressive—positions in the play. Moreover, Olunde

has a sense of duty to sacrifice himself for the wellbeing of his people,

like Ogun, who cleared the path for other gods to come down to earth.

Therefore, while the parallelism between the stories of Ogun and

Olunde shows us a different form of duality, it also proves Soyinka’s

mastery in combining myth, ritual, history, and fiction in an

Aristotelian tragedy with an African context.

As a conclusion of the chapter, in Death and the King’s Horseman,

Soyinka explores the psychological results of colonialism both for the

colonized and the colonizer. Double consciousness is experienced by

all characters, but how they experience the conflict depends on their

cultural positionality. Double consciousness is not completely based

on the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, but there

are other levels of cultural plurality in terms of race, religion, and

gender. On the other hand, the play shows us that characters choose

how to position themselves culturally, and they consciously make

decisions as in the case of Olunde. Therefore, one cannot continuously

remain in a split state of mind, and one can produce one’s own survival

patterns to get oneself free from the psychological burden of

colonialism.

CHAPTER 4

CHARACTERS IN NEGOTIATION WITH COLONIZATION:

THE LION AND THE JEWEL (1963)

As already exemplified in Chapter 3, Soyinka’s plays are among those

works of literature that examine conflicts between power and culture

within the frame of colonialism. His plays show the double

consciousnesses and dilemmas of individuals situated within both

their traditional—and specifically Nigerian—and the British colonisers’

power structures. In his early play The Lion and the Jewel (1959)

Soyinka explores these splits or conflicts using a mode and form that

itself provides a double perspective, combining as it does both comedy

and satire, and that shows the multivalence of signifying objects and

cultural practices (performance). He shows how the characters are

ambivalently positioned within these power structures, from which

result the play’s tragicomic situations, and its representations of comic

mimicry and cultural fragmentation. This chapter analyses the play in

this context. Focussing upon the theorized concepts of mimicry,

ambivalence, hybridity, and (cultural) positioning, double

consciousness in this play is studied through analyses of characters,

objects, and metatheatrical performances. Analysis of the characters

focuses on their different manifestations of double consciousness and

on how they negotiate their position with colonization depending on

other factors, such as age, gender, and economic status. The play’s

One of Soyinka’s earlier plays performed for the first time in Ibadan in 1959 and

published in 1963. Although most reliable sources (Gibbs, Banham, Lindfors,

Msiska, etc.) about Soyinka’s work cite the first publication date as 1963, some

sources give the date as 1962.

objects and metatheatrical scenes are analysed as both symbolically

and performatively representing double consciousness.

Studying the play from a postcolonial perspective and with respect to

double consciousness reveals the ambivalences of the play’s message,

and particularly shows that the ending presents irresolution: are the

actions and decisions of the characters beneficial to the community

and its future (that is, via metonym, to Nigeria—and thence Africa—

and its future) or not? Earlier scholarship has not taken account of

this somewhat destabilizing aspect of the play. For Biodun Jeyifo, The

Lion and the Jewel has “a unique place” in Soyinka’s drama in that “it

is perhaps the only play by him that is written entirely in a comic spirit

uncomplicated by a dark, brooding humor or satire” (Politics, Poetics

and Postcolonialism 106). For Banham, on the other hand, the play is

a satirical comedy that is “in many respects a light-hearted and gentle

play” although it is also “a reminder of the strengths of the traditional

values of society and a shrewd and satirical challenge to modern

pragmatism” (The Lion and the Jewel: A Critical View 7-8). Gerald

Moore defines the play as a rural comedy while associating the

originality of the play with two elements, which are also discussed in

this chapter:

[F]irstly, the great scope which he allows here for

mime and for dramatically expressive dance and

movement; secondly, the deliberately provocative

moral of the ending, which reverses the assumption

of so much culture-conflict literature that the

heroine must always plump for ‘progress’ and

‘enlightenment.’ (23)

Like Gerald Moore, K. E. Senanu also draws attention to the

importance of performative elements in the play:

[T]he vitality of the play itself depends as much on

verbal drama, on wit, on the ridiculous or theatrical

proliferation of language, and on grotesque

behavior, as it depends on those emotive moments

which can only be adequately expressed through

music and dance. (75)

The play is set in Ilujinle

, an imaginary village in Nigeria—probably

representing a period of the 1950s or 1960s. As M. Pushpa states,

“Ilujinle means deep or distant village, and the name is intended to

suggest a remote community” (112). Although an exact date for the

setting is not given in the script of The Lion and the Jewel, the final

version of the play came out in 1963, after Nigeria’s independence in

1960. Thus, Mark Fortier is able to define the play, with respect to its

date as well as its concerns, as “a relatively early work of post-colonial

drama” which

functions by combining western dramatic forms

(verse drama, comedy of ideas à la George Bernard

Shaw and bedroom farce) with African traditions of

folk tale, dancing and storytelling – the play ends

with an enactment of traditional Yoruba betrothal

ceremonies. (200)

W. B. Worthen suggests that The Lion and the Jewel is an attack on

the deception that “to read the literature of Europe is to gain a mastery

of the world” (196). In the play, as Worthen points out,

Soyinka presents European modes of

representation [. . .]—dramatic conventions,

patterns of characterization, events and behavior

associated with European culture—within the

process of the cultural subjection of Africa, a

“Ilu” is listed as a noun meaning “a town” in Grammar and Dictionary of the Yoruba

Language (Bowen 45). Adesanya Moroundiya Alabi has stated in a personal telephone

interview (with the author of this thesis) that Ilujinle is not a real village name but a

fictional one created by Soyinka, and the word is a combination of two separate

words. “Ijinle” means “deep,” and the word is, in fact, “Ilu Ijinle” (Alabi). Hence,

Ilujinle is a word symbolising the remoteness of the imaginary village where the

events take place. Soyinka’s wording may also be a reminder of the colonialist

European desire to invade even the remotest areas of the world—with the so-called

civilising mission.

subjection that extends the practices of colonialism

into the present era. Far from writing a play in the

Western tradition, Soyinka dramatizes the political

implications of Western cultural production in the

wider social rhetoric of postcolonial exchange. (196)

As some scholars suggest, the play itself can be classified as post-

colonial

because of the date of its composition and its stylistic

features; however, the people of Ilujinle in the play are faced with “the

challenge of rapid change” that has come to Nigeria with Western

colonialism (Jones 47). The characters are not able to internalise the

progressive aspects of the Westernised development they encounter in

their colonized experience. Their thoughts and actions reflect the

confusion of whether to imitate the colonizer to look more “civilised”

(The Lion 9, 10, 24), which becomes a source of comedy in the play, or

to pursue their personal ambitions.

The play is divided into three parts

under the titles of “morning” (3),

“noon” (19), and “night” (30). It opens with a traditional market scene

near an “odan tree”

(stage direction, The Lion and the Jewel 3) at the

village centre in the morning. There is a village school near the market,

representing colonial influence, where Lakunle, the young teacher of

For instance, Oladipo Agboluaje calls the Yoruba community in the play “a newly

independent nation” (207). For Mpalive-Hangson Msiska, it is a postcolonial play as

he discusses in his book, Postcolonial Identity in Wole Soyinka (2007).

Gerald Moore also explains that the structure of the play is “conventional,” and

that Soyinka “even obeys the classical ‘unities’ since, as in most of his plays, he

confines his action to a single place and a single day” (23). Soyinka consciously

creates his dualistic literary style as he combines European literary forms and

techniques with a Yoruba cultural background. According to Christopher B. Balme,

“the dramaturgy” of some plays by Soyinka such as The Swamp Dwellers (1958), The

Lion and the Jewel (1959), The Invention (1959), and The Trials of Brother Jero (1960)

is “greatly indebted to Western forms” (80).

The odan tree in the marketplace in Soyinka’s play represents the existence of

Yoruba values despite the colonial invasion. Odan tree (Ficus spp.) is usually planted

in Yoruba market spaces as a shade tree (Bascom 313). Peter Rutherford McKenzie

notes that “a tree may also be a part manifestation of a major òrìṣà” (41), and “often

a tree or other object becomes sacred or an òrìṣà” (41).

the village is teaching “Arithmetic Times” to his students (The Lion 3).

As Andrew Walser underlines,

an audience watching The Lion and the Jewel

hears, before anything else, schoolchildren

chanting multiplication tables—an evocation,

perhaps, of the decades of drilling by which English

achieved its place in Nigeria. (284)

Drawing attention to the importance of local cultural elements in the

play, on the other hand, Eldred Durosimi Jones argues that

Soyinka gives a visual image of the state of the

village in the opening set which is ‘dominated by an

immense odan tree’, with the ‘bush school’ only

flanking the stage on the right. The bush school is

yet to occupy centre stage in the village life and

cannot yet provide, with its mechanical chanting of

the ‘Arithmetic times’, a substitute for the

established traditional basis of village life. (47)

The protagonist of the play, Sidi, who is a beautiful young woman

enters the stage dressed in ethnic clothes and carrying a pot. Lakunle,

“dressed in an old-style English suit” (stage direction, 3) and wearing

“blanco-white tennis shoes” (stage direction, 3) starts his criticism of

Sidi for her local outlook and behaviours from the beginning of the

play. He wants to marry Sidi, but he does not want to pay the bride

price, as he discloses later:

LAKUNLE [with conviction.]: Within a year or two,

I swear,

This town shall see a transformation

Bride-price will be a thing forgotten

And wives shall take their place by men.

(The Lion 34)

Lakunle wants to change his environment and people in the name of

modernization. He even wants Sidi to be like a European woman in her

actions, which Sidi finds ridiculous and rejects continuously. Another

suitor for Sidi is Baroka the Bale

—the village chief who looks strong

and charming, as described in a stage direction: “wiry, goateed, tougher

than his sixty-two years” (The Lion 16). “The jewel of Ilujinle” (21) is Sidi

whereas “the Lion” (12) is Baroka. Unlike Lakunle who is the mimic

man of the play, Baroka does not accept Western modernization

unconditionally. The character of Sidi functions as a mediator between

the two sides for dramatic purposes. As Robert J. Willis puts forward,

the contrast between Lakunle and Baroka

constitutes the crux of the play: the conservative,

clear view of life represented by the Bale versus the

progressive sloganeering of Lakunle. Beneath this

sociopolitical theme is the other struggle—the war

for Sidi’s love. (2)

On the other hand, Eldred Durosimi Jones rejects the idea that the

play shows “a contrast between progress and reaction—represented by

Lakunle and the Bale” (47). Instead, he evaluates the play in terms of

a contrast between “a muddle-headed sloganeering, and a hard-headed

conservatism” (47).

Sadiku, the forty-one-year-old chief wife of Baroka, is introduced in the

second act, which is titled “Noon.” Acting as Baroka’s spokesperson,

Sadiku tells Sidi that Baroka wants to invite Sidi to his place and marry

A Bale is the head of a village in Yoruba lifestyle. Every Yoruba is born into a

patrimonial clan, and Yoruba people live in large residential groups involving

patrilineally related men, their wives and children. “The clan and the sub-clan are

each headed by its eldest male member, known as the Bale or ‘father of the house,’

a term that also refers to a husband as the head of his own family. No one except a

male member of the clan can hold this position, and it follows according to strict

seniority” (“Yoruba”). As Jeremy Seymour Eades states, “[t]raditionally the bale was

the ultimate authority within the compound in matters of discipline, dispute

settlement and the allocation of rooms, work and land. The elders in each constituent

house had a similar authority over their own group of residents [. . .] The authority

of the bale and other elders has been reduced with increased mobility and the

diversification of the economy. With declining rates of polygyny the older men no

longer monopolise the available women, and younger men are no longer as reliant on

their elders for the money to organise their first marriage” (53-54).

her later as it has been five months since his last marriage. Lakunle’s

reaction to this is harsh, although Sidi constantly tries to remind

Lakunle that she can speak for herself. Meanwhile, Sidi has become

famous in the area because of her photographs, taken by an outsider

and now printed on the cover page of a magazine. Enchanted by self-

admiration, Sidi rejects Baroka’s invitation, too.

In the third act, titled “Night,” Baroka, knowing that Sadiku will relay

the information to Sidi, tells Sadiku that his “manhood ended near a

week ago” (27-28) (he claims and exaggeratedly bewails a permanent,

age-related impotence), although he still boasts of himself among the

village people. Out of curiosity and feeling safe since she has been told

by Sadiku that he is now a “no-man” (The Lion 32), and as a young,

inexperienced woman dazzled by her recent fame, Sidi pays a visit to

Baroka’s house where, instead of her poking fun at him, Baroka

seduces her successfully. Lakunle again says he will marry Sidi

although he uses her loss of virginity as an excuse for not paying the

bride price, but Sidi, already tired of Lakunle’s thoughtlessness, and

of being constantly humiliated by him, chooses to marry the older but

more vigorous and attractive “Lion of Ilujinle” (The Lion 12), Baroka.

Tellingly, there is no mention of Baroka paying a bride-price; the lion

is, after all, also the “Fox” (The Lion 12, 23, 42) who “stalks and dines

on new hatched chickens” (42), and he has tricked Sidi into marriage

without so much as a mention of this traditional and respectful

payment. The play ends with Sidi on her way to her wedding while

Lakunle has already started chasing another woman. As Martin

Banham states, “[l]ife goes on, no one is hurt. Songs, too, round off the

action as they have started it” (The Lion and the Jewel: A Critical View

15).

This chapter analyses the play in three subsections and concludes with

a fourth. The first part presents a character-based analysis of Lakunle,

Baroka, Sidi, and Sadiku in relation to the issue of double

consciousness as well as the relevance between gender problems and

colonialism. The second subsection looks at characters’ responses to

non-human objects and how they position themselves through objects

for/against the colonizing culture. The third subsection examines the

play with respect to metatheatrical performance and the use of

theatrical space as a means of preserving agency. The fourth

subsection gives the overall results of the chapter, which shows us the

dilemma of double consciousness. Despite their attempts of changing

themselves or their environments, characters are not fully capable of

emancipating themselves from the dilemma of double consciousness.

4.1. Negotiable Positions in Terms of Colonization and Gender

Issues: Lakunle, Baroka, Sidi, and Sadiku

4.1.1. Comic Mimicry: Lakunle

For all its comic elements, this play shows that the colonial process

has produced problematic characters with split psychologies. Lakunle,

for instance, shows the cruel distortions forced by colonization onto to

the psychology of subordinate subjects, in a comic way. Lakunle’s

education goes no deeper than the repeated rote learning that we hear

his students intoning, and he understands words only at the

dictionary-definition level. In this way he is shown to be very naïve,

and he does not even try to question the impacts of colonial

assimilation upon himself and upon his community. Rather than

observing and internalising the useful aspects of meeting another

culture—which is British culture in the play—, he becomes a hollow,

mimic character whose actions are based on imitating the colonizer

while still holding on to some traditional ideas (such as dictating what

Sidi should wear and what she should do). His tragi-comic mimicry is

apparent in his clothing style, his language use, his approach to gender

issues, and his implicit class-consciousness.

From this perspective, Lakunle resembles the comic naïve that we see

in the colonial literature of the 19th century, as explained by Ashcroft

et al.:

The same practice of characterizing ‘colonial’

peoples by signifiers of naivety, of social and

cultural provinciality and of originary taint [. . .]

was a feature of English texts even as late as the

early twentieth century. (Post-Colonial Studies 48)

Unlike the religious converts—Amusa and Joseph—in Soyinka’s later

play, Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), Lakunle’s thoughts and

behaviours are based on a cheap imitation of Western lifestyle, creating

a comic effect throughout the play. Soyinka’s introducing of such a

mimic character in the play is, in fact, a warning to native people about

the dangers of losing one’s cultural identity completely under Western

cultural hegemony.

As the Westernized teacher of the village, Lakunle has become worse

than the colonizer in his approach towards local people and their

cultural values, which is a result of the rapid colonial change. Although

he is a comic character, “there is an underlying pathos arising from

the recognition that he has a split personality, the two separate halves

of which are clearly visible” as Jones underlines, and Lakunle is

ironically and highly “engaged in doing violence to his ‘true’ nature”

(Jones 47). His understanding of the Western civilization depends on

unproductive imitation while rejecting the local culture and universal

human dignity completely.

What Lakunle has gone through is a form of identity disorder, self-

negation, or self-colonialism in which one identity represses the other

completely and violently. Moreover, he is abusive, and he uses verbal

violence towards native Yoruba people, especially Sidi. He continually

criticizes Sidi’s actions and appearance although he likes her and

wants to marry her, but he does not seem to understand why he is

constantly rejected by her. Ironically, he believes he is misunderstood

by Sidi as well as other local people: “If now I am misunderstood by

you and your race of savages, I rise above taunts and remain unruffled”

(The Lion 5).

Lakunle’s behaviour towards Sidi is highly problematic, and his words

involve not only racial discrimination but also misogyny. Mark Fortier

emphasizes that “in rejecting the bride-price and espousing western

ways, Lakunle is serving his own patriarchal interests over Sidi” (201).

He constantly blames Sidi for “unwomanly” behaviours (The Lion 4). He

wants her to cover her shoulders like “most modest women do” (4), but

ironically also to wear high-heeled shoes and red lipstick, presenting

different Western women’s representations (in his mind) that are open

to problematization as they suggest labelling/denouncing women’s

identity.

LAKUNLE: I want to walk beside you in the street,

Side by side and arm in arm

Just like the Lagos couples I have seen

High-heeled shoes for the lady, red paint

On her lips. And her hair is stretched

Like a magazine photo. (The Lion 9)

Moreover, Lakunle strongly believes that Sidi’s behaviour is in some

ways uncivilised and too local and should be changed. Unfortunately,

he expresses himself by humiliating the woman he admires, criticizing

both her appearance and her lack of Western-oriented education:

LAKUNLE: No. I have told you not to carry loads

On your head. But you are as stubborn

As an illiterate goat. It is bad for the spine.

And it shortens your neck, so that very soon

You will have no neck at all. Do you wish to look

Squashed like my pupils’ drawings? (The Lion 4)

Lakunle’s consciousness is also split when it comes to his class-

awareness, which is based on the difference between the rural and the

urban rather than economic differences. It is the class-consciousness

of the colonized, and it is based on Lakunle’s positioning of himself in

terms of modernization. He is aware that he belongs to village life

although he wishes for another lifestyle. He wishes to use his education

and profession to move away from being a schoolteacher in a small

village and be like the people he sees in the big city Lagos. In other

words, instead of being an inhabitant of the small and remote village

of Ilujinle, he yearns to adopt a Western-oriented lifestyle, together

with Sidi as his wife:

LAKUNLE: Ignorant girl, can you not understand?

[. . .] When we are wed, you shall not walk or sit

Tethered, as it were, to my dirtied heels.

Together we shall sit at table

—Not on the floor—and eat,

Not with fingers, but with knives

And forks, and breakable plates

Like civilized beings.

I will not have you wait on me

Till I have dined my fill.

[. . .] I will teach you

The waltz and we’ll both learn the foxtrot

And we’ll spend the week-end in night clubs at

Ibadan.

Oh I must show you the grandeur of towns

We’ll live there if you like or merely pay visits.

So choose. Be a modern wife, look me in the eye

And give me a little kiss—like this.

[Kisses her.] (The Lion 9-10)

Lakunle imitates the colonizer in his own dressing style as well, and

unlike Sidi, Lakunle is “ridiculous in the costume by which he vainly

strives to hold on desperately to the coat-tails of a fashion he does not

understand” (Jones 47). We learn from the stage directions that

Lakunle is a young man who wears

an old-style English suit, threadbare but not ragged,

clean but not ironed, obviously a size or two too

small. His tie is done in a very small knot,

disappearing beneath a shiny black waistcoat. He

wears twenty-three-inch-bottom trousers and

blanco-white tennis shoes. (3)

Lakunle’s appearance “signals a man of unformed values,

incompetently imitative. His words soon confirm the visual image”

(Jones 47). In other words, as W. B. Worthen argues, in his “dated and

ill-fitting English suit, Lakunle personifies the depredations of

‘assimilation.’” (197). Hence, as Jones suggests, “Lakunle is half-baked

where both Sidi and the Bale are sound” (47), as we will see in the

following subsections of this chapter.

Lakunle does not seem to have internalised Western knowledge either,

despite being a teacher. He is a mimicking representative of the

Westernised education system in colonized countries. As Martin

Banham explains, Lakunle’s educational background relies on “a

mixture of the Bible, romantic novels and Reader’s Digest” (The Lion

and the Jewel: A Critical View 11). As a result, like his clothes, his

language use is also imitational. He tries to elaborate his spoken

language by using English words he has learned from dictionaries as

he feels incapable of expressing his ideas with his existing vocabulary:

SIDI: Is the bag empty? Why did you stop?

LAKUNLE: I own only the Shorter Companion

Dictionary, but I have ordered

The Longer One—you wait! (The Lion 8)

He uses religious imagery, love-making clichés of romantic novels, and

“undigested ‘facts’ about the relative size of the brains of men and

women” that he has learned from the Reader’s Digest (Banham, The

Lion and the Jewel: A Critical View 11-12):

LAKUNLE [holds on to her.]:

Please, don’t be angry with me.

I didn’t mean you in particular.

And anyway, it isn’t what I say.

The scientists have proved it. It’s in my books.

Women have a smaller brain than men

That’s why they are called the weaker sex.

SIDI [throws him off.]:

The weaker sex, is it?

Is it a weaker breed who pounds the yam

Or bends all day to plant the millet

With a child strapped to her back?

LAKUNLE: That is all part of what I say.

But don’t you worry. In a year or two

You will have machines which will do

Your pounding, which will grind your pepper

Without it getting in your eyes.

SIDI: O-oh. You really mean to turn

The whole world upside down.

LAKUNLE: The world? Oh, that. Well, maybe later.

Charity, they say, begins at home.

For now, it is this village I shall turn

Inside out. Beginning with that crafty rogue,

Your past master of self-indulgence—Baroka.

(The Lion 6)

The dialogues between Sidi and Lakunle have contrasting imagery that

represents the discrepancy between the experience that is learned

within the community and its surroundings, and the knowledge

learned from European religious and literary books, which creates the

comic effect in the play:

SIDI [shakes her head in bafflement.]:

If the snail finds splinters in his shell

He changes house. Why do you stay?

LAKUNLE: Faith. Because I have faith.

Oh Sidi, vow to me your own undying love

And I will scorn the jibes of these bush minds

Who know no better. Swear, Sidi,

Swear you will be my wife and I will

Stand against earth, heaven, and the nine

Hells. . . . (The Lion 8)

Lakunle uses some religious concepts incorrectly because of either his

misinterpretation or the unreliability of his sources for learning

Christianity properly, as seen in the example above. Although Dante’s

Inferno of The Divine Comedy (circa 1308-21) describes the nine circles

of hell, there is no mention of “nine Hells”

in the Bible. In this respect,

as Pushpa stresses, Lakunle is “a bundle of prejudices, confused by

his contact with Christianity, and has scant respect for the values of

village life” (112).

The dialogues between the two also show the effects of colonialism on

the perceptions of social codes. Sidi implies that she wants to follow

traditional customs and insists on getting the bride price in order to

maintain her social status through a socially proper marriage.

However, Lakunle rejects the idea of having to pay money to get

married. He expresses himself by using—or misusing—English words

that he has just looked up in the dictionary, which Sidi criticizes and

rejects:

SIDI: Now there you go again [. . .]

You talk and talk and deafen me

With words which always sound the same

And make no meaning.

I’ve told you, and I say it again

I shall marry you today, next week

Or any day you name.

But my bride-price must first be paid.

Aha, now you turn away.

But I tell you, Lakunle, I must have

The full bride-price. Will you make me

Mary Clayton and Hugh Magennis state that “a discussion of the ninth hell appears

in a homily in CCCC 303, the manuscript of [their] St Margaret text” (65, 175).

However, as Clayton and Magennis explain, the concept may have been introduced

by the Old English writer to the text they discuss, and the “nine hells” concept does

not appear anywhere else in Anglo-Saxon literature (65, 175).

A laughing-stock? Well, do as you please.

But Sidi will not make herself

A cheap bowl for the village spit [. . .]

They will say I was no virgin

That I was forced to sell my shame

And marry you without a price.

LAKUNLE: A savage custom, barbaric, out-dated,

Rejected, denounced, accursed,

Excommunicated, archaic, degrading,

Humiliating, unspeakable, redundant.

Retrogressive, remarkable, unpalatable.

(The Lion 8)

The discrepancy between their communication skills is also apparent

in their language, in addition to their different perceptions of social

codes. Although Sidi tries to explain her situation clearly, Lakunle

remains a denier, being lost in his own world of European dictionaries.

As a conclusion, as Worthen hypothesizes, “Lakunle is a version of the

comic alazon

, the ‘deceiving or self-deceiving character in fiction,

normally an object of ridicule in comedy or satire’” (197).

Unfortunately, Lakunle is not capable of changing either himself or his

community for the better.

4.1.2. Baroka and Societal Benefits

The other character who is interested in Sidi is Baroka, the Bale of

Ilujinle. There is a rivalry between Lakunle and Baroka about gaining

Sidi’s heart, which forms the main plot of the play. Unlike Lakunle,

Baroka is a cunning and charming man, and he

emerges as an enormously appealing figure—a man

of both guile and real wisdom, a man who, in his

illiteracy and his mud palace, possesses a degree of

sophistication undreamed of by Lakunle. (Laurence

22)

“Alazon” means “impostor, someone who pretends or tries to be something more

than he is. The most popular types of alazon are the miles gloriosus and the learned

crank or obsessed philosopher” (Frye 39).

Baroka becomes the winner of the love triangle

, and the play ends

with a happy resolution of Sidi’s decision to marry him. Jeyifo points

out that there is an important literary alteration in the plot, deliberately

employed by Soyinka. A frequent motif that we see in romantic

comedy—especially in the 17th-century Restoration comedy of

manners (Horner’s impotence trick in William Wycherley’s The Country

Wife (1675), as an example)—is inverted by the playwright to come up

with different moral/situational results. In a usual romantic comedy,

a love triangle in which the romance of a pair of

young lovers is for a while thwarted and frustrated

by an older, often wealthier suitor; but the younger

suitor ultimately prevails and the young lovers

marry. In this play, it is the older suitor, Baroka,

whose suit prevails and who shows far greater

vitality and resourcefulness than his young,

hapless competitor. This inversion, in which age

prevails over youth, entails other important details

as well: the ‘illiterate’ protagonist proves more

astute and enterprising than his bookish

antagonist; the ‘backward’ villager proves more

cultured, more enlightened than the citified, would-

be sophisticate. (Jeyifo, Politics, Poetics and

Postcolonialism 107)

Behind Soyinka’s romantic comedy lies more serious issues such as

self-colonialism as a manifestation of double consciousness, and the

impact of colonialism in changing daily lives of colonial subjects,

including their economic situations and their personal relationships.

Soyinka reveals in a conversation with James Gibbs that in writing The Lion and

the Jewel, he was inspired by an item about Charlie Chaplin’s marriage with a young

woman, Oona O’Neill: “From Charlie Chaplin, and again thinking of the old men I

knew in my society who at 70 plus, 80, would still take some new young wives—and

always seemed perfectly capable of coping with the onerous tasks which such activity

demanded of them! I just sat down and that’s how Baroka came into existence. I

knew that some of these old men had actually won these new wives against the stiff

competition of some younger men, some of them school teachers who came to the

villages. Lakunle was based on those who thought: ‘This girl has got to be impressed

by my canvas shoes.’ [. . .] [T]he younger men didn’t speak the language that those

girls understood and they were beaten by the old men. That’s how The Lion and the

Jewel came to be written” (Soyinka qtd. in Gibbs, “Soyinka in Zimbabwe” 82).

Unlike the young teacher Lakunle—who is a simple mimic man—,

Baroka wins the game as being a cunning character who is wise

enough to have—at least—the intention of adopting useful aspects of

European modernity for the benefit of native people while preserving

the traditional lifestyle. As Msiska expresses,

Lakunle’s attempt to use his westernised

masculinity to win Sidi’s affection fails miserably;

the wily Baroka outwits both him and Sidi. Lakunle

courts Sidi by promising to introduce her to

Western culture, but his knowledge of this culture

is based on a literal, confused and even uncritical

adoption of ideas he has merely picked up from his

undiscriminating reading of anything Western.

(Postcolonial Identity 46-47)

Lakunle and Baroka, in this respect, perceive the impact of colonialism

in two different ways. Sidi rejects Lakunle because of his ridiculously

Westernised and highly misogynistic thoughts and behaviours, as well

as his unwillingness to pay the bride price by disregarding her societal

status.

Baroka, in fact, acts like a “trickster figure”

(Ramachandran 200),

who deceives other characters by using his intelligence. According to

Alice Mills, trickster stories are common throughout the African

continent—as we can also see in Soyinka’s play:

Carl Gustav Jung defined the trickster figure as an archetype for the first time in

his “On the Psychology of the Trickster-Figure” included in The Archetypes and the

Collective Unconscious (1968) (Ramachandran 200). There is a trickster god in Yoruba

mythology, Eshu, also known as Elegba, Legba, Esu or Esu-Elegbara. Eshu is one of

the oldest deities in the Yoruba pantheon. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explains that

“[t]hese trickster figures, all aspects or topoi of Esu, are fundamental, divine terms

of mediation: as tricksters they are mediators, and their mediations are tricks” (The

Signifying Monkey 6). Geoffrey Parrinder says that the deity’s image “is placed outside

houses and villages” but “he has an unpredictable character, and is often violent or

crafty” (African Mythology 86). Jan Knappert argues that “[t]he concept of this deity

expresses the wisdom of the Yoruba people who perceive that good and evil spring

forth from the same spirit at different times and for different reasons, that there must

be a balance in our views of people and in our beliefs in the gods” (84). Also, “Eshu

enjoys confusion. Many stories tell of tricks he plays that cause arguments between

friends or between husbands and wives” (“Eshu”).

Such stories contain circumstances in which the

guileful, seemingly weak or innocent character is

pitted against one with more power. In Western

Africa, these stories reach a high level of

importance, sometimes transferring from the

traditional into a situation of modernity and

current political significance. (Old World Mythology

117)

In Soyinka’s play, Baroka acts as if he were weak and impotent until

he seduces Sidi—and deceives Sadiku before her—, “who comes

completely under the sway of Baroka’s traditional and sexual power”

(Fortier 201). Baroka’s words and actions are double-edged, and in this

respect, he resembles Esu

, the trickster god of Yoruba myths, whose

mouth “sometimes appears double” and whose discourse is “double-

voiced” (Gates Jr., The Signifying Monkey 7). Also, African peoples’

myths often involve animal symbolism, and the trickster figure

“sometimes appears as a god, sometimes as an animal” (A. Mills 117).

As A. Mills argues,

[m]yths that involve animals are often about

people, their faults, weaknesses, strengths and

foibles [. . .]. Trickster myths can have close

relevance for people in today’s world of the misuse

of power, and in their dealings with authority in

various forms. (99-100)

Lakunle, Sidi, and Sadiku call Baroka “the fox” in the play, referring to

his cunningness

(The Lion 12, 23, 32, 42), to his being a trickster.

Sidi also names him “the cunning frog” (53) at some point while

Similarly, Legba is known to be “‘the divine linguist,’ he who speaks all languages”

(Gates Jr., The Signifying Monkey 7).

Although “the trickster is playful, there is often a tragic side to some stories, with

people being hurt” (A. Mills 117). Gates Jr. argues that the traditional/archetypal

trickster figure has been known to have similar attributes among different cultures:

“individuality, satire, parody, irony, magic, indeterminacy, open-endedness,

ambiguity, sexuality, chance, uncertainty, disruption and reconciliation, betrayal

and loyalty, closure and disclosure, encasement and rupture” (The Signifying Monkey

6; also qtd. in Tannen 7).

Lakunle likens him to the “devil among women” (12). Similarly, Baroka

talks of “a seven-horned devil of strength” in himself when he faces

“town-bred daring” young women like Sidi (43). As Ramachandran

points out, Baroka the Bale is the trickster figure “par excellence, ‘God,

man, and animal’ all at once” (200).

Sidi chooses Baroka, relying on Baroka’s promises of making her

permanently famous with her photos on local stamps in the future

once the stamp machine is fixed and starts working. Baroka knows

how to impress Sidi: unlike Lakunle, he speaks to her desires of being

appreciated as a woman. Sidi is offered

on the one hand, teacher Lakunle’s vision of a

modernity characterized by, among other things,

cutting down trees solely to provide lovers with

parks where they can stroll and, on the other, the

Baroka’s [vision] which is predicated on the

conservation of the past while selectively adopting

elements of the new. (Msiska, Wole Soyinka 13)

Additionally, as Msiska also underlines in his comparison of Lakunle

and Baroka, Lakunle has a desire to demolish local forests, which

reveals another form of disrespect:

LAKUNLE: We’ll burn the forest, cut the trees

Then plant a modern park for lovers

We’ll print newspapers everyday.

With pictures of seductive girls. (The Lion 34)

Jan Knappert argues that “all the peoples of Africa regard the forest as

the abode of spirits” (91), and African people believe that “the spirits of

the dead live in the forest” (92). In this respect, Lakunle’s potentially

harmful and invasive desire to cut down forests and make

Europeanized parks instead means disrespect for African beliefs and

values as well.

Therefore, Sidi—despite being a young woman—chooses marrying the

older and “polygamous village chief” rather than “the verbose single

schoolteacher” (Msiska, Wole Soyinka 13).

Lakunle is not a good example of Western modernity, and Baroka is

not totally against Western-oriented development that has come to

Nigeria with colonialism:

SIDI [retreating.]: The house ... seemed ... empty.

BAROKA: Ah, I forget. This is the price I pay

Once every week, for being progressive.

Prompted by the school teacher, my servants

Were prevailed upon to form something they call

The Palace Workers’ Union. And in keeping

With the habits—I am told—of modern towns,

This is their day off. (The Lion 35)

As Ramachandran underlines, “Lakunle represents not western

culture but only hollow westernization, not the real but only the image”

(201). Baroka, however, acts strategically at least, exploring survival

methods for protecting agency against colonial domination. As Msiska

suggests,

set against this spirit of uncritical imitation is the

old wily Chief Baroka, who teaches the supposedly

all-knowing and superior schoolteacher, Lakunle,

one or two things about the value of a strategic

rather than absolutist cultural location as a

vantage point from which to fashion a functionally

and workable post-colonial hybrid identity. (Wole

Soyinka 13)

Baroka beats the colonial mentality of Lakunle ironically by explaining

to Sidi his own wishes of using modern tools—like the stamp

machine— for the benefit of his own people, even if he does this

primarily for impressing her. As we learn from the stage direction,

Baroka brings out the magazine with Sidi’s photograph on the cover

page and an addressed envelope, to explain his progressive ideas to

Sidi:

BAROKA: [. . .] Do you know what this means?

The trim red piece of paper

In the corner?

SIDI: I know it. A stamp. Lakunle receives

Letters from Lagos marked with it.

BAROKA [obviously disappointed.]:

Hm. Lakunle. But more about him

Later. Do you know what it means—

This little frippery?

SIDI [very proudly.]:

Yes. I know that too. Is it not a tax on

The habit of talking with paper?

BAROKA: Oh. Oh. I see you dip your hand

Into the pockets of the school teacher

And retrieve it bulging with knowledge.

(The Lion 45)

Then Baroka goes towards “the strange machine” (45), which is a stamp

machine, to show Sidi how it works and explain how the stamp

machine can be used for the economic growth of his own community:

BAROKA: [. . .] Now this, not even the school

teacher can tell

What magic this performs. Come nearer,

It will not bite.

SIDI: I have never seen the like.

BAROKA: The work dear child, of the palace

blacksmiths

Built in full secrecy. All is not well with it—

But I will find the cause and then Ilujinle

Will boast its own tax on paper, made with

Stamps like this. For long I dreamt it

And here it stands, child of my thoughts.

(The Lion 45-46)

Baroka also explains his stimulating idea of replacing the lifeless

pictures of Western bridges, exotic trees, and piles of groundnuts with

the photos of young and beautiful Sidi, which fascinates her so much

that she “drowns herself totally in the contemplation, takes the

magazine but does not even look at it” (The Lion 7), as we learn from the

stage directions. Baroka says,

BAROKA: [. . .] And now my girl

What think you of that image on the stamp

This spiderwork of iron, wood, and mortar?

SIDI: Is it not a bridge?

BAROKA: It is a bridge. The longest—so they say

In the whole country. When not a bridge,

You’ll find a print of groundnuts

Stacked like pyramids,

Or palm trees, or cocoa trees [. . .]

A thousand thousand letters

By road, by rail, by air,

From one end of the world to another,

And not one human head among them.

Not one head of beauty on the stamp!

SIDI: But I once saw Lakunle’s letter

With a head of bronze.

BAROKA: A figurehead, my child, a lifeless work

Of craft, with holes for eyes, and coldness

For the warmth of life and love

ln youthful cheeks like yours,

My daughter …

[Pauses to watch the effect on Sidi.]

… Can you see it, Sidi?

Tens of thousands of these dainty prints

And each one with this legend of Sidi. (46)

Baroka emphasizes that he is not against Western modernization

although he finds “its nature” meaningless “which makes all roofs and

faces look the same” (The Lion 47). He believes they need to produce

their own products to change Ilujinle:

BAROKA: [. . .] Our beginnings will

Of course be modest. We shall begin

By cutting stamps for our own village alone.

As the schoolmaster himself would say—

Charity begins at home.

[. . .] For a long time now,

The town-dwellers have made up tales

Of the backwardness of llujinle

Until it hurts Baroka, who holds

The welfare of his people deep at heart.

Now, if we do this thing, it will prove more

Than any single town has done! [. . .]

I do not hate progress, only its nature

Which makes all roofs and faces look the same. (47)

Although Baroka’s idea of producing their own stamps is made to seem

progressive, he ironically deceives his own people, like Sidi, as he

deceived the colonizer in the past. Lakunle is aware of Baroka’s

cunningness, and he tells in a flashback scene how Baroka bribed a

white surveyor to stop the Public Works attempt to build a railway

through the village:

LAKUNLE [retreats just a little, but continues to

talk.]:

His wiliness is known even in the larger towns.

Did you never hear

Of how he foiled the Public Works attempt

To build the railway through Ilujinle. [. . .]

Did you not know it? Well sit down and listen.

My father told me, before he died. [. . .]

They marked the route with stakes, ate

Through the jungle and began the tracks. Trade,

Progress, adventure, success, civilization,

Fame, international conspicuousity ... it was

All within the grasp of Ilujinle .... [. . .]

Voluptuous beast! He loves this life too well

To bear to part from it. And motor roads

And railways would do just that, forcing

Civilization at his door. He foresaw it

And he barred the gates, securing fast

His dogs and horses, his wives and all his

Concubines ... ah, yes ... all those concubines.

(The Lion 23-25)

Baroka remains a comic character deceiving his own people and

seducing Sidi because postal service is not independent from outer

factors. Producing local stamps with Sidi’s face on them is neither a

national nor an international enterprise. Baroka is either not aware of

how the postal system works or he cunningly uses the idea of

producing stamps with Sidi’s face on them only to seduce Sidi. In this

respect, as Banham puts forth,

[t]he audience is invited to laugh at the naivety of

the Bale who thinks that he can run his own postal

service by printing stamps on this quaint machine,

but then may begin to wonder if in fact the Bale

isn’t outwitting them as well. He may know that it

is only a piece of rubbish even if he claims it as ‘The

work, dear child, of the palace blacksmiths / Built

in full secrecy’ (p.46), and he can even invoke the

god of iron, Ogun, to give the machine credibility.

But to Sidi it is the last boost to her vanity—a

machine that will carry her image and her

incomparable beauty around the world. It also

drives her straight into the Bale’s arms. (The Lion

and the Jewel: A Critical View 20-21)

To sum up, as Msiska argues, Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel “takes

a dim view of both mimicry and instrumentalist hybridity as strategies

of postcolonial development” through the characters of Lakunle and

Baroka (Postcolonial Identity 46). Therefore, as Pushpa also

summarizes, the play “exposes the self-seeking element in all the

characters” (112). As Pushpa further suggests,

[p]eople make use of the traditional ideas or the

modern ideas in accordance with their motivations

of pride and power and, not out of loyalty to an

abstraction like tradition, or out of moral or

religious conviction. (112)

As a result, the two characters are not better than each other, and

Baroka, as a cunning character (not because he is better than

Lakunle), has persuaded Sidi to marry him.

4.1.3. Women Representing Their Continent: Sidi and Sadiku

Colonialism, gender, and class problems are all interrelated

experiences. It is because colonialism has been built upon other forms

of power and domination. Patriarchal dominance is one of them.

Studies on colonialism and postcolonialism have shown us that

“women and men did not experience imperialism [and/or colonialism]

in the same way” (McClintock 6). As Anne McClintock puts forth,

[c]olonized women, before the intrusions of imperial

rule, were invariably disadvantaged within their

societies, in ways that gave the colonial reordering

of their sexual and economic labor very different

outcomes from those of colonized men. As the

slaves, agricultural workers, houseservants,

mothers, prostitutes and concubines of the far-

flung colonies of Europe, colonized women had to

negotiate not only the imbalances of their relations

with their own men but also the baroque and

violent array of hierarchical rules and restrictions

that structured their new relations with imperial

men and women. (6)

In other words, women were already being colonized by the patriarchy

before European colonialism. This situation is evident in Soyinka’s play

The Lion and the Jewel. Sidi and Sadiku are two major female

characters of the play, to be discussed in this subsection. There is also

Ailatu, Baroka’s favourite wife, but her name is only mentioned a few

times, and she speaks only two short sentences in the whole play, while

she is serving and trying to please Baroka (The Lion 36, 37).

In the play, the double consciousness of the male characters as

colonial subjects is obvious in their actions and thoughts, as discussed

in the previous subsections; however, interestingly, female characters

escape from this categorisation. Sidi, Sadiku, and Ailatu are already

colonized as women (by the patriarchy), which puts them into a

different position in terms of double consciousness. They do not fit into

the post/colonial double consciousness model we have seen so far.

They negotiate their position within their society as women rather than

100

being colonial subjects, which will be shown in the following

discussion.

Critics of The Lion and the Jewel mostly focus on the issues of

modernity vs. tradition, or some technical/theatrical aspects of the

play such as the use of mime

, dance, and songs; however, the

interrelation between gender and colonialism in the play cannot be

disregarded. Women of the play represent traditional Yoruba culture,

especially in terms of marital issues. Their choices depend on their

relations with the male characters, and they define themselves by the

codes of patriarchy such as being a married woman or being beautiful

and untouched. They are either silent—partially silent like Ailatu, or

completely silent like the bride in Death and the King’s Horseman—, or

their attempts to build agency are limited and sometimes

unsuccessful. In that matter, female characters’ relationship with

colonialism is mostly based on gender and sexuality.

From a broader perspective, female characters in the play represent

the African continent exploited (as a land) and victimised by both

patriarchy and colonialism. As McClintock explains, discourses of

imperialism (and colonialism) “[were] gendered throughout by the fact

that it was white men who made and enforced laws and policies in their

own interests” (6). As Oyeronke Oyewm also explains,

[t]he histories of both the colonized and the

colonizer have been written from the male point of

view—women are peripheral if they appear at all.

While studies of colonization written from this

angle are not necessarily irrelevant to

understanding what happened to native females,

African societies are highly theatrical, and “[t]here is a strong tradition of mimetic

action generally in African drama” (Banham, The Lion and the Jewel: A Critical View

15).

“The use of the African woman as a trope that represents her continent has been

recurrent in male-authored African literature” (Mohamed 221).

101

we must recognize that colonization impacted

males and females in similar and dissimilar ways.

(121)

Sidi is the central character of the play, who makes a choice between

Baroka and Lakunle. She is presented as a young woman who prefers

a traditional lifestyle from the beginning, acting against Lakunle’s

wishes to change her, and she chooses Baroka in the end. As Ogunba

points out,

[t]he main point of the play is the dilemma of choice

between the rival worlds of tradition and

modernism; and Sidi, a simple, illiterate, young

village beauty who is just ripe for marriage, is the

one caught in it. (32).

In fact, Sidi acts as a mediator between the two sides—Lakunle and

Baroka. As Sara Zargar points out, Soyinka

introduces two male characters and by them he

introduces two worldviews; the Afrocentric view

and the Eurocentric view. Hence, the play turns to

be a kind of ideological war between these two

poles; and furthermore, Soyinka sugar coats this

war by adding another important character who is

a female to mediate the conflict. (87)

In this respect, as Martin Esslin explains, Sidi might be representing

“Nigerian people who might believe in the impotence of the past but

will nevertheless experience its powers” (261).

Sidi’s positioning also deserves attention in terms of gender relations,

as stated at the beginning of this subsection. Her position in the

community is directed and decided by the actions of three male

characters: the photographer who is not even on stage, Lakunle, and

Baroka. Despite her self-defensive sentences with signs of feminism

especially against Lakunle’s constant humiliations, she cannot change

102

her destiny as a woman ruled by the patriarchy. Hence, Sidi can be

regarded as the symbol of Africa that has been dominated by both

colonialism and the patriarchy.

Sidi becomes locally famous after a photographer, who is an outsider

not seen on stage, takes her photographs and gets them published on

the cover page of a Lagos magazine. She is now more conscious of her

beauty than ever, “happily engrossed in the pictures of herself in the

magazine” as we learn from the stage directions (The Lion 19):

SADIKU: The Lion sent me. He wishes you well.

SIDI: Thank him for me.

[Then excitedly.]

Have you seen these?

Have you seen these images of me

Wrought by the man from the capital city?

Have you felt the gloss? [Caresses the page.]

Smoother by far than the parrot’s breast. (19)

She starts to believe she is the most important person of the village,

and more powerful than even Baroka:

FIRST GIRL: The Bale is jealous, but he pretends to

be proud of you,

And when this man tells him how famous you are

in the capital, he pretends to be pleased, saying

how much honour and fame you have brought to

the village.

SIDI [with amazement.]: Is not Baroka’s image in

the book at all?

SECOND GIRL [contemptuous.]: Oh yes, it is. But it

would have been much better for the Bale if the

stranger had omitted him altogether. His image is

in a little corner somewhere in the book, and even

that corner he shares with one of the village

latrines.

SIDI: Is that the truth? Swear! Ask Ogun to

Strike you dead.

GIRL: Ogun strike me dead if I lie.

SIDI: If that is true, then I am more esteemed

103

Than Bale Baroka,

The Lion of Ilujinle.

This means that I am greater than

The Fox of the Undergrowth,

The living god among men... (The Lion 12)

While she wishes to use Western objects like the magazine and the

stamp machine to gain a respectable place in the community, or to use

the materialist tradition of bride price, again, to maintain her

respectability as a woman, she becomes more open to manipulation

and domination. She loses herself to the degree of accepting Baroka’s

marriage proposal—even though it is not certain whether he will pay

the bride price.

The photographer is the one who is more responsible for Sidi’s sexual

objectification than Lakunle and Baroka do in the course of the play

since Sidi is primarily objectified through her bodily photographs.

According to Lina Papadaki,

[o]bjectification is a notion central to contemporary

feminist theory. It has famously been associated

with the work of anti-pornography feminists

Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, who

have argued that due to men’s consumption of

pornography women as a group are objectified.

More recently, it has been associated with Martha

Nussbaum [. . .] [The term] has been used [. . .] to

refer to a broad range of cases involving, in some

way or another, the treatment of a person (usually

a woman) as an object. (16)

For Nussbaum, objectification is basically “the seeing and/or treating

of someone as an object” (251; qtd. in Papadaki 22). Nussbaum argues

that there are seven major elements apparent in the objectification of

humans:

1. Instrumentality; The objectifier treats the object

as a tool of his or her purposes.

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2. Denial of autonomy: The objectifier treats the

object as lacking in autonomy and self-

determination.

3. Inertness: The objectifier treats the object as

lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity.

4. Fungibility: The objectifier treats the object as

interchangeable (a) with other objects of the same

type, and/or (b) with objects of other types.

5. Violability: The objectifier treats the object as

lacking in boundary integrity, as something that it

is permissible to break up, smash, break into.

6. Ownership: The objectifier treats the object as

something that is owned by another, can be bought

or sold, etc.

7. Denial of subjectivity: The objectifier treats the

object as something whose experience and feelings

(if any) need not be taken into account. (257)

Rae Langton adds three more features to Nussbaum’s list on

objectification:

8. Reduction to body: one treats it as identified with

its body, or body parts.

9. Reduction to appearance: one treats it primarily

in terms of how it looks, or how it appears to the

senses.

10. Silencing: one treats it as silent, lacking the

capacity to speak. (228-29)

Sidi’s situation involves almost all the elements underlined by

Nussbaum and Langton, as they are noted above. Sidi is treated by

both Lakunle and Baroka as if she were an object that can be used,

humiliated, degraded, manipulated, and merchandised.

From a broader perspective, Sidi’s victimisation through objectification

resembles the state of Africa as a continent that was objectified and

victimised under the colonial rule. In fact, Nussbaum’s and Langton’s

definitions of objectification (in terms of gender issues) resemble (in

terms of colonial discourse) what Aimé Césaire calls “thingification” in

Discourse on Colonialism (1950):

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No human contact, but relations of domination

and submission which turn the colonizing man into

a classroom monitor, an army sergeant, a prison

guard, a slave driver, and the indigenous man into

an instrument of production.

My turn to state an equation: colonization=

‘thingification’. (42)

As Césaire draws attention, colonial discourse has deliberately turned

subjects into things to be used for the benefit of the powerful.

According to Césaire, in other words, the colonized subject has been

treated as an object to be used, exploited, or bought and sold—like a

land, or Sidi in Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel.

Hence, it is possible to suggest that Sidi has been doubly dominated,

both by colonialism and the patriarchy—both blocking off all the roads

to individual liberation.

Sidi chooses Baroka over Lakunle at the end of the play; however, her

choices have been limited to two problematic male characters. As

Msiska puts forward,

[t]hat Sidi’s choice should be reduced to a

consideration of which of the two protagonists is a

lesser evil bespeaks the limited nature of the choice

offered to her in the play, a choice that suggests

that it may not be wrong to regard the play as

allegorical. (Wole Soyinka 13)

Ironically, she is determined to marry the one who pays the bride

price— in other words, treats her as merchandise—to gain respect as

a married woman in the community. And even more ironically, it is not

certain whether Baroka is determined to pay the bride price unlike

Lakunle. In this sense, it becomes impossible to see Sidi as a woman

who can escape from being a victim of the patriarchy. She is trapped

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and not capable of freeing herself from the expectations of the

patriarchal society she lives in.

As Chaabane Ali Mohamed argues, “women’s destinies in Soyinka’s

play are portrayed as being primarily determined by the cultural

situation of their community rather than by their own personal

choices” (223). In other words, this play is “configured as a contest of

masculinities,” and it is “remarkable for its representation of women’s

identity as merely part of the scene of the conflict between two men”

(Msiska, Wole Soyinka 17).

Sadiku

is the other female character whose voice we can hear in the

play, unlike Ailatu. As Baroka’s first and eldest wife, she takes the

mission of being a matchmaker

in order to find new wives for Baroka.

She tries to persuade Sidi to have a dinner with Baroka and to marry

him. She promotes her own position as if being a member of Baroka’s

harem were a good thing:

SADIKU: Sidi, have you considered what a life of

bliss awaits you? Baroka swears to take no other

wife after you. Do you know what it is to be the

Bale’s last wife? I’ll tell you. When he dies—and

that should not be long; even the Lion has to die

sometime—well, when he does, it means that you

will have the honour of being the senior wife of the

new Bale. And just think; until Baroka dies, you

shall be his favourite. No living in the outhouses for

you, my girl. Your place will always be in the

Both names “Sidi” and “Sadiku” are related to the idea of being faithful and loyal

according to some sources, which might mean that Soyinka has deliberately given

similar names to female characters to draw attention to women’s disadvantageous

positionality in Yoruba community, but it is not conclusive for a Western-oriented

reader or audience because of language limitations. This situation also shows us the

privileged status of audiences who know Yoruba language and recognize the intrinsic

signs of Yoruba culture, unlike the Western audience or reader.

As a matchmaker, Sadiku resembles the orange women of the Restoration Theatre,

who used to act as messengers between actors and audience members for

rendezvous.

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palace; first as the latest bride, and afterwards, as

the head of the new harem . . . It is a rich life, Sidi.

I know. I have been in that position for forty-one

years. (The Lion 20)

Sadiku is a faithful wife; however, being a messenger for Baroka puts

her into an ambivalent position in the community. In other words, her

slippery position gives her some level of power to play for both sides—

for both Sidi and Baroka—, as well as to play with the boundaries of

patriarchal domination. She tries to persuade Sidi to marry Baroka;

however, despite being Baroka’s mouthpiece, she becomes happy when

Baroka tells her about his impotence and his feelings of being old and

weak. She even regards Baroka’s weakness as a victory for all women

and celebrates his pathetic loss of power by dancing, singing, and

laughing, as will be discussed later in this chapter.

Sadiku can be regarded as another important trickster figure of the

play: a female trickster this time. She can even be marked as a counter

trickster, positioning herself against the male trickster representing

the patriarchy, Baroka. Ramachandran claims that Sidi is “the minor

trickster” (200) of the play, which is true if her manoeuvre about

marrying Baroka rather than Lakunle is taken into consideration;

however, Sadiku is the one who stands out as a powerful female

trickster figure.

Traditionally, the trickster figure is male in all mythologies although

he is also a shapeshifter crossing physical, social and gender-based

boundaries

. But unlike male tricksters, female tricksters are usually

completely ignored, as Lewis Hyde explains:

As Margaret A. Mills explains in her article, “Western theories of myth [. . .] have

defined the trickster as a particularly complex and ambivalent mythological figure

involved with creative cosmological events and with mythical moments when the

order of things, physical or social, is undergoing transformation. [. . .] While one

prominent feature of the trickster’s personality is gender ambiguity, the trickster is

almost always conceived in Western comparative theory as a male who can transform

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All the standard tricksters are male. There are

three related reasons why this might be. First,

these tricksters may belong to patriarchal

mythologies, ones in which the prime actors, even

oppositional actors, are male. Second, there may be

a problem with the standard itself; there may be

female tricksters who have simply been ignored.

Finally, it may be that the trickster stories

articulate some distinction between men and

women, so that even in a matriarchal setting this

figure would be male. (185)

In the play, Sadiku’s ambiguous messenger position gives her the

chance to play with the boundaries of power and language, as a

trickster. In fact, Sadiku seems to enjoy being recognized as a trickster

figure with animalistic attributes—of antelopes, and reptiles. She

reveals her acceptance of this role in her body language towards men,

as indicated in the stage direction:

Sadiku looks at him [Lakunle] for a moment while

he tries to replace his obvious enjoyment with

disdain. She shouts ‘Boo’ at him, and breaks into a

dance movement, shakes a sudden leg at Lakunle.

(The Lion 52)

On the other hand, aware of Sadiku’s cunningness that unsettles the

masculine power, both Lakunle and Baroka frequently use a

disrespectful, abusive, and violent language towards her:

SADIKU: Sadiku of the duiker’s

feet... that’s what

the men used to call me. I could twist and untwist

my waist with the smoothness of a water snake…

or disguise himself as a female, usually with comical and highly disorderly results”

(237).

“Duiker” is “any of 17 or 18 species of forest-dwelling antelopes [. . .] found only in

Africa” (Estes). They live in “closed habitats,” and they “rely on concealment to evade

predators” (Estes). As Richard Estes explains, “[g]ender differences are minimal: both

sexes possess short, straight, back-slanting horns (absent in female bush duikers

and some blue duikers), and females are often a bit larger than males [. . .] Duikers

live in monogamous pairs that jointly mark and defend their home range as a

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LAKUNLE: No doubt. And you are still just as

slippery.

I hope Baroka kills you for this.

When he finds out what your wagging tongue

Has done to him, I hope he beats you

Till you choke on your own breath…. (The Lion 52)

At another instance, Lakunle calls Sadiku a “witch” (51) whereas

according to Baroka, Sadiku is a lizard-like character who “loves to be

All-knowing” (44):

BAROKA: My beard tells me you’ve been a pupil,

A most diligent pupil of Sadiku.

Among all shameless women,

The sharpest tongues grow from that one

Peeling bark—Sadiku, my faithful lizard! [. . .]

SIDI [backing away, aware that she has perhaps

gone too far and betrayed knowledge of the

‘secret’.]: I have learnt nothing of anyone.

BAROKA: No more. No more.

Already I have lost a wrestler

On your account. [. . .]

Let one woman speak a careless word

And I can pin a wriggling—Bah! (The Lion 43)

Ironically, although the two women struggle with and question their

own status of power, of making their own decisions for their own lives,

their options are, unfortunately, limited in a community that

suppresses women’s desires and voices. At the end of the play, there is

no reversal of destiny for either of the women. In this respect, it can be

inferred (in terms of the issue of double consciousness) that despite

their individual attempts to liberate themselves from patriarchal (and

colonial) oppression, neither Sidi nor Sadiku can escape from double

consciousness as a state of mind.

territory.” Sadiku’s duiker resemblance is especially important: “small antelopes

often appear outside of the forest and other inhabited areas where they normally live.

This habit of appearing ‘out of place’ associates them with the TRICKSTER” (Werness

13).

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4.2. The Use of Non-Human Objects for/Against the Colonising

Culture

Characters in The Lion and the Jewel have been examined in terms of

double consciousness so far—manifestations of double consciousness

associated with colonialism and gender issues—; however, there are

numerous non-human objects in the play, which are used by the

characters to give meaning to their colonized environment. The non-

human objects become characters’ tools in their search for the

authentic self. Some objects represent the colonized culture while some

other objects represent the colonizing culture, and they all have their

specific functions. That is to say, the objects in the play have their own

functions and meanings beyond being simple stage props.

Primary objects

that originally belong to the colonized culture are

Sidi’s ethnic clothes, the pail of water she carries, the odan tree at the

village centre, and the statue of the Bale. We also see objects that have

been introduced to Yoruba culture through the colonizing culture. The

school building, the camera, the magazine—with Sidi’s photographs on

the cover page, the postage stamp, the stamp machine, the car, and

the motorbike are some of them.

The audience feels the existence of two different worlds on stage, from

the beginning of the play, through the immense odan tree and the

school building near it. The odan tree represents Yoruba life that is

apparent despite the existence of colonialism. Similarly, Sidi enters the

stage in traditional clothes, with a pail of water, unlike Lakunle, who

wears old-fashioned Western clothes. These details have already been

There are other objects that belong to the colonizing and the colonized cultures in

The Lion and the Jewel; however, they will be cited when discussing the

(meta)theatrical aspects of the play.

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discussed in the previous subsection while exploring the three main

characters.

Western objects draw more attention than the non-Western objects in

the play. Yoruba people avoid using the English dictionary words for

some objects of colonization. Instead, they use some descriptive

phrases of familiarization and appropriation. Sidi names a car “the

devil’s own horse” (The Lion 11)—or simply “the devil-horse” (13)—while

the village girls call a motorbike a horse with two feet; and the

outsider’s camera becomes “one-eyed box” (11):

FIRST GIRL: Sidi, he has returned. He came back

just as he said he would.

SIDI: Who has?

FIRST GIRL: The stranger. The man from the

outside world. The clown who fell in the river for

you.

[They all burst out laughing.]

SIDI: The one who rode on the devil’s own horse?

SECOND GIRL: Yes, the same. The stranger with

the one-eyed box.

[She demonstrates the action of a camera amidst

admiring titters.]

THIRD GIRL: And he brought his new horse right

into the village square this time. This one has only

two feet. You should have seen him. B-r-r-r-r.

[Runs round the platform driving an imaginary

motor-bike.]. (11)

Similarly, Baroka calls a bridge “this spiderwork of iron, wood, and

mortar” (46). His choice of words shows (formerly) colonized characters’

double consciousness, which comes out as a coping mechanism that

they have acquired under colonization. In other words, appropriation

of unfamiliar Western objects provides them with some level of

ambivalent power that produces its own survival mechanisms. It

should also be noted that the “spiderwork” in Baroka’s words means

spider’s web in this context. It might be (ironically) representing a trap

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(or trickery) of the colonizer, like a spider’s web. The spider’s web also

“shares the symbolism of the labyrinth as the dangerous journey of the

soul” (Cooper 190)—which can also be associated with the discussion

of double consciousness in this thesis.

Other Western objects are the magazine, the photograph, the stamp

machine, and the railway. The magazine and the photograph can be

categorised as liminal objects since they gain meaning in the storyline

through Sidi’s existence. In other words, they belong to both cultures.

On the other hand, the stamp machine that does not work yet and the

railway that is depicted through mime on stage represent Western

progress that the village of Ilujinle needs.

In brief, the characters use non-human objects to position themselves

for or against the colonizing culture. The characters are sometimes

aware of the importance of Western progress symbolised by objects like

the railway or the stamp machine—which is the case for Baroka and

even Lakunle; and at other times, objects help them in their search for

the authentic self against patriarchal dominancy, as in the example of

Sadiku’s relationship with the Bale’s statue. The scene about the

statue of the Bale is also significant in terms of the use of performative

acts in a patriarchal/colonial context, which will be discussed in the

following subsection.

4.3. The Use of Theatrical Space and (Meta)theatricality in

Colonial/Patriarchal Context

Plays are written for performance on stage, which gives theatrical space

importance in the reflecting and sharing of ideas, thoughts, and

feelings. As Western theatre has recognized since the time of Ibsen, the

performative aspect of theatre has a great capacity to dislocate and

dissolve dominant power structures including the issues of race, class,

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gender, religion, politics, and so forth. In this respect, as Helen Gilbert

claims, the term “postcolonial theatre” is employed

not only as a descriptor for the dramaturgical

products which have emerged in response to

European, and American, (neo)imperialism, but

also as a portmanteau term for any kind of

discursive resistance, particularly against class,

race and gender oppressions. ((Post)Colonial Stages

As a writer who originally comes from a highly theatrical community—

the Yoruba of Africa—, and as a postcolonial playwright, Soyinka has

consciously used the power of performative components of the theatre

to reflect the post/colonial situation effectively in his plays. The Lion

and the Jewel is certainly a play that exposes the power play between

the colonizer and the colonized, as well as the dissonance between the

patriarchy and women’s empowerment.

In his plays, Soyinka uses “metatheatrical devices in order to provide

his audiences with a dramatically distanced environment” (Anwar 68).

He uses plays within plays and flashbacks, and he extends textual

meanings with mythological and dualistic dimensions. In The Lion and

the Jewel, the theatrical space is enriched by these along with a variety

of other performative elements like dancing, singing, chanting,

drumming, and pantomime. This subsection focuses on three

outstanding metatheatrical scenes in the play, although it should be

noted that the play is throughout embellished with such dramaturgic

details. The chosen scenes are Sadiku’s dancing and chanting around

the carved figure of the Bale, the dance of the lost Traveller, and the

flashback scene of the railway bribery.

An important non-human object that belongs to the colonized culture

in the play is the carved figure of the Bale, which has also been stated

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in the previous subsection. As Eva L. R. Meyerowitz claims, “in no other

part of West Africa has the art of wood-carving flourished to such an

extent as in the Yoruba country in south-western Nigeria” (66). Carved

objects have religious significance in Yoruba culture, and they

represent authority—of gods, goddesses, and local leaders as

embodiments of religious/political power. In this context, as we

understand from the stage directions, Sadiku enters the stage at the

beginning of the third act, “Night,” with “a longish bundle” (The Lion

30). Sadiku is

very furtive. Unveils the object, which turns out to be

a carved figure of the Bale, naked and in full detail.

She takes a good look at it, bursts suddenly into

derisive laughter, sets the figure in front of the tree.

Sidi stares in utter amazement.

SADIKU: So we did for you too did we? We did for

you in the end. Oh high and mighty lion, have we

really scotched you? A—ya-ya-ya ... we women

undid you in the end. I was there when it happened

to your father, the great Okiki. I did for him, I, the

youngest and freshest of the wives. I killed him with

my strength. I called him and he came at me, but

no, for him, this was not like other times. I, Sadiku,

was I not flame itself and he the flax on old women’s

spindles? I ate him up! Race of mighty lions, we

always consume you, at our pleasure we spin you,

at our whim we make you dance; like the foolish

top you think the world revolves around you …

fools! fools! … it is you who run giddy while we

stand still and watch, and draw your frail thread

from you, slowly, till nothing is left but a runty old

stick. I scotched Okiki, Sadiku’s unopened

treasure-house demanded sacrifice, and Okiki

came with his rusted key. Like a snake he came at

me, like a rag he went back, a limp rag, smeared in

shame… [Her ghoulish laugh re-possesses her.]

Ah, take warning my masters, we’ll scotch you in

the end… [With a yell she leaps up, begins to dance

round the tree, chanting.]

Take warning, my masters

We’ll scotch you in the end. (The Lion 30)

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Sidi is curious about Sadiku’s joyful dance, which Sadiku explains

while still dancing and chanting around the Odan tree and the carved

figure of Baroka—both representing patriarchal authority:

SIDI: Why? What battle have you won?

SADIKU: Not me alone girl. You too. Every woman.

[. . .]

SIDI: Sadiku, are you well?

SADIKU: Ask no questions my girl. Just join my

victory dance. Oh Sango my lord, who of us

possessed your lightning and ran like fire through

that lion's tail… [. . .]

SADIKU: Oh you are troublesome. Do you promise

to tell no one?

SIDI: I swear it. Now tell me quickly.

[As Sadiku whispers, her eyes widen.]

O-ho-o-o-o-! [. . .]

Oh Sadiku I suddenly am glad to be a woman.

[Leaps in the air.]

We won. We won! Hurray for womankind!

[Falls in behind Sadiku.]

Take warning, my masters

We’ll scotch you in the end. (30-31)

The scene is important in terms of performative elements as well as the

use of language, and it reminds us of an important essay, “The Laugh

of the Medusa” (1975) by Hélène Cixous. In her article, Cixous defends

the idea that women must put themselves “into the text—as into the

world and into history—by her own movement” (875). In other words,

women should use their body and their language/writing to reclaim

their agency. Cixous also refers to Medusa, whose myth tells her fatal

gaze that instantly turns those who look at her into stone, and the

snakes in her hair that have been perceived as a death threat

throughout history: “No man unaided could kill Medusa” (Hamilton

201). Cixous reinterprets the story of Medusa, drawing attention to the

beauty in her laugh: “You only have to look at the Medusa straight on

to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing”

(885).

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The laughter emphasis is especially important when looking at the

connection between Cixous’s text and the scene from Soyinka’s play

given above. Sadiku has a “ghoulish laugh” re-possessing her (stage

direction, 30), like Medusa. Her laughter along with her bodily

movements of dancing and chanting become a way of liberating herself

from the patriarchal boundaries imposed upon her. In other words, the

visual and rhythmical ambivalence created through performativity in

Sadiku’s tirade brings another, metatheatrical reality to the stage—the

liberation struggle of women. In this respect, the double consciousness

of Sadiku, and of Sidi later joining her, comes to surface in this scene,

reflecting the oppression on women in their community. And bodily

performance and laughter give them the chance to play with/challenge

the patriarchal authority.

The second metatheatrical scene is about “the dance of the lost

Traveller” (The Lion 13). After village girls tell Sidi that she is now

famous because of her photographs on the cover page of the Lagos

magazine, out of enjoyment, they decide to “dance the dance of the lost

Traveller,” who is the off-stage photographer from Lagos (13). The

photographer becomes visible on stage through the dance performance

of other characters—of Lakunle, Sidi, and four girls from the crowd at

the village centre:

SIDI: Who will dance the devil-horse?

You, you, you, and you.

[The four girls fall out.]

A python. Who will dance the snake?

Ha ha! Your eyes are shifty and your ways are sly.

[The selected youth is pushed out amidst jeers.]

The stranger. We’ve got to have the being

From the mad outer world…. [. . .]

[Turns round slowly to where Lakunle is standing

with a kindly,

fatherly smile for the children at play.]

Come on book-worm, you’ll play his part. (13)

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While the scene gives Sidi the freedom of choice, the other girls become

the wheels of the foreigner’s car; and Lakunle, ironically, acts the part

of the man he has always wanted to be, the Lagos man:

LAKUNLE: [. . .] No, no. I won’t. This foolery bores

me. It is a game of idiots. I have work of more

importance.

SIDI [bending down over Lakunle who has been

seated forcibly on the platform.]:

You are dressed like him

You look like him

You speak his tongue

You think like him

You’re just as clumsy

In your Lagos ways

You’ll do for him!

[This chant is taken up by all and they begin to

dance round Lakunle, speaking the words in a fast

rhythm. The drummers join in after the first time,

keeping up a steady beat as the others whirl round

their victim. They go faster and faster and chant

faster and faster with each round.] (14)

With all its performative elements—of dancing, drumming, and mime,

the dance of the lost Traveller has two different metatheatrical

dimensions. One of them is related to gender issues, and the other is

related to colonial mimicry. In this flashback scene, along with Sidi

who has already been objectified through her bodily photographs in

real life as well as in the story of the lost Traveller, four women are also

objectified, by performing the wheels of the foreigner’s car. Lakunle, on

the other hand, plays the part of the foreigner who is also a male. In

other words, women are objectified once more in the dance of the lost

Traveller whereas men maintain their controlling position. Hence, the

dance of the lost Traveller incites and reaffirms the characters’ double

conscious that is based on both gender binaries and colonialism. At

that point, the other metatheatrical dimension comes to the foreground

when the scene is examined in terms of the relation between the

colonizer and the colonized. Women are still objectified and colonized

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by patriarchal thinking while they also become the wheels of a non-

human Western object that belongs to the colonizer. In this complex,

multi-dimensional scene which also involves the mimetic

appropriation and familiarization of foreign objects, Lakunle—as a

male—preserves his position:

LAKUNLE [raising his voice above the din.]: All

right! I’ll do it. Come now, let’s get it over with.

[A terrific shout and a clap of drums. Lakunle enters

into the spirit of the dance with enthusiasm. [. . .] A

mime follows of the visitor’s entry into Ilujinle, and

his short stay among the villagers. The four girls

crouch on the floor, as four wheels of a car. Lakunle

directs their spacing, then takes his place in the

middle, and sits on air. He alone does not dance. He

does realistic miming. [. . .] Lakunle clowning the

driving motions, obviously enjoying this fully. (14-

15)

As one can see in the quotation above, Lakunle enjoys his position of

being a mimic man (mimicking the foreigner, or the colonizer), even in

the play within the play. Thus, the mimetic element has multiple layers

in Lakunle’s actions: as a form of metatheatre—of action within action;

as the dominant male in his relationship with the female characters;

and as a colonized subject still experiencing the psychological effects

of colonialism.

The dance of the Lost Traveller also attracts attention in terms of the

depiction of natural elements on stage. Soyinka’s long stage directions

as if he is telling a story to the reader—characteristic for Soyinka’s

writing, but contributing to metatheatrical aspects in his plays—may

not make the actual performance on stage easier for directors and

performers although it increases the authenticity of the scenes. It is

because Soyinka’s voice involves too many local elements—even live

animals:

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The drums resume beating, a different, darker tone

and rhythm, varying with the journey. Full use of

‘gangan’ and ‘iya ilu.’ The ‘trees’ perform a subdued

and unobtrusive dance on the same spot. Details as

a snake slithering out of the branches and poising

over Lakunle’s head when he leans against a tree

for a rest. [. . .] A monkey, drops suddenly in his

path and gibbers at him before scampering off. (15)

Commenting on Soyinka’s voice in the playscript, in this respect,

Martin Banham explains that Soyinka’s visualization of the scenes

remains at a personal level:

Throughout the play Soyinka decorates and points

the action, and develops and forms the characters,

through a command of language that delights us

with its variety and with its pertinence to action

and personalities. The unifying force is

Soyinka himself—the recognizable voice of the

playwright/poet reaching through the action and

reminding us that the observation and the

comment is a very personal one. Soyinka’s voice,

his attitudes, hopes and fears, are always to be

quite clearly heard in all his work, for his plays are

statements of a point of view as much as they are

entertainment. As I have suggested earlier, Soyinka

cares for the traditional qualities of life . . . (The Lion

and the Jewel: A Critical View 14)

On the other hand, it is possible to argue that Soyinka deliberately

uses imagery and metaphors that are relevant to colonial discourse (as

a reminder of the colonial context)—in the stage direction given above

(15) and elsewhere. Monkey, for instance, is a special animal in colonial

discourse. Virginia Richter argues that “the ape has traditionally been

the mirror image of man, both his Other and his brother” (113). The

ape has a “proverbial capacity to imitate” human beings, which makes

it “a privileged border figure, a figure that represents the impossibility

of drawing a stable, unequivocal border between the animal and the

human” (113). In colonial discourse, “coloured people were alternately

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defined as human, sub-human or non-human” (114), as a necessity

for the colonizers to justify their treatment of non-European peoples,

which involved the (mis)use of anatomical resemblances between apes

and human beings, especially black people (reminding us of the Du

Boisian colour line). In this respect, as Richter argues, “the ape is in

two senses an ‘Other’: as non-European, and as non-human” (116);

and so, “it is possible to see in the ape’s imitation of its master an

instance of colonial mimicry” (117). Therefore, as seen in this example,

Soyinka’s choice of words can also be associated with issues of the

colour line, mimicry, ambivalence, and double consciousness.

Soyinka’s use of the “travelling metaphor” (Boehmer 52), likewise,

cannot be coincidental. The playwright, again, draws our attention to

the imperial and colonial past. Bill Ashcroft et al. state that “[t]he

phenomenon of global travel has been a feature of Imperial writing for

several centuries” (Empire Writes Back 207), and “[o]ne of the most

important vehicles of colonial representation has been the feverish

travel and plethora of travel writing by colonial travellers” (207). As

Faraz Anjum also underlines, “[i]t is [today] generally recognized that

travel writing is directly or indirectly linked with the European project

of colonialism” (199). In this respect, Soyinka’s choice of the word

“Traveller” recalls issues of colonial travel and “the representation of

the colonial other” (Ashcroft et al., Empire Writes Back 207).

The other metatheatrical scene that draws attention is the flashback

scene about the railway bribery. The scene has a plot within the plot,

which is put into words by Lakunle. Lakunle tells Sidi and Sadiku how

Baroka prevented “the Public Works attempt to build the railway

through Ilujinle” by bribing the surveyor (The Lion 23):

LAKUNLE: [. . .] My father told me, before he died.

[. . .] Well, the workers came, in fact

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It was prisoners who were brought to do

The harder part… to break the jungle’s back…

[Enter the prisoners, guarded by two warders. A

white surveyor examines his map (khaki helmet,

spats, etc.). The foreman runs up with his camp

stool, table etc., erects the umbrella over him and

unpacks the usual box of bush comforts [. . .]. His

map consulted, he directs the sweat team to where

to work. They begin felling, matchet swinging, log

dragging, all to the rhythm of the work gang’s metal

percussion (rod on gong or rude triangle, etc.). The

two performers are also the song leaders and the

others fill the chorus. ‘N’ijo itoro’, ‘Amuda el ’ebe

l’aiya’, ‘Gbe je on’ ipa’

etc.] [. . .] The work

continues, the surveyor occupies himself with the

fly-whisk and whisky. Shortly after, a bull-roarer is

heard. [. . .] Baroka enters [. . .] accompanied by

some attendants and preceded by a young girl

bearing a calabash bowl. The surveyor, angry and

threatening, is prevailed upon to open his gift. From

it he reveals a wad of pound notes and kola nuts.

Mutual understanding is established. The surveyor

[. . .] [r]e-examines the contents of the bowl, shakes

his head. Baroka adds more money, and a coop of

hens. A goat follows, and more money. This time

‘truth’ dawns on him at last, he has made a mistake.

The track really should go the other way. What an

unfortunate error, discovered just in time! [. . .] In

fact (scooping up the soil) the earth is most

unsuitable, couldn’t possibly support the weight of a

railway engine. A gourd of palm wine is brought to

seal the agreement and a cola-nut is broken.

Baroka's men help the surveyor pack and they leave

with their arms round each other followed by the

surveyor’s booty.] (23-24)

Lakunle ends the flashback scene described in the stage direction by

going on criticising Baroka’s lifestyle, calling him a “beast”:

LAKUNLE: Voluptuous beast!

He loves this life too well

To bear to part from it. And motor roads

As Oyin Ogunba states, it was a lewd pub song which was popular in the 1940s,

and it “later became a favourite percussion song among prisoners, especially when

they are engaged in manual labour, like grass-cutting” (44-45).

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And railways would do just that, forcing

Civilization at his door. (24)

The flashback scene is performed through mime on stage, which

makes it highly performative and metatheatrical. As Banham explains,

[t]he mimes emphasize the continuing life of the

community by taking us back into episodes that

are part of the lore of the people, events that have

their consequences in the present action and

which, by implication, will go on being retold and

re-enacted in the future as new generations

remember their roots and their traditions. (The Lion

and the Jewel: A Critical View 15)

Within this context, the colonizer we do not see on stage until Lakunle

talks about Baroka’s bribery becomes finally visible on stage through

pantomime. Also, the playwright stresses in the stage direction that

the surveyor is “white” (The Lion 23). This reminds us of Du Bois’s term

the colour line (The Souls v, 9, 24, 111) as a line separating the white

from the non-white in the colonial context.

Furthermore, as we learn from the stage directions, the stage props for

this particular scene involve a bunch of objects that belong to the

colonizing culture originally: a map; a khaki helmet; spats; a camp

stool; a table; an umbrella; and a box containing soda siphon, whisky

bottle, and sandwiches (The Lion 23). And there are objects which

belong to the colonized culture: a bull-roarer, a calabash bowl, kola

nuts, and animals that are objectified/merchandised—chickens and a

goat (24). While the two civilizations face each other on stage—with

stage props representing both sides—, the performative use of chorus,

rhythm and music enriches the scene: “All to the rhythm of the work

gang’s metal percussion (rod on gong or rude triangle, etc.)” (stage

direction, 23). As if to show the clash between the cultures, prisoners

and guardians are on stage while two performers sing local songs in

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Yoruba language with the chorus. All in all, a flashback scene is

animated on stage using highly performative elements: pantomime,

music, and chorus.

In conclusion, the mime scenes and the intense use of chorus, dance,

and singing in The Lion and the Jewel contribute much to the ritualistic

and metatheatrical aspects of the play (both in the Dionysian and

African senses). Soyinka himself describes the atmosphere at the end

of the play (as a comedy) as joyful and carnivalesque: “[f]estive air, fully

pervasive. Oil lamps from the market multiply as traders desert their

stalls to join them” (The Lion 58). After all, the play is highly ritualistic,

as Banham also underlines:

The mimes are carefully placed, with one important

one in each section of the play. They are an

essential element in the play, developing and

enriching the action in a most effective way. In

them we see Soyinka the poet relinquishing words

for actions that are every bit as articulate and witty

as his language and we are reminded of the

communicative use of dance and music and

masquerade in the Yoruba theatre. (The Lion and

the Jewel: A Critical View 15)

It can, thus, be argued that Soyinka’s utilization of (meta)theatrical

performance, ritualistic elements, carnivalesque representation (as a

means of releasing anger against colonization), and his use of witty and

satirical language reveal double consciousness as a state of mind in

relation to the hierarchical systems of colonialism and patriarchy.

4.4. The Dilemma of Double Consciousness and Negotiated

Positions Within Power Structures

To conclude the chapter, “the quest for roots, for identity is an endless

one” as Pushpa underlines (111), and all characters in The Lion and

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the Jewel are ambivalently caught up in the struggle between tradition

and Western modernization. This is a grey zone where characters can

direct their double consciousness for better outcomes, but they do not

succeed. As Msiska explains,

Soyinka examines the relationship between

tradition and modernity and finds that a modernity

that fetishizes surface things rather than its

essential spirit ends up being inimical not only to

the progressive elements within the discourse of

modernity itself but also to those of tradition,

creating conditions for more exploitative

interpretations of tradition to assume a validity

that a more critical view of modernity would easily

have undermined. (Postcolonial Identity 57)

In the negotiations of their positions within their established colonial

minds, the characters cannot free themselves from the psychological

struggle completely. Such conflicts and confrontations are covered in

Soyinka’s plays—even in a comedy like this—to make the audience

think more deeply. “Not always does the protagonist succeed” (Pushpa

111), as in the case of Sidi, whose mind and body are still dominated

by the patriarchy, no matter colonial or not. She wishes to gain

respectability in the community by using her bodily photographs—

which is primarily a Western object—while she also expects Lakunle to

pay the bride price, which is a custom far from Western modernization.

She tries to keep her dignity with her naturally-feminist responses to

Lakunle’s underestimating and mimicking behaviours, but she is

fascinated by Baroka, the epitome of patriarchy. Whether Baroka will

pay the bride price is not clear in the play, but Sidi still accepts

marrying him with the hope of seeing her photographs on local stamps

one day. In other words, Sidi becomes a victim of both colonialism and

the patriarchy to be able to gain status in the community. Although a

minor character, Sadiku is also another victim of the patriarchal

marital system, as being one of Baroka’s many wives.

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As for Lakunle, despite the fact that he is right in imagining a life in

socially and economically better conditions both for himself and other

village people, and although he is right in his criticism of Baroka’s

selfishness, he is in the vain hope that he can represent and make the

most of Western modernization with his educational and professional

status. Lakunle clearly represents a misinterpretation of Western

modernization. He is not aware that modernization of the society will

not happen by wearing high-heeled shoes or wearing lipsticks; and

cutting down trees for designing “parks” (The Lion 34) where lovers can

meet is “not only superficial but also environmentally destructive”

(Msiska, Postcolonial Identity 57), which is also dramatically ironic.

Baroka, on the other hand, “is not a simple anti-thesis of the shallow

schoolteacher” (57). On the contrary, he is

part of a mercenary breed of politicians, traditional

and modern, who have found a way of using

cultural hybridity as a means of pursuing

individualist projects in a manner inimical to the

postcolonial public good. (57)

Baroka’s primary aim is to protect his position of patriarchal power at

all circumstances, which he does with his cunning steps. Despite his

progressive ideas on using Western modernisation—the stamp

machine—for the benefit of his own people, he becomes an obstacle for

the village in front of modernization and urbanization, by preventing

the building of railways through bribery, as told by Lakunle. He also

manipulates Sidi in order to get her to marry him—just another young

woman among his many wives—by telling her that her photographs

will be on local stamps one day and make her permanently famous,

which is extremely unlikely. Even if the idea of producing their own

products, like stamps, is economically innovative, producing local

stamps with Sidi’s photographs on it does not compensate for the lack

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of inter/national postal communication or national transportation.

Therefore, it is possible to say that in The Lion and the Jewel,

Soyinka goes beyond the conventional tradition-

versus-modernity opposition, exposing both the

Negritudist return to the past and the ruthless

mindless modernism of the tree-cutting variety as

representing infertile soil for the necessary

reconfiguration of postcolonial society. (Msiska,

Postcolonial Identity 57)

In other words, when we look at the problem of modernization versus

tradition for formerly colonized communities, as in the example of

Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel, it is questionable

whether the overzealous embracing of Western

values by Africans aids in the process of creating

the sort of cultural symbolic arbitrary which

postcolonial Africa needs for its productive and

distinctive development. (Msiska, Postcolonial

Identity 46)

Therefore, although the characters in the play are in negotiation with

colonization in one way or another, they cannot free themselves

completely from colonial subjectification.

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CHAPTER 5

THE PROBLEM OF RE-INVENTING RACE

IN THE INVENTION (1959)

The works that mark a writer’s early phase of

development, sometimes referred to as ‘juvenilia’,

often provide significant pointers to the later,

mature work, the more accomplished productions

on which his or her reputation is based. This

justifies a full critical interest in the writer’s

beginnings, even when such beginnings can be said

to be tentative. (Irele, Foreword ix)

In this regard, we will go back to the beginnings of Soyinka’s literary

career in this chapter, when he produced The Invention (1959)

, a dark

and dystopic satire on the Apartheid in South Africa. The Invention is

a one-act play that foreshadows Soyinka’s later literary success and

exposes his consistent and continual political attitude to this day,

which deserves our attention. As emphasized also by David Attwell,

Soyinka’s South African writing [including a few

more works

] deserves careful attention, not for

what it reveals about South Africa, necessarily, but

for what it reveals about Soyinka himself,

especially the underlying ideological position of his

The UNISA Press edition (2005) of The Invention has been used for the quotations

in this chapter.

Soyinka dedicated his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1986, titled “The Past Must

Address its Present” to Nelson Mandela. Also, other works by Soyinka that deal with

the South African problem involve an epic poem titled “Ogun Abibiman” (1976), and

Mandela’s Earth (1988), a collection of poems. Soyinka also mentions having written

another play on the South African situation before writing The Invention, but he says

he exterminated the script as it was an unsatisfactory piece of writing for him (You

Must Set Forth at Dawn 37; Jeyifo, “Realms of Value” 117).

128

work—that is to say, his advocacy of what he

famously calls ‘the African world’. (33)

As it will be shown in this chapter, double consciousness as an

umbrella term is essential for a better understanding of Soyinka’s

drama from the very beginning, and The Invention is a play reinforcing

the idea that Soyinka has been exploring the issue of double

consciousness and other relevant concepts such as the colour line,

hybridity, and ambivalence since the earliest times of his literary

career. The Invention is also a play that anticipates postcolonial issues.

After his undergraduate education at the University of Leeds (1954-

1958)

, Soyinka moved to London, and he spent eighteen months

(1957-1959) as a play reader at the Royal Court Theatre

(Gibbs,

Critical Perspectives 7), where he also became a resident playwright.

Charles R. Larson describes the Royal Court Theatre as “a theatre

which has established its reputation in large part by introducing new

playwrights of the post-World War II theatrical revolution” (80), as was

the case for Soyinka. In November 1959, an evening program based on

Soyinka’s work was held at the Royal Court, which involved The

Invention for the first time on stage, along with a few other works by

him: a ballad in pidgin titled “African Proverb”; a highly recognised

poem titled “Telephone Conversation”; another well-known poem,

“Abiku”; and extracts from a play titled A Dance of the African Forest

which was changed later as A Dance of the Forests (1960) (Banham et

Soyinka studied at the University College in Ibadan in 1952. He then became an

undergraduate student at the University of Leeds between 1954 and 1958. He was

later awarded an Honorary Ph.D. by the University of Leeds in 1973 (Gibbs, Critical

Perspectives 5), followed by other honorary doctorate degrees at other universities,

including Princeton, Harvard, and Cambridge.

Soyinka’s “earliest appearance as an actor on the London stage” was at the Royal

Court Theatre in 1958, during the staging of Eleven Men Dead at Hola, “a revue

critical of British colonial policy in Kenya where some Mau-Mau detainees had been

beaten to death by camp officers” (Msiska, Wole Soyinka 1). Besides his work at the

theatre, Soyinka was also writing, teaching and broadcasting (Gibbs, Wole Soyinka

4).

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al., African Theatre: Soyinka 176). Soyinka’s engagement with the

Royal Court has been explored more in the 3.2 section of this chapter.

Indeed, The Invention is regarded as one of Soyinka’s first serious plays

(Motsa, Introduction 1; Larson 80). Despite this fact, the play was not

made public for almost half a century, until Zodwa Motsa got the play

published together with another early play by the playwright, The

Detainee (1965)

, in 2005. Accordingly, The Invention is known as

Soyinka’s “lost play” (Motsa, Introduction 1), and scholarly interest in

the play has been extremely rare until the present moment. This

chapter, therefore, will likely bring a new perspective to current studies

on Soyinka’s work while also shedding light on his early literary career.

The Invention is different from many of Soyinka’s later plays both in

terms of its content and its setting. The play unusually takes readers

to South Africa, and it reveals “Soyinka’s concern with Pan-African

problems, of Soyinka’s early work as a satirist of contemporary African

life” (Larson 80).

In fact, Soyinka’s concerns have always exceeded the borders of not

only Nigeria and the African continent, extending to the worldwide

problems of racism, colonialism, imperialism, and so forth since the

beginning of his career. In this respect, while Apartheid in South Africa

is the main topic of The Invention, the play explores other forms of

racial discrimination as well, in Europe and the United States. In that

regard, as Attwell underlines,

[w]hile it is true, then, that Soyinka’s attention was

generally focused on problems closer to home, it is

also clear that he could not resist the temptation to

break with declared intention and speak out on a

An autobiographical radio play by Soyinka, attributed to his imprisonment in

1967.

130

troublesome subject when the occasion seemed to

demand it. (32)

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning “apartness” or “separateness”

(Stevens 120; Mitchell 17). It was practised as a political system based

on racial segregation—and white-minority rule—in South Africa

between 1948 and 1994. As Garth Stevens explains,

this regulation extended into the cultural, social,

physical, and relational domains as well, shaping

subjectivities and racializing all aspects of cultural

and social life in South Africa. (120)

In an interview

with Biodun Jeyifo, Soyinka has clearly explained his

political and literary interest in the Apartheid that has been existent

since the beginning of his literary career:

Twenty-five years ago, [. . .] I was almost exclusively

concerned with the problem of black liberation

from the settler-colonial and apartheid obscenities.

As a student just beginning to write seriously, I saw

the political background in Africa as being situated

in Southern Africa, nowhere else [. . .]. So

colonialism, for me, was already dead [. . .].

My first two ‘serious’ plays were on Southern

Africa. One of them was a melodramatic piece

which [. . .] I realised that it was just ‘wrong’ and I

destroyed it in a sober moment

The other was The Invention [. . .]. Neither of

course was very satisfactory to me later on. (Jeyifo,

“Realms of Value” 117)

Originally from Contemporary Nigerian Literature: A Retrospective and Prospective

Exploration edited by Biodun Jeyifo. Lagos: Nigeria Magazine, 1985, pp. 23-27.

Republished in Conversations with Wole Soyinka (2001).

In You Must Set Forth at Dawn, Soyinka states that the play he set on fire was

about “a Boer family trapped in their farmstead, where they were slowly eaten by

black soldier ants,” but he did not find the play satisfactory enough after hearing a

lecturer’s comments in addition to his self-evaluation, and he burned the text

because of “self-censorship” (37). James Gibbs also notes that “[i]n the course of

describing the destruction of a copy of a radio play [probably the same play] from the

early fifties, [Soyinka] has provided information about what may be his ‘first play’”

(“Review of Wole Soyinka”).

131

Hence, as mentioned earlier, while Soyinka’s plays mostly deal with

Nigerian post/colonial problems with intense involvement of Yoruba

cultural markers in a distinctively Nigerian setting, The Invention is set,

exceptionally, in South Africa

. As Lindfors states, the play deals with

what was half a century ago the underlying cause

of the most intractable of South Africa’s political

problems: the racism institutionalized by the

government’s official policy of apartheid, or

separation of the races. (71)

Thomas Hayes also underlines in the Dictionary of Literary Biography

Yearbook: 1986 that The Invention is “Soyinka’s sole direct treatment

of the political situation in Africa” (qtd. in “Wole Soyinka”, Gale

Literature).

In the light of this background, we will see in this chapter that The

Invention satirically explores the idea that loss of skin colour (as the

South Africa was a former colony of the Dutch (1652) and the British (1806). The

Union of South Africa was formed when the British colonies of Cape, Natal, and the

republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State united in 1910 as “a self-governing

dominion of the British crown” (E. Wright 597). After the right-wing Afrikaner

National Party’s coming to power in 1948, “its all-white [minority] government

immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation”—namely the

“Apartheid” (“Apartheid: Definition & South Africa – History”). Apartheid intensified

“discrimination against the disenfranchised non-White majority” (E. Wright 597). As

Martin Meredith explains, “[s]tage by stage, the black population was subjected to a

vast array of government controls [. . .]. Every facet of their life—residence,

employment, education, public amenities and politics—was regulated to keep them

in a strictly subordinate role” (117). Furthermore, “more than three million people

were uprooted from their homes to satisfy government planners; millions were

imprisoned [. . .]” in the name of Apartheid (Meredith 117). The Apartheid relied on

the Population Registration Act (1950) which “assigned every person to initially three

racial groups, Bantu (Black), White, and Coloured (mixed race)” to which “a fourth

category, Asian” was also added (E. Wright 29). The groups were treated separately

“regarding land ownership, residence, marriage and other social intercourse, work,

education, religion, and sport” (E. Wright 29). South Africa became a republic in 1960

and left the Commonwealth in 1961 (E. Wright 597). However, the laws remained

effective for almost 50 years. After Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990

(after twenty-seven years of imprisonment), President F.W. de Klerk’s government

began to abolish most of the Apartheid-related legislation in 1991, and de Klerk and

Mandela later won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, for their contributions to liberation

in South Africa. The first multiracial elections were held in 1994, marking the end of

Apartheid, and Mandela became President till 1999 (E. Wright 597).

132

easiest way to discriminate between people), far from eliminating

discrimination, in fact, creates an urgency to discover ways of

continuing discrimination and legalised racism that, the play

indicates, are necessary for the ruling systems in countries all over the

world. The play primarily focuses on the “sudden loss of pigment by

South Africa’s black population,” which throws the government “into

chaos” as they are “unable to distinguish blacks from whites and thus

enforce its apartheid policies” (“Wole Soyinka”, Gale Literature). In

addition to that, there are other countries which “have anxiously been

watching the research of the South African scientists so that they too

may restore their own political systems to ones based on racial

supremacy” (Larson 81).

Although Soyinka wrote The Invention in 1959, the setting is a South

African laboratory in 1976, “a gleaming piece of futurization” (stage

direction, The Invention 20), with dystopic implications. In the play, as

delivered in the prologue by Bishop Kalinga “expressionlessly” (stage

direction, 20), after an American rocket carrying an “isoto-nuclear

bomb” (20) was sent up to Jupiter on July 4, 1976, as part of the

celebrations of the United States’ 200th anniversary of the Declaration

of Independence “and incidentally, of the Declaration of Human Rights”

(20), it explodes and hovers for some time in the sky from

Massachusetts to Madagascar and from there to the Antarctic Sea,

“twice beneath the North Pole until every compass upon earth was

distorted” (21), and then over the Cape of Good Hope

, finally landing

In The Invention, Soyinka seems to remind us of the history of this particular

location, as well as the extent of colonialism, by giving names of invaded places from

all around the world. European countries sent “royal missions to unexplored lands

to find riches, expand their empires and spread Christianity among the new subjects”

in the 15th and 16th centuries, which is when Cape of Good Hope was discovered by

Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, who later “found the trade route from Europe to Asia

through the Atlantic and Indian Oceans” (Ahmed, “10 Important Facts”). According

to Zahra Ahmed, Cape of Good Hope has significance in South African trade as it

“acted as a stopover for vessels sailing from Europe to the colonies of the Far East”

(“10 Important Facts”). The Cape was under Dutch control between 1652 and 1795,

and it as possessed by the British after the 1814 Anglo-Dutch Treaty in 1814 and it

133

“in a disused mineshaft in Johannesburg” (21). It is, thus, clear from

the beginning of the play that the global bouncing and stretching

movements of the American rocket symbolise the expansionist policies

of imperialist countries, situating the play in such a context.

Although people are convinced at first that the bomb is harmless, “this

abomination of man’s handiwork” (The Invention 21) either kills human

beings or distorts their appearance very soon. The bomb removes skin

pigment and distorts facial features, making everybody look almost the

same, which is a disaster for the continuity of the racial segregation.

In the character Glu’s ironic words, “[w]hen human beings become so

mutated that it becomes impossible to distinguish between black and

white – is that not the end of the world?” (The Invention 27). As if it

were the end of the world, huge amount of money is invested into the

laboratory—the setting of the play—where a group of South African

scientists do experiments “to discover means of distinguishing between

the races in this accidentally deracialized world” (Lindfors 72). They

carry out experiments on both dead and alive human bodies, trying to

create an invention which can show one’s genetic skin colour. In fact,

it is obligatory for the people of the area where the rocket finally landed

in South Africa to undergo the racial tests conducted.

One of the scientists has set off an alert to announce that he has

(although in an absurdly short amount of time) invented a machine—

off stage—that can show all forms of colour-based differences, more

than differentiating only between black and white. In the following and

in some other quotations from this play, terminology that is now

unacceptable and very insulting is used. It is hoped that readers will

understand that this play is a satire that is bitterly denouncing this

sort of language and the attitudes it portrays with such invective;

was named as the Cape Colony. Following the British rule, “it became a hub for the

African slave trade in the 18th century” (“10 Important Facts”).

134

quoting this passage and such words is a necessary part of the analysis

of the play, but the present writer wishes to distance herself from any

association with these attitudes, and has attempted to do so by

partially obliterating most of the words that are particularly offensive:

BYTRON: He claimed more than that, my dear Glu.

His Invention is going to be far more

discriminating. At a press of the button, it will

distinguish between the W[--], the N[-----], the D[--

-], the J[--], the half-breed, the half-caste, the semi-

breed, the inter-breed and their several

components, and any other permutation and

combination of the aforementioned races, right

back to the sixth or seventh root of the individual’s

genealogy

. (The Invention 29)

Soyinka’s criticism of racism and colourism (what Du Bois called the

colour line) is obvious in this highly ironic quotation. The Invention

hopefully described in the quotation above explodes—as did the

American rocket, which is also another irony of the play—, killing the

Inventor alongside some unfortunates who were being tested by it, just

before the arrival of Briklemaine and Mrs Higgins, American and

British representatives who are eager to see the Invention. To make

matters worse, the other scientists have no idea about how the dead

Inventor has now destroyed “Invention”; so, re-creating his work is

impossible, although that is what they are required to do, within just

fifteen minutes or less (29):

DIRECTOR: Did any of you know anything at all of

the Inventor’s work?

BYTRON: Ha! Ha! I knew it would come to that.

NEUBATEN: You know damn well that he kept his

information to himself—locked behind that door—

Sir!

It should also be noted here that while genealogy is the study of family origins, it

is part of ethnographic studies, opening the way for racial essentialism. In fact, the

word itself “comes from two Greek words—one meaning ‘race’ or ‘family’ and the other

‘theory’ or ‘science’” (Pine).

135

DIRECTOR: (Almost imploring) But you were all his

colleagues. Surely he must have dropped a hint to

somewhere? Some clue about his line of work?

BYTRON: Of course he did. I’m certain he did. But

you’ll have to ask the Special Committee which

investigated his claims. They ought to know. (The

Invention 43)

It is nevertheless imperative that they have an invention to show the

Envoys, who desire a machine that will enable them to advance their

local forms of apartheid/racism in their countries, who have invested

in the project, and who represent old and new world powers. Having

been informed that a working invention is ready for their inspection,

something valid, an invention-like creation at least, must be displayed:

DIRECTOR: (Sternly) I wish to remind you that we

are all in this together. We have a position to

maintain. As the spiritual leader of the world in the

philosophy of racial purity, we cannot afford to let

our disciples down. It would be an act of bad faith,

especially after all the money which they have

poured into our coffers. (Pauses) You moan then

that after over fourteen days of costly research we

have nothing at all to show our comrades? (He

pauses, again in vain.) (43)

When the Director asks whether any of the scientists admired the

Inventor’s “broad ideals, his methods, his devotion to the Great Cause”

(43), Fremuler comes forward with his heart “f-f-full of the unexpected

honour” (44). He eagerly becomes “the new Inventor” (43) of the

laboratory. The Director orders that the new Invention must be ready

before the foreign representatives arrive, in minutes; “[f]ifteen, ten, five,

maybe even less” (44), and it must certainly work: “Nothing less would

satisfy them, especially the delegation from America [Briklemaine]”

(44). He also adds that if something happens to Fremuler before the

representatives arrive, another scientist should be ready to replace him

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as well. The scientists are also told to “think a way of entertaining [the

Envoys] until the Inventor is ready to show [them] something” (45).

In the midst of such madness and absurdity, Fremuler—the new

Inventor, now working off-stage as did the old one—claims that the

Invention is finally ready. However, when he brings in what he has

done, the representatives are disturbed and upset by the appearance

of the Invention:

MRS HIGGINS: (Tearfully) It is horrible! Horrible!

Simply horrible!

BRIKLEMAINE: (Disgustedly) Yah! Did you have to

give it such an unprepossessing appearance?

[ . . . ]

BRIKLEMAINE: Well, back home we like things

kinda—draped up—you know, made to look

decent.

MRS HIGGINS: It’s too disgusting. I couldn’t bear

to touch it. (The Invention 60)

In fact, Fremuler has just shown them “three or four nothings” (stage

direction, 59); however, they are so eager to see an actual invention

that, ironically, they pretend that they have seen something.

Hardiburr, despite being called a fool by the others at the laboratory,

plays the part of the young boy in the tale of “The Emperor’s New

Clothes”

, being the only one to admit that there is nothing there, no

actual invention. When he loudly says he knows what the so-called

invention that they have shown to the Envoys, in fact, is, he is silenced

by the guards, by being put to sleep, as claimed by the Director. With

Hardiburr’s truth-telling silenced, the play draws to an end, with

everybody looking relieved.

In the light of all the background information given so far in this

chapter, it is possible to claim that The Invention requires a different

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen, 1837.

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approach to the issue of double consciousness in Soyinka’s plays.

Unlike the two plays discussed in the previous chapters, The Invention

necessitates a more thematic analysis. It is because the play itself is a

thorough-going satire that works on double discourse. That is, there

are ironic and interconnected representations of certain themes and

ideas related to racism, fascism, colonialism, and even hybridity. In

other words, unlike the previous two plays discussed in this thesis, the

whole plot of The Invention reflects the situation of double

consciousness, as a communal and international phenomenon.

Hence, the first subsection deals with the problem of race and the

misuse of scientific research and experimentation by the ones who are

politically and economically powerful. Since the relevant themes are all

interconnected, the two issues have been handled together in the first

subsection. The second subsection focuses more on the dramaturgical

aspect of the play. The Royal Court production of the play is discussed

in the second subsection with respect to where the audience and the

author stand in terms of double consciousness as an interactional and

reflexive concept. The third subsection involves an evaluation of the

title of the play as a metaphor with double discourse. Despite all the

attempts and global investments to invent a device to recreate racial

discrimination based on skin colour, such an invention does not exist

after all. Therefore, there is one thing certain: race is a human

invention.

5.1. The Problem of Race and the Misuse of Scientific Research

and Experimentation by the Powerful

Bernth Lindfors argues that “[r]ace science [is] the primary and

paramount focus” (78) throughout The Invention, but as the staged

focus of irony, this focus itself is a doubled discourse. In the play,

eradicating physical racial differences is shown to potentially

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destabilise the power structures of nations; and the play reveals that

removal of such visible signs of difference would render racism more

acute in a world where discrimination is an inherent and necessary

part of the dominant political and cultural discourses. In this way, The

Invention holds up to the audience various and shocking examples of

racist thought and action in a highly grotesque and satirical manner.

While Soyinka primarily criticizes the Apartheid

in South Africa in

The Invention, he refers to many other historical and ongoing political

problems of the West, which have directly or indirectly affected the rest

of the world. This is certainly not coincidental. Soyinka criticises the

irrational actions of major colonising/domineering countries of the

West—of the United States, Britain, and Germany—along with the

problem of the Apartheid in The Invention. Hence, it is important to

note that behind the simple characterisation lie big political ideas in

Soyinka’s play, which also anticipates Soyinka’s later combinations of

certain theatrical and dramatic techniques with his consistent political

and literary stance. This short early play is more condensed than his

later works, however, bringing together ideas and techniques that his

later plays investigate separately, or in a more measured way, with

greater focus and subtlety.

In addition to the complexities of irony, the double rhetoric of racism

is evident in other aspects of The Invention as well. There are different

opinions uttered on stage, for instance. For while some characters

question whether an invention that will recreate racial discrimination

As Ashcroft et al. explain, “[t]he term apartheid acquired very widespread

resonance, and it became commonly used outside the South African situation to

designate a variety of situations in which racial discrimination was institutionalized

by law. An extreme instance of this is when the post-structuralist philosopher and

cultural critic Jacques Derrida employed the term in an influential essay, suggesting

that it had acquired a resonance as a symbol that made it an archetypal term of

discrimination and prejudice for later twentieth-century global culture (Derrida

1986)” (Post-Colonial Studies 18).

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is truly necessary for the sake of humanity, some others represent and

vocalize extremely racist and violent ideas. Bytron, for instance, voices

the opinion that differences in colour will be eradicated naturally

(presumably by mixed-race genetics), in time, while other scientists

find the idea disgraceful and unthinkable:

BYTRON: And anyway, what is all the fuss about.

All what has happened is that mankind has

skipped two or three hundred years in its evolution.

(Muffled gasps and shock responses greet this

statement. Then complete silence for a few seconds.)

GLU: (His beard wagging furiously) That was

treason. [. . .]

NEUBATEN: You are a disgrace. Bytron. I think

somebody ought to tell you. You are a disgrace to

your fellow men. (The Invention 28)

Briefly, the play brings together the interwoven subjects of racism and

the abuse of scientific research and experimentation controlled by the

politically powerful, as will be explored in this subsection. The sub-

subsections involve some issues related to hybridity, the colour line,

race, and the use of power.

5.1.1. Hybridity and the Loss of Skin Pigment

The Invention was written less than two decades after used atom bombs

on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), and while the US nuclear

experiments were conducted, with unwanted results:

The fifties saw a number of nuclear tests and some

experiments with rockets, a proportion of which

went spectacularly wrong. For example, during

1956, the relevant United States agency had lost

contact with a Snark missile that was still ‘lost’

when Soyinka was writing. In The Invention

Soyinka brought these ‘scares’ together with his

140

concern about apartheid.

(Banham et al., African

Theatre: Soyinka 176)

As the Prologue informs readers, the futuristic play is set in the

aftermath of a failed US rocket experiment dated July 4, 1976, which

mistakenly sent the rocket flying over different parts of the world for

some time before it crashed in Johannesburg, South Africa. The

explosion killed and wounded many, and disfigured survivors, as

Kalinga explains:

BISHOP KALINGA: [T]his abomination of man’s

handiwork hit us and killed us and twisted us till

no man can say today whether he is flesh or

vegetable. And amidst this carnage, the only fact

that distresses my countrymen is that they can no

longer tell who is black and who is white. The

wealth of the nation has gone into a laboratory

where must men submit themselves to the testing

of… (The Invention 21)

Those most affected by the nuclear disaster are the people of South

Africa, whose faces are “hideously deformed or simply pasty with sickly

grayishness” (The Invention 20), blurring expressions and

extinguishing physical traces of racial differences. As people have lost

their distinctive skin colours, it has become impossible to differentiate

between who is black and who is white, or any other colour. Those from

more distant places, such as the two envoys from the United States

and Britain—the very figures who symbolise imperialism —, “are not

so badly affected” (The Invention 20).

James Gibbs argues, in this respect, that “[t]he ‘dramatis personae’ of

The Invention include some whites [as implied by their dialogues] and

a black bishop [whose blackness is also only implied] but most of the

Italics in original as part of the stage direction in the James Currey edition (2005)

of The Invention edited by Banham et al.

141

characters [are] [. . .] racially indeterminate.” (“The Masks Hatched

Out” 78). It is not possible to definitely identify these characters’ race

or colour by looking at the characters’ names either—despite being

distinctive names—since most of the names seem to have European

origins, which could be implying that the scientists—Cruger

, Bytron,

Fremuler, Neubaten, Hardiburr, Destus—were white, but also that

they could be mixed race, or of any colour or race, using those names

for any variety of historic or other reasons. In other words, names of

the characters in the play are not direct indications of any character’s

(predisaster) skin colour; on the contrary, the fact that names are not

identifiers of race remind the audience of the very superficial ways in

which race distinctions are made in discriminatory discourse, showing

that racism is based upon superficial appearances only, and no real

biological differences. While the names could indicate people of any

race, and one (Glu) is of no identifiable linguistic origin, only Bishop

Kalinga

who utters the prologue has an evidently non-European type

of name, implying that he might be a non-white person. In the case of

all characters, it is their dialogue that most clearly implies their racial

affiliations – if they are not dissimulating, which may indeed be the

case with those whose dialogue indicates their whiteness. Kalinga,

however, is the only character who does not use dialogue to imply

whiteness; further, his intelligent speech (he is the only character who

shows consistent intelligence) is used to ridicule and cast doubt upon

the necessity of attempting to re-establish colour-related

discrimination, through the development of the invention:

“Cruger” is an altered form of the name “Kruger.” It was the name of a South

African/Boer statesman, full name being Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, who

was the president of the South African Republic between 1883 and 1900. He played

an active role in the Boer War (1899-1902), by opposing to “Cecil Rhodes” and

denying “civil rights to the Uitlanders” (“Kruger”).

“Kalinga” is the name of a historical region in India, and the name of an ethnic

group, the Kalinga people. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the name

represents “any of several peoples inhabiting northern Luzon, Philippines”

(“Kalinga”).

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PUBLIC PROSECUTOR: (Comes forward) One

moment, you. Are you a white bishop or a black

bishop?

KALINGA: [. . .] Is this a game of chess?

(The PUBLIC PROSECUTOR signals to someone off-

stage. Two guards appear from the darkness and

march off the BISHOP [. . .]) (The Invention 21)

The guinea pigs used in the trial of the Invention—a Farmer, Prime

Minister’s Brother-in-law, and a Woman—, on the other hand, are not

given names but only tags, echoing at the level of dramatis personae

their being deprived of their personhood in the staged laboratory

testing. In addition, like the inventor and the machine too, their voices

are only heard off-stage.

The new circumstances of the play’s futuristic setting are shown, for

obvious reasons, to endanger the continuation of the Apartheid regime.

In the play, not being able to categorise people by their skin colour or

other racial markers effectively renders inoperative Apartheid as it was.

The possibility of eradication of physical signs of race also alarms

supporters of the established segregationist

policies in the United

States, as represented by Briklemaine, the American envoy who is also

a Ku Klux Klan

member. Briklemaine reinforces the need to

discriminate between races through physical features when he says:

“Jim Crow” is a pejorative term for African Americans, which dates back to a stage

performance by Thomas Dartmouth Rice in the 1830s. Rice was blackening his face

“to present a mocking exaggerated imitation of an African American” through which

he “not only created the template for other staple minstrel show characters, but he

also fed on, heightened, and popularized pernicious stereotypes of African Americans

even as his presentation reflected white fascination with Black culture” (Wallenfeldt).

It was adapted in the late nineteenth century “as the identifier for the laws that

reinstated white supremacy in the American South”, and “the demeaning caricature

was used to legitimize notions of the alleged inferiority of African Americans and to

rationalize the denial of equity and access that was at the heart of segregation”

(Wallenfeldt). Lively explains that “[t]he most visible signs of the hardening of racial

attitudes in America were the ‘Jim Crow’ segregation laws that spread across the

South from the 1880s onwards. Jim Crow laws began on the railroads, with

designated (and inferior) carriages for blacks, but multiplied to cover just about every

aspect of public life” (162).

Ku Klux Klan is “either of two distinct U.S. hate organizations that employed terror

in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. One group was founded immediately

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BRIKLEMAINE: It is a pity that the hair was also

affected. It was a fool-proof way of telling the

n[-----] apart. (The Invention 55)

(His interest in the Invention is that it could not only restore these lost

signs of racial identity, but that—in an America whose populations still

have their skin colours—it could reveal physical markers of racial

origins that have become indistinct through generations of mixed-race

parentage, as later dialogue shows). The South African loss of a

distinctly African hair type is merely found amusing by Mrs Higgins,

who is the “secretary of the Association of British Landlords,

Landladies and Landowners” (The Invention 51), and thus symbolically

associated with British colonialism and its disrespect of the colonised:

MRS HIGGINS: (Giggling) The explosion certainly

took the kink out of the black man’s hair. (55)

Mrs Higgins’s attitude shows us that discrimination can lead to the

othered colonial subject being objectified to the extent of a complete

lack of recognition of a shared humanity, and therefore to lack of

empathy, and abusive disrespect.

The outcomes of the new and uncertain situation in the play are, thus,

far from remaining a problem restricted to South Africa. That is why

the scientists in the laboratory are frequently reminded that they are

working for the sake of “humanity” as a whole, not just to re-establish

racial segregation in South Africa. Dystopic (Orwellian) loudspeakers

in the laboratory have become tools for controlling the scientists, as in

1984 through the use of inflammatory nationalist and racist—and here

also religious—discourse:

after the Civil War and lasted until the 1870s. The other began in 1915 and has

continued to the present” (“Ku Klux Klan”).

144

ALTOGETHER: We dedicate ourselves to repairing

the damages of the isoto-nuclear blast.

We swear to discover and reveal any man who

seeks to take criminal advantage of the isoto-

nuclear mutation.

We will never rest until mankind is redeemed

LOUDSPEAKER: Amen. Gentlemen. Amen. And

now kindly rest your brains and play your favourite

records on the microgram. We greet you all, first

Citizens of the State. (The Invention 22-23)

The ambiguous situation of losing skin colour leads to dystopic,

inhumane, and abusive experiments at the laboratory, as revealed in

the dialogue and action of the play, reflecting the painful existence of

racial discrimination worldwide. However, the idea behind the

playwright’s explanation that all South African characters have

become grey, resonates with the future theorisation of racial

positioning being more to do with the attitudes and minds of the

racially discriminatory beholder (whether from a dominant or non-

dominant group) than to do with colour or parentage, as raised in the

1980s with the postcolonial abstraction known as hybridity (Bhabha,

The Location of Culture 5). In other words, in the play the grey colour

has dissolved the physical binary oppositions that endorse racial

categorisation, leaving supporters of racial discrimination (worldwide)

struggling to find other ways to continue their racist policies and

structures, indicating understandings of racist thinking that would

only be pursued thirty years later, in postcolonial theories.

While the now-common grey skin colour and deformed, expressionless

faces provide South African characters with the possibility of hiding

from the South African racial segregation, as in later theories the play

shows that this artificial hybrid-like way of characters potentially

belonging to both sides of the Du Boisian colour line creates an

The sentence is given as “‘We will never rest until Mankind is restored unto its

Natural Complexion God being our helper. Amen’” in the Banham et al. edition, 2005.

145

ambivalent relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed, or

the colonizer and the colonized—on a global scale. The oppressor feels

threatened by the power the sameness of the skin colour could provide

the previously oppressed ones with. As a result, we get to the situation

of the plot of this play, which is that the oppressor starts to look for

ways of differentiating between races previously marked by darker or

lighter skin colours in the play, to recreate racial discrimination so as

to regain his/her allegedly superiority.

Again, ironically, although re-creating racial paradigms is the primary

aim of the whole experimental research in the play, it is ideologically

backwards for today’s world, which creates the dark, dystopic, and

bitterly satirical atmosphere behind the storyline for today’s audience.

As Larson ideally emphasizes,

[i]f the world is all white, who will be exploited? The

bomb has destroyed the very foundations upon

which Western civilization has been constructed:

racial prejudice. Soyinka’s satire is bleak; he is as

much a pessimist here as he is in his later political

works, Kongi’s Harvest [1965] and Madmen and

Specialists [1970]. (80)

To conclude, it can be claimed that Soyinka plays with the binary

paradigms such as black/white, Asian/white, Western/non-Western,

the oppressor/the oppressed, the segregator/the segregated, the

colonizer/the colonized, and colonialism/ (anachronistically)

postcolonialism in an unusual and courageous way, ahead of his time

in The Invention. Neither Nigeria nor South Africa, nor the United

States of America, nor Britain were free from racial discrimination

when Soyinka wrote The Invention, and hybridity as a theoretical

concept had not yet been developed. In this respect, it is striking to see

how Soyinka anticipated and handled an issue close to postcolonial

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discussions of hybridity in a satirical manner in one of his very first

plays.

5.1.2. Racism, the Colour Line as a Problem of the World, and

Ambivalent Power Relations

According to Peter Osborne and Stella Sandford, the concept of race

has “a disreputable past and an uncertain future, yet it continues to

trouble the present, both politically and intellectually” (1). Osborne and

Sandford find this situation

politically troubling because of its enduring, and in

many places increasing, practical significance as a

hierarchical mode of social differentiation and

exclusion—that is, as a fundamental form of social

division. (1)

With this in view, Du Bois’s ideas on double consciousness, racism,

and the colour line of the previous century are still relevant today. As

Eric Porter suggests, “Du Bois’s scholarship, epistemological

standpoints, or narrative strategies continue to provide a useful

methodology” for studying issues of race (8).

In his well-known sentence from The Souls of Black Folk (1903) “[t]he

problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line” (Du

Bois v, 9, 24), Du Bois refers to problems related to “race, racial

domination and racial exploitation” (Karenga 141). As Karenga and

others have noted,

[w]hen we engage W.E.B. Du Bois's work and

thought to extract useful insights and develop

intellectual and social initiatives based on these,

we unavoidably must deal with his concept of the

color line and the role he assigned it in African and

human history (Butler, 2000; Fontenot, 2001;

Juguo, 2001; Rabaka, 2001). (141)

147

In relation to this thesis’ analyses of Soyinka’s Du Boisian insights, the

term colour line is especially useful in relation to The Invention. This is

because the colour line as a sociological concept “refers essentially to

the role of race and racism in history and society” (Karenga 141) and

can thus be observed very distinctly in Soyinka’s play. Soyinka’s play

shows us the problem of the colour line and racial discrimination on a

global scale, in a most satirical way.

The Envoys—Briklemaine and Mrs Higgins—represent economic and

political powers of the world in The Invention; so, they are perhaps the

most exposed characters because of the racist ideas and behaviours

they stand for. While Briklemaine represents the United States; Mrs

Higgins represents Britain; and Director of the Laboratories, the Public

Prosecutor, an Ex-Racial Security Officer, and the Guards represent

the privileged people of South African Apartheid. The common problem

of all is the loss of the colour line, which has made racial discrimination

mostly—and globally—ineffective.

Soyinka links “South Africa and the United States together as two

nations whose political and economic structures are based on racism”

in The Invention (Larson 81). Briklemaine is a Ku Klux Klan member,

who is a defender of physical violence against black communities in

the United States, showing us how the colour line (or the colour bar)

otherizes less powerful groups. He makes it clear in his long speech

directed towards the scientists that the current experiment is

important for American people too, since white Americans want to

maintain the continuity of racial segregation so that they can protect

white supremacy:

BRIKLEMAINE: [. . .] We have progressed since

then, and we are now able to boast that we are the

only country in the world which has learnt to

condition the n[----] from birth, no sir, from his very

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conception, so that he grows up respecting the

white man, and keeping himself in his place.

Lynching, I am happy to say, is now a thing of the

past [. . .]. [A]t Yuletide

we like to burn a n[-----]

or two, just to remind us of old times… But this

bomb gentlemen, has set us back nearly fifty years.

This accursed mutation, gentlemen, is as

frightening, as disgusting as [. . .] it is as intolerable

as miscegenation

—please forgive the ugly word.

Do you realise, fellow sufferers, that in twenty

years, the President of our young Southern

Federation may be a n[-----], and no one would be

any the wiser? That, Sirs, is why your laboratory is

important to us. (The Invention 52)

Briklemaine’s words inform the audience of the magnitude of the

problem of the colour line and how far racism can go, from name-

calling and degrading black people, to the extent of murder—

something that was less evident to white audiences of 1950s London

than it is now. Briklemaine is also disturbed and feels insulted by the

idea of miscegenation, another way of crossing or at least blurring the

colour line.

Briklemaine holds on to the hierarchical relationship between the

black and the white in the United States, at least as much as—and in

most likely because of—he has a deep fear of losing power and control

over non-white people. The current situation is “frightening” in his own

words (52). This paradox reveals the ambivalent and potentially

inconsistent relationship between the white/the oppressor and the

black/the oppressed.

An archaic word identified with the Christmas period. Yule is “[a]n old Nordic

festival at the end of the year, lasting 12 days” (Parrinder, A Concise Encyclopedia of

Christianity “Yule”).

Robert J. C. Young states that the word “miscegenation” was invented in 1864,

and until that time, “the word that was conventionally used for the fertile fusion and

merging of races” was “amalgamation” (Colonial Desire 9).

149

According to Briklemaine, the scientists are like “demi-gods,” and the

Inventor is like the “God himself” as they are all working for a holy ideal

in his eyes or, at least, in his discourse (The Invention 52). That is why

he has brought “a cheque for twenty-five million dollars” (52) to support

the experiments. He also brings a gift for the Inventor, unaware that

the actual Inventor died shortly before their arrival. It is symbolic of

the US government’s mission to uphold the colour line and pursue

their own brutal version of apartheid actions:

BRIKLEMAINE: It is an exact replica in velvet and

satin, of our national flag… the hood of the

immortal Ku Klux Klan… (The Invention 52)

His gift represents and glorifies the toxic segregationalism at the heart

of nationalism. The Ku Klux Klan hood, correspondingly, is associated

with hate, racism, and violence.

Mrs Higgins from Britain, on the other hand, has brought only

“Fourteen pounds, two shillings and eight pence” (The Invention 53) to

support the experiments. She works as the secretary of the Union of

British Landlords, Landladies, and Landowners, and she collected the

money during the last meeting of the union:

We did expect a little more support from a lot of big

people. For instance the League of Empire Loyalties

did promise something but you know how it all is…

anyway, it’s the spirit that counts, here it is… (53)

Soyinka probably refers

to the League of Empire Loyalists through

Mrs Higgins. The League of Empire Loyalists was founded in London

in 1954, by Arthur K. Chesterton

, “who had been prominent in the

It is also possible that Soyinka refers to the Commonwealth, which consists of the

United Kingdom and mostly former members of the empire, with common economic

(and cultural) goals.

Chesterton was a former leading figure in the British Union of Fascists between

1933 and 1938.

150

British fascist movement between the two world wars” (Panton 283).

As a right-wing organization, their aim was to act against the collapse

of the British Empire. It was one of the organizations that “fuelled”

“racial antagonisms” in those years—an example being the attack of

300-400 people on “the homes of West Indians in the Notting Hill area

of west London,” on 29 August 1958 (Panton 137). When Soyinka,

working in the Royal Court Theatre only a few miles away, wrote The

Invention, he was very aware of such racist violence.

With Mrs Higgins Soyinka refers not only to racism within Britain and

the colonies and ex-colonies, but also to the newly emerging

Commonwealth. And the post-war loss of power and empire, and

Britain’s economic decay, are amusingly indicated in the play by Mrs

Higgins’s inability to collect more than a small amount of money as her

contribution to the South African laboratory.

Mrs Higgins’s being the secretary of the Union of British Landlords,

Landladies, and Landowners is evidently not coincidental, either. In

addition to symbolising colonial landownership, it had

autobiographical reverberations for the playwright. As Larson points

out, “Soyinka had witnessed many examples of racial prejudice during

his four years of student life in Leeds and London” (81), one of which

is recalled by Soyinka in a poem he wrote, recalled in his later memoir

You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006). The poem “Telephone

Conversation” was, he says, “the record of an exchange with a

landlady” and “only one of [his] many trite encounters with British

racism” (36). Briefly, the poem is about an African person’s effort to

rent a room from a white landlady on the telephone.

Thus, as seen in the examples from the play, Soyinka shows and

criticizes the world-wide problems of racism and the colour line in a

most dark and satirical way.

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5.1.3. The Use of Human Body for Racial Experiments

European and American scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries

generated pseudo-scientific racist ideas to justify the exploitation and

abuse of non-white people. It was called ‘scientific racism.’ Their aim

was to prove that human beings were divided into races that were not

equal, and that whites were the superior race. It was enabled and took

the form that it did largely because “[t]he form of rationality that

predominated in the Enlightenment was primarily classificatory”

(Rattansi 25). Classifying other races as inferior enabled the political

and philosophical thinkers of the time to

explain the contradiction between the belief in

human equality expressed during the American

and French Revolutions and the emergence of

slavery in the United States and several European

countries. (“The Science of Race”)

It is likely that Soyinka was inspired by the dystopic and ongoing

history of violence and discrimination known as scientific racism when

he wrote The Invention. In the play, the scientists in the laboratory,

who are unqualified and unable even to sustain rational discussion,

use body parts and bodily fluids for their pseudo-scientific

experiments, trying to create an invention that will once more enable

racial discrimination. Both living and dead bodies are used for their

experiments, and—as implied by off-stage dialogue—the living guinea

pigs are forced to undergo degrading treatment. Bytron examines “the

clothing of suspects” as he tries to prove that “the secret lies in the

sweat of the human body” (The Invention 54). He “carefully select[s] the

portions of underneath the armpits, the back of the neck and the

genitals” (55). Ironically, Bytron “used to be a manufacturer of

perfumes” before the nuclear explosion (55).

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Cruger studies “the human nose,” on the other hand, and he claims

that “the nostril contains enough matter to furnish a hundred juries

with a thousand convictions a day” (55). Destus, likewise, analyses “the

invisible components of the human hair” (55), and they work with

Cruger “in harmony” (55). Neubaten “believes that the secret lies in the

waste liquids which flow from the human body, in this case, the urine”

(56). He used to be a professional wine taster before the explosion; so

now he tastes urine while taking his notes.

Fremuler, or the second Inventor, is “the grinding researcher” (53). It

is stated by the Director that Fremuler’s method is

to grind together anything he can lay his hands

on—bones, skull—kidneys—unborn babies, spine,

anything in fact that is part of the human body. He

used to work in a soap factory, or to be more

accurate, his predecessor did. He worked in the

senior service soap factory, where the dead natives

are turned into soap. (The Invention 53)

Fremuler seems to be the worst one in terms of violence because

dismembering is an integral part of his experiment. He tries to

“discover the soap of truth” by “pounding together these members,

applying to it a tincture of iodine, and then bombarding it all with

electro rays” (53-54). The Director explains what the soap of truth is

and how it can be used to the envoys as follows:

BRIKLEMAINE: The soap of truth?

DIRECTOR: Yes, the soap of truth. You see, it is

hoped, or rather it was hoped before the Invention

became a reality that this soap would be possessed

of such a quality that, on its application to the

human body, the user will regain his original colour

for twenty-four hours at least.

MRS HIGGINS: Twenty-four hours only?

DIRECTOR: Well, it’s a start. All we had to do then

would be to legislate that everybody take a bath

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once every twenty-four hours, using this brand of

soap.

MRS HIGGINS: That would never have caught on

at home. It is the policy of our union to allow our

tenants only one bath per week. No more. (54)

It should also be noted that Fremuler’s experiments to find “the soap

of truth,” in a play of the 1950s when the horrors of the concentration

camps were still very alive in audience’s minds, may have had very

horrifying resonances in the minds of the audiences, who were aware

of the Nazi so-called scientists’ atrocious experiments on people of

what they considered to be an inferior race, and the horrific reports

that soap was made from corpses in some of those camps, reports

which were many years later refuted by some people – but confirmed

by others, for instance by a Polish investigation of 2006:

[a]n inquiry by the Gdańsk Branch of the

Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against

the Polish Nation has concluded that soap was

made from human fat and used for general cleaning

purposes at the Anatomy Institute of the Gdańsk

Medical Academy [. . .] during the Second World

War. (Polish Press Agency)

There is also Hardiburr, who needs “some tears” for his experiments,

and who wants an experimental subject to be made to “weep for poor

Hardiburr,” perhaps (absurdly) after listening to “a moving portion of

the bible” or a prayer (57).

The experiments carried out by the scientists at the laboratory are

parodic and satirical representations of not only the pseudo-scientific

experiments of the 18th and 19th centuries, but also disturbing

references to the continuing attempts to use (pseudo) science to

These reports were accepted as truthful for many decades, and are still considered

reliable by many scholars and organisations; other sources have suggested that the

reports may be perpetuating a myth, however. No respected historian denies that

atrocities were perpetrated in the name of science within Nazi concentration camps.

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support and promote racist ideas. These examples of scientific racism

in the play show us that Soyinka was deeply aware of the history of

racism and its sociological aspects.

5.1.4. Racism, Female Body, and Pregnancy

The human and social experience of colonization is primarily based on

the dichotomic relationship between the colonizer and the colonized,

but in that relationship, “both colonizers and colonized [have been]

presumed male” by foundational theorists of colonization such as

Frantz Fanon and Albert Memmi (Oyěwm 121). Colonial histories

“have been written from the male point of view” as well; so, in such

histories and at the time of Soyinka’s play, “women are peripheral if

they appear at all” (Oyěwm 121).

According to Oyèrónkẹ  Oyěwm, “[t]he colonial process was sex-

differentiated” since the colonizers were male, and they used “gender

identity to determine policy” (122). That is why, as underlined by

Oyěwm,

any discussion of hierarchy in the colonial

situation, in addition to employing race as the basis

of distinctions, should take into account its strong

gender component. The two racially distinct and

hierarchical categories of the colonizer and the

native should be expanded to four, incorporating

the gender factor. (122)

In this respect, the colonial hierarchy included

four, not two, categories. Beginning at the top,

these were: men (European), women (European),

native (African men), and Other (African women).

Native women occupied the residual and

unspecified category of the Other. (Oyěwm 122)

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As was the case throughout the entire history of colonialism, in South

Africa (which became an independent Republic in 1961), and through

the long period of Apartheid (which ended in 1994), there were different

levels of oppression, including gender discrimination along with racism

during the Apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid meant self-

colonization for all South Africans, and it affected males and females

in different ways according to the hierarchy mentioned above.

Sue Armstrong states that during the Apartheid regime, “a culture of

aggression and domination [. . .] caused both black and white cultures

to intensify their specific male-dominated power systems” (35). In other

words, racial discrimination incorporated and increased other forms of

discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and women were even

more disadvantaged than before.

Hence, it can be argued that racial discrimination and injustices based

on gender have been interrelated as they are both linked to the male

gaze, and both producing discourses to dominate human body. This is

something that The Invention stages and explores. The first notable

scene to introduce this theme concerns the off-stage experimentation

on guinea-pig characters. One of these characters is an unnamed

female, indicated only as the “3rd voice” (19). Her being a character

without a stage presence—and without a name—correlates well with

Oyěwm’s observations about the colonial hierarchy, although it

should be remembered that this affects not only females, and in the

play the other guinea-pig characters who likewise remain off-stage and

are unnamed, are male.

When the woman resists taking off her clothes for the experiments, she

faces violence with sexual overtones (because the robot is addressed

as “him” (34)). Then a robot is sent to take her clothes off, creating a

very dystopic and disturbing scene:

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AUTOMATED VOICE: If you don’t obey me I shall

undress you myself.

3rd VOICE: You come near me and I’ll show you

what’s what. [. . .]

(A heavy door is heard to slide apart. Jangling

footsteps tread slowly across the floor. The PRIME

MINISTER’S BROTHER-IN-LAW swears. The woman

screams, the farmer calls on Jesus Christ.) [. . .]

3rd VOICE: Stop him! Stop him! Don’t let him

touch me with his filthy hands. I’m going to do it

myself. I’ll undress, only keep him away from me.

(Confused noises, clothes ripped. Sobs. Chairs

upturned as the suspects try to escape. Robot is

heard to walk back to his place. Door slides back.)

(The Invention 34)

The male voyeurism displayed on stage, and the distress of the woman

offstage, creates a scene of sexual abuse involving multiple

perpetrators. While off-stage the woman is urged and then forced to

take off her clothes, two of the scientists on stage struggle to get a

glimpse of what is going on in the inventor’s room (although they have

shown no such interest in that room before), looking through a little

hole on the wall:

BYTRON: (Furiously) Damn and blast it! Why don’t

they put on the light?

HARDIBURR: (Standing on a desk) I can see! I can

see!

AUTO VOICE: If you don’t obey me… [. . .]

BYTRON: (Pulling HARDIBURR down and taking

his place) Give somebody else a chance. [. . .]

BYTRON: (Furiously to HARDIBURR) What do you

mean you could see? It’s pitch dark!

HARDIBURR (As he tries to regain his place and is

pushed aside by someone else) Well I could. (The

Invention 34-35)

This scene of male voyeurism, in which , a woman is exposed to

multiple male gazes (in the room with her are male guinea-pig

characters and the inventor) in the name of scientific experimentation,

is a small instance of the way the whole play presents relations

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between the sexes: no woman is seen on stage at all, through the whole

course of the play, although they—or rather their bodies and breeding

potential—are the subject of discussion, as will be discussed below.

According to Sue Armstrong, black women have gone through “the

triple oppression of race, class and gender,” and “[d]iscriminated

against economically, politically, and culturally, they have suffered

abuse at the hands of both black and white men” (35).

Although the genetic skin colour of the woman is not specified in the

play, she is disempowered through being female, and the very

suspicion of possibly being a genetically black person, renders her and

the other guinea-pig characters open to treatment as though they were

already found to be black, they are treated like arrested suspects

(although they claim to be volunteers) with no rights or power (The

Invention 19). Indeed, in a later dialogue (quoted at length later) tested

subjects are called “suspects” (34, 38, 41, 54). In this instance, the

woman resists the undressing, protesting that she is not black and she

should not be treated so:

3rd VOICE: What’s all this anyway. I was told to

come here for a bloody test and I came here

willingly enough. Not that there was any need for

it. I could have got testimonials from the Minister

of Interior himself, cause if I’m not white then he’s

had it. He and all his friends in the Cabinet. But

I’m damned if I’m going to be treated like a common

slut.... (The Invention 33)

Her words reveal another aspect of gender-based discrimination in a

racially segregated environment: white women otherising black

women. If she is white as she claims, she assumes she has a right to

verbal abuse, name-calling, indirectly, black women as “common

slut[s]” (The Invention 33). This example thus shows the colour line

between black and white women, and how male-dominated racial

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discrimination extends to female-to-female relations. In this way

Soyinka’s play shows how gender-based oppression and violence are

directly related to the problem of racism.

Body politics are fundamental to gender discrimination, and an

increase in the manipulation of body politics is found in the

intersection of power, race and gender that characterises colonial (and

internally colonized) states. In the play, the three off-stage voices in

the play are subjected to ridiculous and pointless experiments on their

nostrils, eyes and mouth, and are destroyed by an explosion that

occurs for an unknown reason. There are dead bodies and body parts

lying around due to the explosion, and Soyinka’s extremely dark satire

becomes even more chilling here as the scientists begin to fight for

possessing the “[f]resh specimens for research” (The Invention 35).

Gendered body politics now appears in the play. According to Martha

L. Fineman, “motherhood has always been, and continues to be, a

colonized concept—an event physically practiced and experienced by

women, but occupied and defined, given content and value, by the core

concepts of patriarchal ideology” (289-90). While the scientists are

examining the dead bodies, Bytron realises—or speculates—that the

woman, who is now dead, was actually pregnant:

BYTRON: (Sniffing) Ha! Ha! Some dirty work has

been going on here. This woman was pregnant.

CRUGER: Yah! We saw the evidence in there.

BYTRON: You did? I saw nothing.

FREMULER: It’s in here B-B-Bytron. You can look

in the mortar before it’s completely ground up. A

rare piece of luck. Something t-t-tells me it was the

missing ingredient in my soap of truth. (The

Invention 40)

In the quotation above, the dead woman’s pregnancy is seen as proof

of (a sexual relationship assumed to be) “dirty work” (The Invention 40)

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by Bytron, while Fremuler calls the evidence that they have found,

which is probably a fetus that he plans to grind into other bodily

ingredients, “[a] rare piece of luck” (40). After Fremuler’s grotesque

reference to the “soap of truth,” Bytron comes forward with another

racist idea: defining dead—and living—women’s race by looking at the

babies’ skin colour:

BYTRON: Ah, an idea has just struck me. The

newly-born children. Will they be normal or

mutated, think you?

NEUBATEN: That’s a thought. I haven’t seen a baby

since we were brought down here.

CRUGER: Who has seen one?

DESTUS: Nobody. Not unless someone has

successfully sneaked into the open air.

BYTRON: Doesn’t matter anyway. Obviously the

babies must be born normal. So that takes care of

a small section of the population. All we have to do

is to wait until the baby is born, and that should

establish the race of the mother.

DESTUS: Too many obvious snags. Suppose she

has been having an affair with a black man?

IN UNISON: She might as well be dead!

BYTRON: Answered. That’s the only possible

objection taken care of. I think I’ll open up another

branch of research.

DESTUS: Don’t be greedy old boy.

BYTRON: Don’t get worried. You’ll all be able to

come in on this. I’ll explain. We will start from the

assumption that all newly-born children are

normal. Right? Then all the Committee has to do is

to keep a stud of men who are certified white—the

members of this laboratory for example. When the

suspected woman is sent here...

DESTUS: Impracticable old boy. Think what would

happen to you when the suspect turns out to be

guilty.

BYTRON: A little thing my friend. What, after all, is

sacrifice for humanity without the risk of pollution.

Eh? What do you say? What does everyone think of

my plan? Nothing? What about you, Fremuler of

the busy mortar?

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FREMULER: Since you ask me, Sir, I’d say that you

have the filthiest mind ever to d-d-disgrace an

Institution of this class. (The Invention 40-41)

The unanimous response to the idea that a female subject (of unknown

racial origin) may have had sex with a black man is a satirical reflection

of the moralistic discourse politicised in many racially discriminating

laws in South Africa, and particularly reminds audiences of the

Immorality Acts

of 1927, 1950, and 1957, which prohibited

interracial sex or marriage. According to Ashcroft et al.,

[t]he so-called Immorality Act, designed to preserve

‘racial purity’, indicated the desire to rewrite the

fact that the societies of Southern Africa has for

centuries intermingled culturally and racially.

(Post-Colonial Studies 18)

In this play, as we see in the example of raising the question of the

colour of the dead pregnant woman’s fetus, and the subsequently

proposed colour test wherein females’ genetic colour could be

determined by the colour of babies conceived from enforced sex with

‘certified’ white stud males, the racist mindset involves a body politics

that can easily rationalise planned rapes and the objectifying of future

babies, ideas which are abhorrent enough to shock one (but not all) of

the scientists on stage. Briefly, women and babies as part of the female

The first Immorality Act was issued in 1927, prohibiting sexual relations among

other things “between white people and people of other races until amended first in

1950” (“South Africa’s First Immorality Act is Imposed”). The Immorality Amendment

Act of 1950 amended the 1927 act, by prohibiting “unmarried sexual intercourse

between ‘Europeans’ and anyone not ‘European’” (“South Africa’s First Immorality

Act is Imposed”). The later Act also prohibited “the marriage of interracial couples

outside of South Africa, viewing foreign marriages as invalid and illegal” (“South

Africa’s First Immorality Act is Imposed”). The Immorality Act of 1957 (renamed the

Sexual Offences Act, 1957) replaced the previous acts with a clause banning “sexual

intercourse or ‘immoral or indecent acts’ between white people and anyone not

white,” increasing the penalty up to seven years of imprisonment (“South Africa’s

First Immorality Act is Imposed”). “The 1957 act also prohibited brothel-keeping,

procuring, and living off the proceeds of prostitution” (“South Africa’s First

Immorality Act is Imposed”).

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body are otherised and abused in actual and projected scientific

experimentation in The Invention.

5.1.5. The Power Play Between the Oppressor and the Oppressed:

Hardiburr as A Mad Character

Hardiburr’s significance in The Invention as a mad character brings in

other theoretical arguments that are different from—though

interrelated with—the main theoretical frame of this thesis. Unlike the

other plays, that did not explore the concept of madness, it takes us to

a consideration of Michel Foucault’s ideas of the use of power,

knowledge, and madness.

5.1.5.1. Michel Foucault on Power, Knowledge, and Madness

Knowledge can never be objective, nor does it always reflect truth,

because power and knowledge are interconnected. As Philip Stokes

observes, in all his work Michel Foucault focuses on the relationship

between power and knowledge in all his work, showing how power “is

used to control and define” knowledge (98). In this respect, power and

knowledge “directly imply one another” (27), as Foucault himself

suggests in Discipline and Punish (1975). According to Foucault,

systems of knowledge make themselves available

to, and become implicit in, power relations.

This power/knowledge nexus determines and

constitutes what is attended to, what is desirable

to be done, and how people and fields of objects are

to be understood, related to, organized, and

controlled. (Yates 1480)

In this respect, knowledge is controlled and canalised by the ones who

hold the power, depending on their own requirements. As Raman

Selden et al. emphasize,

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[p]eople recognize a particular piece of philosophy

or scientific theory as ‘true’ only if it fits the

descriptions of truth laid down by the intellectual

or political authorities of the day, by the members

of the ruling elite, or by the prevailing ideologues of

knowledge. (178)

Hence, as Foucault argues in his books Madness and Civilization

(1961)

, The Birth of the Clinic (1963)

, The Order of Things (1966),

Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976),

“various forms of ‘knowledge’ about sex, crime, psychiatry and

medicine have arisen and been replaced” (Selden et al. 179). It is

because “[w]hat authorities claim as ‘scientific knowledge’ [is] really

just means of social control” (Stokes 98). As Stokes notes,

Foucault shows how, for instance, in the 18th

century ‘madness’ was used to categorize and

stigmatize not just the mentally ill but the poor, the

sick, the homeless and, indeed, anyone whose

expressions of individuality were unwelcome.

‘Madness’ became the antithesis of ‘reason’ and

was ascribed promiscuously not from an ignorance

of medical science, but from the knowledge of its

efficacy as a means of social control. (98)

In Foucault’s work, as Evangelou points out, “everything results from

the interplay of the discursive networks of power” (147), and “[i]t is in

this light that [Foucault] sets out to prove that there is no such thing

as sickness and health, or abnormality and normality” (147). Likewise,

Foucault explains in his book Madness and Civilization: A History of

Insanity in the Age of Reason (1961) that power “has a regulatory

Foucault analyses in Madness and Civilization “the perception and treatment of

madness from the Middle Ages to the present time, the creation of asylums and the

treatment of the mentally ill, and the origins and development of modern psychology,

which he sees as less benign than it thinks itself to be” (Stokes 98).

In Birth of the Clinic, Foucault discovers “the development of the medical profession

and shows how the development of medical science led to the human body being

treated as an object, something to be analysed, labelled and cured. A key concept is

that of the ‘medical gaze’” (Stokes 98).

163

function, through categorizing what is normal and abnormal and what

is ‘mad’ and what is ‘sane’” (Ussher 1116). In other words, Foucault’s

early work on the concept of madness establishes the idea that

the rules and procedures which determine what is

considered normal or rational successfully silence

what they exclude. Individuals working within

particular discursive practices cannot think or

speak without obeying the unspoken ‘archive’ of

rules and constraints; otherwise they risk being

condemned to madness or silence. (Selden et al.

178-79)

In this setting, there is a strong connection between Foucault’s ideas

on power/knowledge/madness, and post/colonial criticism. As John

McLeod argues in Beginning Postcolonialism (2000),

[t]heories of colonial discourses are certainly

influenced by notions of ideology indebted to

Althusser [. . .] but their most significant

intellectual motivation comes from the work of

[. . .] Foucault, especially his concept of discourse

as a productive site where power and knowledge

become intertwined. (45)

Likewise, Ania Loomba notes that “[k]nowledge is not innocent but

profoundly connected with the operations of power,” and “[t]his

Foucaultian insight informs Edward Said’s Orientalism [. . .] “a book

not about non-Western cultures, but about the Western representation

of these cultures” (42). Loomba also states that “Foucault’s notion of

discourse was born from his work on madness” (38), and that

discourse “has currently become central to critical theory and

postcolonial criticism” (37).

Therefore, colonial and racist discourses have been constructed by the

ruling class that rely on binary oppositions such as the colonized/the

colonizer, black/white, and sane/insane, in order to create subjects

164

that can be controlled, silenced, used, and abused. According to

McLeod, “[i]ndeed, we might consider that colonial discourses have

been successful because they are so productive: they enable some

colonisers to feel important, superior, noble and benign” (45).

5.1.5.2. Hardiburr’s Madness as A Threat to the Oppressor

Hardiburr’s position in Soyinka’s The Invention should be explored in

these Foucaultian terms, since he is a character who shows the power

play between the oppressor and the oppressed through his so-called

madness.

Hardiburr is sometimes called a “fool” by other characters such as

Bytron and the Director [The Invention, Bytron 37; Director 57] in the

play. They also call him an “idiot” from time to time [Bytron 28; Glu

38]. Even Hardiburr himself seems to be happy with describing his

reason for being in the laboratory as being that he was “the village

idiot” (The Invention 38), and as such thought to have some powers of

insight—or in Hardiburr’s own words, “second sight” (38)—which is a

term also used by Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk (and explained in

chapter 2). He is also depicted as having little control over his

emotions, and crying unnecessarily over trivial matters:

BYTRON: Toss it up and play whichever comes on

top.

HARDIBURR: Yes, Mr Bytron.

(Throws up the record. It falls and breaks)

HARDIBURR: Good God. Good G-haw-haw-haw-

haw. (Sobbing)

BYTRON: (Paternally) Now Hardiburr, there is no

reason to start crying. We have over a hundred

copies left of that record, so take out another disc

and play it.

HARDIBURR: Good G-haw-haw-haw. [. . .]

HARDIBURR: Yes Mr Bytron. (Giggles and move

[sic] towards the gramophone) (The Invention 24).

165

Other characters’ utterances show that they try to marginalise

Hardiburr for being not clever or sane enough, suitably to Foucault’s

insights on the relationship between power and madness. That is to

say, even though selected to join in their laboratory, the “village idiot”

(38) is otherised and marginalised by the scientists working in the

laboratory.

However, Hardiburr’s difference—or his so-called madness, to be

accurate—provides him with an alternative way of viewing the world

that does, indeed, give him a sort of second sight, although very

different from the instinctive responses that the folklore (referred to in

the play) attributes to local idiots. It is a way of seeing things from the

margins and so observing the environment from a different perspective.

In other words, his so-called madness constructs his double

consciousness with a gift of second sight. The second sight enables

Hardiburr with an inner power to react against the representatives of

authority. Furthermore, Hardiburr himself is aware of the ambivalent

situation between the oppressor and the oppressed, which is a result

of his madness that creates a menace from the marginalised (himself):

HARDIBURR: You don’t care what happens to me

do you? Well I’ll have you know that I have my

theories same as you. It is the first time in my life

that I ever found myself cut out for a particular

kind of job. I didn’t even ask for it mind you, I was

chosen. I was sitting on a dead horse one day when

the Committee man came to me and said, ‘Are you

the village idiot?’ And I said to him, ‘of course.’ So

he said, ‘the Government wants you to work in a

secret laboratory’. I told him that I knew nothing of

science, but he said that I was known to have

second sight and would see things which others

might miss. So here I am. But don’t think that

because I am not a trained scientist like the rest of

you, I haven’t my own theories same as you...

BYTRON: For God’s sake put on a record,

Hardiburr.

166

HARDIBURR: No I shan’t. I want my tears. All

suspects will have to give me tears or I shall resign

from this place. (38)

Hardiburr’s so-called second sight allows him, at the end of the play,

to see what the other characters do not allow themselves to

acknowledge, or perhaps are afraid of seeing. The Inventor, now

Fremuler, brings on stage the new invention that he has put together

in a matter of minutes. Stage directions tell us that he brings “three or

four nothings” into the room, “followed closely by all present”—as if

these ‘nothings’ were an actual invention (The Invention 59). For Mrs

Higgins, pretending to see something, the so-called invention is

“[s]imply horrible!” (60). Briklemaine, on the other hand, is disgusted

by the material that he claims to see, and asks if the Inventor had to

“give it such an unprepossessing appearance” (60). Mrs Higgins

continues to find it “too disgusting” and says she “couldn’t bear to

touch it” (60). The Automated Voice that has been associated with the

invention (in an unspecified way) throughout the play, on the other

hand, tells them that they should not “judge the Invention by outward

appearances” (60). Meanwhile, Hardiburr’s “grin has been growing

wider and wider,” and he “burst[s] suddenly into idiotic laughter” (60):

HARDIBURR: [. . .] The Emperor is naked…!

DIRECTOR: (Between his teeth) Somebody shut

him up before he says something dangerous.

HARDIBURR: They are always trying to call me a

fool. He- he-he-he … But I know what it is. I am

going to lend the Emperor my coat … I am going to

lend the Emperor my coat…!

(Begins to take off his coat)

DIRECTOR: (Fiercely) Guards!

HARDIBURR: They can’t make a fool of Hardiburr.

I know. (60-61)

It is clear that despite the Director’s expressed wish that he should be

silent (or silenced), Hardiburr enjoys the freedom of the simple-minded

167

to be truth-tellers, as he shows that there is no invention there at all,

by referring to the Emperor’s nakedness, thus revealing the truth

about the falsehood of the Invention. In fact, this village idiot is the

only character courageous enough the speak the truth, like the boy in

the well-known tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Brute force in the hands of the ultimately powerful prevails, however,

and “[t]he guards hit him sharply behind the neck. He crumples and

falls. They all look relieved” (61). His courage to speak has posed a

threat to “the ruling elite” (Selden et al. 178), represented by the

Director, Briklemaine, and Mrs Higgins. The Director says that

Hardiburr has “merely had one of his attacks” and they have “put him

into sleep” so that he can feel better when he wakes up (61). In other

words, Hardiburr has been silenced by the oppressor. Thus, in his own

way and in accordance with Foucault’s explanations of the relations

between power and madness, the oppressor has managed to control

the uncontrollable. As a result, with the consciousness of their power

being restored to them, or at least the removal of the threat from the

truth-teller, the British and American envoys as well as the scientists

look relieved.

Lastly, it is noteworthy that there is a resemblance between

Hardiburr’s laughter in The Invention and Sadiku’s laughter in The Lion

and the Jewel, which has been discussed in the previous chapter. Both

characters are in disempowered positions within their societies, but

capable of interpreting the oppression in their own ways, producing

new possibilities of subjectivity.

5.2. The Staging of The Invention at the Royal Court

The first national theatre company to be established in Britain was the

Royal Court—the house of the Angry Young Men movement—, and the

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plays staged by the company have always “challenged the artistic,

social and political orthodoxy of the day, pushing back the boundaries

of what was possible or acceptable” (“History – Royal Court”).

Soyinka was a play-reader at the Royal Court from 1957 to 1959. He

spent “eighteen months in self-styled apprenticeship to George

Devine

at the Court” (Motsa “A Scourge of the Empire” 266), and he

staged some of his early plays there, including The Invention (1959)

and The Lion and the Jewel (1963; staged only in 1966 because of the

absence of a black cast at that time). The fifties and early sixties was a

time of a

theatre revolution in London, a transformation that

was to eventually become a consequential event in

the history of British theatre. The Royal Court

directors, George Devine and Tony Richardson set

out to establish an experimental theatre that was

poised to offer a very different type of dramaturgy

to the hitherto conventional styles [. . .]. Hitherto

unknown playwrights began to find their way to

popular theatre. [. . .] Amongst these young writers

were John Arden, Arnold Wesker and Wole

Soyinka. (Motsa, “A Scourge of the Empire” 266)

Despite African playwright Soyinka’s involvement in the Angry Young

Men movement at that time, “[t]he so-called Angry Young Men of 1950s

England are usually perceived as white and British” (Motsa, “A Scourge

of the Empire” 265). Even though Soyinka worked with Edward Bond,

Arnold Wesker, and John Arden, he is almost never listed as one of the

playwrights of the movement

. Bond, Wesker, and Arden were dealing

Devine founded the English Stage Company, and he was “one of the first to

experiment with Brecht’s techniques” (Christopher Innes 114).

According to James Gibbs, The Invention was written by Soyinka for “a largely

‘white’ cast” (“The Masks Hatched Out” 60).

This situation is criticised clearly by Motsa in her introduction to the 2005

publication of the play, and in her book chapter titled “A Scourge of the Empire: Wole

169

with regional [local British] political issues “such as the war and

disadvantaged Jewish families” (Motsa, Introduction 8). Likewise,

Soyinka’s The Invention is based on a regional issue but not in Britain,

“a protest topic,” and it is very noticeably “angry in subject matter”

(Motsa, Introduction 8). Soyinka’s exclusion from the Angry Young Men

therefore requires our attention.

There is “the voice of anger and protest against the domination of Africa

by Europe” in the early Soyinka works, including The Invention (Motsa,

“A Scourge of the Empire” 268). Despite the similarities between British

socio-political situations and the African ones pertaining to the Angry

Young Men movement—matters of oppression, inequality, freedom of

expression, unemployment etc.—, the performances of Soyinka’s plays

were “received with hostility and patronising incomprehension in

London” (“A Scourge of the Empire” 268), unlike their British

counterparts. Some reviews were judgemental and even racist.

Soyinka’s positioning himself as an African playwright and his writing

about African issues posed a problem for the British audience,

especially for some critics. Alan Brein, who wrote a review of The

Invention in The Spectator,

was one of them:

[The] presence of a N[----]

in a play is becoming

very near to being a guarantee of a masterpiece.

Two blacks do not make a white – but two blacks

trying to make a white is still good box-office theme.

In the Thirties, Left-wing intellectuals consistently

over praised anything written by a worker. In the

Fifties they over praised anything written by a N[--

--]. In both cases their amazed delight that

Soyinka’s Notorious Theatre at the Royal Court,” both listed in Works Cited section

of this thesis.

Brein, Alan. “Where Spades are Trumps”, The Spectator, 6 November 1959, pp.

629-30.

As above in quotations from The Invention, a word which is now unrepeatable has

been partially obliterated.

170

someone from the lower depths can actually put

words into sentences is not only irrelevant but also

betrays an unconscious contempt for the very

group they are supposed to be championing. (qtd.

in Motsa, “A Scourge of the Empire” 269)

Furthermore, it was now clear that London audiences, even at the

notoriously experimental Royal Court, were mostly intolerant towards

any manifestation of deviation or diversity in structure or content when

the challenges to established practice came from an outsider.

Furthermore, the setting of plays in a country and society very different

from that known by the audience was always going to be a risk,

especially in those very early days. Acceptance among the theatre’s

playwrights and interns seems to have been quite different, however;

in a newspaper report of 2016 Soyinka remembered his time at the

Royal Court positively:

I’d moved from Nigeria to England and was at Leeds

University. In 1957, when I was supposed to be

doing my postgraduate studies, I went down to

London and became absorbed by the Royal Court,

where I was a script-reader and a kind of intern.

This was just after Look Back in Anger. John

Osborne was very angry with the establishment,

contemptuous of what you might call bourgeois

values. He enjoyed acting and would join us in our

experimental performances. There was a lively

group of us—we wrote plays, did sketches. (qtd. in

Wiegand, “The Royal Court at 60”)

The Angry Young Men were British playwrights producing

experimental theatre at the heart of the English capital city. Soyinka’s

The Invention was not different from other Court plays in being angry.

He wrote a one-act play with political concerns, which was angry in

tone, dystopic in setting, and experimental, putting a distance between

the audience and the performance. However, his play focused on an

African problem rather than a British one, which apparently removed

171

relevance of the issues depicted from the audience, and including a

satire of British racial attitudes (through the inclusion of the character

Mrs Higgins) within the invective against Apartheid, with its

implication that the two are very closely connected, must have been

seen as rather menacing for some members of the audience. An African

playwright was writing for the British stage and his play was a bitter

representation of the grotesque nature of their racism and colonial

history, just as much as against Apartheid in South Africa. It should

be recalled that at the time of the play’s opening, South Africa was still

not an independent Republic.

In this respect, there is a complex relation between Soyinka’s writing

of such a play and how the British audience—including the theatre

critics—responded to it. The distance between the African playwright

and British audience reveals the site of a different type of double

consciousness. That is to say, the performance of the play and its

reflections reveal the ambivalent relationship between the audience

and the playwright, which caused the unwelcoming perceptions of

Soyinka’s play. This particular double consciously lives uneasily in the

anxiety of shifting paradigms, in the perceived threats that arise with

uncertainties concerning changes in the power relations between the

colonizer and the colonized. As Motsa also explains,

perhaps England was not the right platform for

Soyinka to test his excellence of skill; implicitly, he

may have been ‘singing the Lord’s song in a strange

land’

in 1950s England. This marginalisation of

Anglophone African art by England reflects a love-

hate relationship between 1950s England and her

colonies whose artists England could not readily

assimilate into the English literary mainstream. It

is evident that the British social structures in

A reference to the psalm 137 in the Hebrew Bible, expressing the yearnings of

Jewish people during the Babylonian exile.

172

which Soyinka emerged as a playwright were very

complex. (“A Scourge of the Empire” 280)

Evidently, the 1950s’ British stage was not the perfect place to discuss

African issues for Soyinka himself as a young playwright, because

hostile criticism was inevitable, particularly when it is considered that

British colonialism was not yet over. Despite this fact, it is obvious that

Soyinka brought an African/Black dimension to the Angry Young Men

movement. Also, although the audience was not ready and they felt

alienated from their own stages and in their own theatres, this very

situation suited the idea of experimenting with theatrical techniques,

and creating a distance between the audience and the play.

As a result, it can be inferred that Soyinka aimed at drawing attention

to the parallelisms between the British and the African occurrences of

the 1950s, deliberately creating a double discourse through his play,

The Invention. From a more universal perspective, Soyinka showed the

sameness of the human experience whether it be in England, South

Africa, or Nigeria, as reflected in The Invention.

5.3. Does Race Exist? The Title of the Play as A Metaphor

Race is a problematic term. John McLeod underlines that

it is important to realise that all constructions of

racial difference are based upon human invention

and not biological fact. There exist no objective

criteria by which human beings can be neatly

grouped into separate ‘races’, each fundamentally

different from the other. Racial differences are best

thought of as political constructions which serve the

interests of certain groups of people. (131)

In other words, race (as a man-made construction) gives certain

privileges to certain groups through otherization of the less powerful

173

ones. The term race was rarely being used before the 1500s, “to identify

groups of people with a kinship or group connection,” and its present-

day use is “a human invention” (“Historical Foundations of Race”). It

has been invented to dominate different groups of people according to

their “skin colour, shape of face, hair colour, body morphology”

(Buchanan 396), as illustrated in Soyinka’s The Invention. As

Buchanan explains,

[t]hroughout history, but especially since the rise of

the African slave trade, the concept of race has

been of concern to western political thinkers, who

use it to justify and legitimate the invasive,

exploitative, and predatory actions of their

governments. In critical theory, race is thus treated

as a problematic term whose history is instructive

because it shows how power and ideology combine

to facilitate the unjust and unequal treatment of

others by hegemonic powers. (396)

In this context, the title of Soyinka’s play is metaphorical because it

suggests the idea that despite all the attempts of the scientists and all

the investments of economic powers of the world to create a machine

that can distinguish skin colours and so discriminate between human

beings, race is and will remain a human invention. In other words, all

these attempts are completely useless, and race is, in fact, a lie.

As a conclusion, Soyinka has set “the drama in such a race-mad world”

in The Invention so as to “[play] upon the absurdity and inhumanity of

institutionalized codes of racial discrimination in South Africa and the

West” (Lindfors 72-73). As it is also reflected in the play, despite its

real, destructive, and worldwide effects, race is only an “illusion”

(Osborne and Sandford 1), a way of thinking which rests on the

harmful desires of the powerful for hierarchy and privileges. In this

respect, although the play is a dark and disturbing satire that is angry

in tone, the idea of race as an illusion in Soyinka’s play gives an

174

optimistic and powerful message resting on the idea that once race’s

being a product of imagination is realised—as in the case of

Hardiburr’s final disclosure—it might be possible to liberate oneself

from the limitations of racist oppression and the double consciousness

bound by it.

175

CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

Theatre has provided a most convenient space for social connections

and cross-cultural interactions since ancient times. The work of

playwrights of formerly colonized countries, in this regard, has

contributed to the processes of decolonization and national

consciousness, by using the stimulating power of theatre as the closest

form of art to real life. Critical and analytic studies of postcolonial

drama have, however, been considerably fewer than those based on

other main genres of literature, especially the novel. First and foremost,

it is hoped that this thesis will contribute to studies in postcolonial

drama.

In the twentieth century, Western forms of art, including theatre, were

enriched by non-Western cultural and performative elements

encountered through because of cultural exchange between countries

during the colonial and postcolonial movements; within this cultural

environment, playwrights from non-European/formerly colonized

countries gained more and more international recognition. Using their

art to convey their concerns over issues such as problems of identity

and belonging, racism, discrimination, power relations, colonization,

exploitation, and so forth, they consciously and voluntarily became the

voice of (formerly) colonized peoples.

This thesis explores a selection of plays by Wole Soyinka, a world-wide

literary giant from Africa, with respect to some colonial and

176

postcolonial issues. The main argument of the thesis is that under

colonial and postcolonial circumstances, double consciousness

manifests in various ways, important examples of which can be found

in Soyinka’s plays. The introductory and theoretical chapters of this

study (chapters 1 and 2) showed that, although double consciousness

is a term referring originally to an inward doubleness of African-

American people, as coined in W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk

(1903) more than a hundred years ago, it resonates in the theories of

contemporary theorists like Homi K. Bhabha and Stuart Hall, covering

a broader set of ideas and in a more comprehensive way. This broader

understanding of double consciousness enables a more up-to-date

methodology for reading texts that present colonial and postcolonial

issues. Hence, the expanded understanding of double consciousness

provided a conceptual framework for this thesis to explore certain

colonial and postcolonial themes and terms—some of them inherited

from Du Bois—such as the colour line, the veil, the second sight,

racism, cultural identity, race as a floating signifier, hybridity,

mimicry, and ambivalence. All the relevant key terms were explained

in detail in chapter 2.

Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), The Lion and the

Jewel (1963), and The Invention (1959) were examined respectively in

the analytic chapters. The plays were studied in reverse chronological

order since I observed that the earlier plays of Soyinka condense a large

number of themes related to the conceptualisation of double

consciousness and relevant politics, whereas in his later plays he

explores such themes and their social and political impacts more

individually, and more clearly. In fact, despite the reverse chronological

order of the plays, there is a structural sequencing in this study,

illustrating (through retrospect) Soyinka’s development as a

playwright, while each chapter adds to the thesis’s exploration of the

manifestations of double consciousness. While Soyinka displays his

177

tremendous knowledge and mastery of Aristotelian tragedy combined

with African cultural and performative features in his later play Death

and the King’s Horseman (the first play analysed in this thesis), which

is widely accepted as a masterpiece, The Lion and the Jewel (analysed

in the following chapter), written before that, is a comedy that uses the

complexities of that mode, with its twists and turns and ironies, to

present and evoke a larger number of themes and messages. The

Invention, written in the very early phases of his literary career, is a

bitter satire of immense thematic complexity, and a dizzying quantity

of historical and political references condensed in the short play. Thus,

by treating the plays in reverse chronological order, Soyinka’s

professional progress as a playwright using classical genre conventions

and his explorations in combining thematic, political, and theatrical

elements were followed as well.

Death and the King’s Horseman is a straightforward and homogenous

play elaborated with the power of classical tragedies that are clearly

structured. The first analytic chapter showed that characters in the

play stand for different positionalities in terms of cultural identity and

double consciousness, and the key concepts employed in the chapter

were the colour line, the veil, the second sight, hybridity, mimicry, and

ambivalence. Elesin Oba, Iyaloja and other market women—discussed

in subsection 3.1—represent signifiers of racial differences as we

witness their resistance towards the colonizer. They are strictly

Yoruba, bound to the colour line, and they do not seem to show

psychological change, as revealed in the first subsection of the chapter.

The subsection 3.2 focused on Amusa and Joseph—as the colonized—

, and Simon and Jane—as the colonizer (with gender-related

differences). Their binary positions as the colonized and the colonizer

showed that ambivalence, which is a product of double consciousness,

is experienced by both sides, as they go through an inseparable

relationship. The subsection 3.3 focused on the most complex

178

character of the play, Olunde, by referring to certain terms and

concepts by Du Bois, Bhabha, and Hall together. We see the refinement

of double consciousness in Olunde’s experiences, with both colonial

and postcolonial inferences. While Olunde is natively Yoruba, sticking

to his traditional values and keeping his cultural identity, he can also

be regarded as a hybrid character because of his educational

experience in Britain, which has provided him with the gift of the

second sight (and seeing both sides of the veil in Du Boisian terms).

Chapter 4 provided an analytic reading of double consciousness in The

Lion and the Jewel, a comedy which is, appropriately, thematically less

homogenous than the tragedy of Death and the King’s Horseman. Some

themes such as colonial mimicry, economic exploitation, gender

relations, and power structures in a (hypothetically) recently

decolonized place (a Nigerian village) were discussed with respect to

the issue of double consciousness. It was concluded that in terms of

double consciousness, the characters negotiate their positions of

cultural identity with colonization, coming up with different outcomes.

While Lakunle is the embodiment of colonial mimicry—explored in

sub-subsection 4.1.1—, Baroka the Bale comes up with progressive

ideas on how to benefit from what has been brought to Nigeria under

colonization, as discussed in 4.1.2. On the other hand, the female

characters of the play—Sidi, Sadiku, and Ailatu—experience double

consciousness in a different way from the male characters, which was

explored in 4.1.3. Since colonialism is relevant to/constructed upon

other forms of power relations, the impact of gender on how the male

and female characters experience double consciousness cannot be

disregarded. While the double consciousness of the male characters is

more visible in the play, female characters are less aware/conscious of

such doubleness. Another aspect of the play is that there are several

objects used by the characters to give meaning to their colonized—or

recently decolonized—environment, in their search for the authentic

179

self, which was explored in subsection 4.2. In this respect, the objects

in the play are more than simple stage props, and they all have their

own functions and meanings. Some objects represent the colonized

culture while some others represent the colonizing culture. Through

the use of objects, the audience feels the existence of two different

worlds on stage. The performative aspect of the play was discussed in

subsection 4.3, in which (meta)theatricality and the use of theatrical

space in colonial/patriarchal context were examined. It was

demonstrated that as an African and postcolonial playwright, Soyinka

consciously employed (meta)performative elements such as laughter,

dancing, singing, chanting, drumming, pantomime, plays within plays,

and flashbacks to reflect the post/colonial situation and other relevant

issues. In the subsection 4.4, the dilemma of double consciousness

was explained. It was concluded that characters in the play are

ambivalently caught up in the struggle between modernization and

tradition, which is, in fact, a grey zone where characters can mostly

direct their double consciousness for better outcomes, but they cannot

succeed. In other words, they cannot free themselves from the

psychological struggle of double consciousness completely.

The last analytic chapter was on The Invention, one of the earliest plays

by Soyinka, which has been overlooked for many years. This chapter

has provided the most comprehensive study of the play to date.

Including this play in this study provided a chance to look at an early

phase of Soyinka’s literary career as a playwright. Furthermore, it

proved the idea that Soyinka had been dealing with the issue of double

consciousness and other relevant concepts such as the colour line,

hybridity, and ambivalence since the very beginning of his career. It

was shown in the chapter that the play is a dark satire that is based

on a double discourse, which explores the idea that race is a human

invention, and thus, racial double consciousness is a product of

imagination. In this respect, the misuse of scientific research and

180

experimentation by the powerful was explored in subsection 5.1, with

respect to relevant themes such as hybridity and the loss of outward

markers of racial difference (5.1.1); racism and the colour line as a

worldwide and enduring problem (5.1.2); the use of the human body

for inhumane, racial experiments (5.1.3); racism, the female body and

pregnancy (5.1.4); and madness and the power-play between oppressor

and oppressed (5.1.5). In subsection 5.2, the staging of The Invention

at the Royal Court Theatre in 1959 was investigated. It was claimed

that a complicated relationship of double consciousness between

Soyinka the playwright and the British audience developed after the

play’s premiere, and as a result of racial and political issues of the time;

it also suggested that Soyinka’s innovative attitude as an African

playwright in the Angry Young Man movement may have been a step

too far for British audiences at that time. Hence, the idea was that

where the audience and the playwright stood in terms of double

consciousness as an interactional and reflexive sociological concept

was as important as the other forms of double consciousness (within

the plays) which were demonstrated in the previous chapters. It was

concluded that unlike the previous two plays, the whole plot of The

Invention reflected the sociological situation of double consciousness

as a communal phenomenon. The last subsection (5.3) involved an

evaluation of the title of the play as a metaphor with double discourse.

It was inferred that despite all the attempts and global investments to

invent a device to recreate racial discrimination based on skin colour,

such an invention did not even exist.

To conclude, I extended the concept of double consciousness with more

contemporary theoretical concepts to cover more than the African

American situation—which, I believe, is my actual contribution to

postcolonial studies in literature—, to show relations between issues

that would otherwise be treated separately. The issue of double

consciousness was treated more evidently in the first play, Death and

181

the King’s Horseman, combined with more themes in The Lion and the

Jewel, and with even more themes in The Invention. Studying the three

plays in reverse chronological order, in addition, provided a

retrospective look at and experience of Soyinka’s development as a

playwright, while exploring various manifestations of double

consciousness as a state of mind in colonial and postcolonial contexts

and as a sociological concept that is adaptable. However, this study

was limited to only three plays among almost thirty plays written by

Soyinka, and although they were selected carefully, the particular

results of analysing these plays may not be generalizable to all of his

oeuvre; the methodology employed in this thesis may or may not be

applicable to other plays by him. For instance, Soyinka’s later plays

such as King Baabu (2002) and Alápatà Àpáta: A Play for Yorubafonia,

Class for Xenophiles (2011) focus on internal Nigerian problems such

as military coups and corruption in politics rather than on

post/colonial identity and consciousness; so, the application of my

methodology to these plays would render more limited results, and it

would have to be adjusted to better suit those plays. A further and

more positive point related to this thesis’ expansion of double

consciousness as an umbrella term that is more comprehensive than

in its original use by Du Bois, is that it seems to be very adaptable and

applicable, and some–perhaps many—of the manifestations and

explorations of double consciousness that have been revealed in this

investigation of Soyinka’s plays could also be found in plays by other

playwrights. It is postulated that applying this expanded concept to

other plays, especially those that explore colonialism, postcolonialism,

and decolonization could make a significant contribution to the study

of twentieth and twenty-first century drama. Lastly, since there are

many postcolonial writers who prefer writing in their own languages

rather than English, their works have unfortunately been excluded

from this study (due to language limitations), but with both double-

consciousness and postcolonial issues being matters that transcend

182

individual languages, it is hoped that the approach to postcolonial

drama taken in this thesis may also be extended to plays exploring

these issues, regardless of their geographic settings and the languages

of their composition.

183

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APPENDICES

A. CURRICULUM VITAE

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Surname, Name: Kutluk, Aslı

Nationality: Turkish (TC)

Date and Place of Birth: ***

E-mail: ***

ORCID: ***

EDUCATION

Degree Institution Year of Graduation

MA Hacettepe University

English Language and Literature 2006

BA Hacettepe University

English Language and Literature 2003

WORK EXPERIENCE

Year Enrollment

2005 – Present Research Assistant – Selçuk University

English Language and Literature Department

2007 – 2015 Research Assistant – METU

Foreign Language Education Department

2003 – 2005 Instructor of English – Gazi University

School of Foreign Languages

204

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE

Year Enrollment

Apr. 2011 – Apr. 2012 Visiting Research Fellow – University of Kent

Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies

Jan. – Feb. 2003 Voluntary Translator – TRT External Services

Department, English Section, Voice of Turkey

2002 Pedagogical Formation Certificate

Hacettepe University Faculty of Education

PUBLICATIONS

• Kutluk, Aslı. “Dislocating Orientalism in Julia Pardoe’s The City

of the Sultan; and Domestic Manners of the Turks, in 1836.”

Crossing Borders in Victorian Travel: Spaces, Nations and

Empires, edited by Barbara Franchi and Elvan Mutlu,

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, pp. 65-83. (Book chapter)

• Kutluk, Aslı. “Wole Soyinka’s King Baabu as a Contemporary

Political Satire.” Proceedings of the 8th International IDEA

Conference: Studies in English, edited by Çiğdem Pala-Mull et al.,

Muğla Sıtkı Koçman UP, 2014, pp. 54-60. (Conference

proceedings)

• Kutluk, Aslı. “Self-Authority Over Documentary History:

Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Slave Narrative.” History in

Western Literature: A Selection of Papers From the 3rd

International BAKEA Symposium, edited by Zekiye

Antakyalıoğlu, Gaziantep University Department of Western

Languages and Literatures, 2014, pp. 89-96. (Conference

proceedings)

• Kutluk, Aslı. “The Polysemic Quality of Salman Rushdie’s The

Satanic Verses.” Salman Rushdie and His Work: Proceedings of

the 20th METU British Novelists Conference, edited by Elif

Öztabak-Avcı et al., METU Department of Foreign Language

Education, 2013, pp. 93-99. (Conference proceedings)

205

• Kutluk, Aslı. “The Position of Women in Arundhati Roy’s The God

of Small Things and Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day.” Gender

Studies, vol. 11, Issue Supplement (Dec. 2012), pp. 124-130,

doi: 10.2478/v10320-012-0011-z. (Journal article)

• Kutluk, Aslı. “Mark Ravenhill’in Shopping and Fucking İsimli

Oyununda Argo Kullanımının Önemi.” HECE Dergisi (Lisân-ı

Erâzil – II), 14(166), Hece Yayınları, Oct. 2010, pp. 113-15.

(Article)

• Kutluk, Aslı. “Images of Violence in Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis

and Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking.” Researches on

Literature and Stylistics (Proceedings of the 8th International

Language, Literature and Stylistics Symposium), edited by

Neslihan Kansu-Yetkiner and Derya Duman, vol. 2, İzmir

Ekonomi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2009, pp. 254-63. (Conference

proceedings)

• Kutluk, Aslı. “Representations of Turkish Women in the Travel

Writings of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Richard Chandler.”

Proceedings of Oriental Languages and Cultures II: International

Scientific Conference, Russian State University for the

Humanities, 2008, pp. 168-77. (Conference proceedings)

• Kutluk, Aslı. “Orientalist Representations of Turkey and the

Turks in Richard Chandler’s Travels in Asia Minor and Lady Mary

Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters.” Proceedings of the

7th International Language, Literature and Stylistics Symposium,

edited by Durmuş Bulgur and Hatice Büyükkalaycı, vol. 2,

Selçuk Üniversitesi Basımevi, 2007, pp. 451-63. (Conference

proceedings)

• Elif Öztabak-Avcı, F. Tuba Korkmaz-Karaman, Aslı Kutluk, and

Şule Okuroğlu-Özün, editors. Salman Rushdie and His Work:

Proceedings of the Twentieth METU British Novelists Conference.

METU Department of Foreign Language Education, 2013.

ISBN: 978-605-125-748-8. (Co-editor)

• Margaret J-M Sönmez, Seda Coşar Çelik, Buket Doğan, Aslı

Kutluk, and Seda Örmengül, editors. Jane Austen and Her Work:

Proceedings of the Eighteenth METU British Novelists Conference,

206

METU Department of Foreign Language Education, 2011.

ISBN: 978-605-125-429-6. (Co-editor)

ACADEMIC AWARD

• Best Poster Presentation Award. 8th International Language,

Literature and Stylistics Symposium. İzmir: University of

Economics, 14-16 May 2008.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• Introduction to Drama I, Selçuk University, Department of

English Language and Literature, 2017-2018

• Introduction to Drama II, Selçuk University, Department of

English Language and Literature, 2017-2018

• English Language Teaching (Preparatory Year Students), Gazi

University, School of Foreign Languages, 2003-2005

207

B. TURKISH SUMMARY / TÜRKÇE ÖZET

1. Amaç ve Kapsam

Tiyatro

, performatif ve mimetik olması nedeniyle gerçek hayatın

deneyimlerine en yakın sanat formu olarak tanımlanır. Tiyatro

bireyleri, hatta kitleleri sadece kendileri değil, diğer hayatlar ve

kültürler üzerine de düşünmeye sevk edebilen, aktif bir türdür. Seyirci

izlediklerini anlamlandırmaya çalışırken, tiyatro da bireysel/kitlesel

düzeyde değişime ve gelişime açık bir alana dönüşür (Male 12). Bu

özellikler zamanla tiyatroyu kültürel karşılaşmalar, değişimler ve

uzlaşmalar açısından önemli bir araç hâline getirmiştir (Brater 271;

Lo ve Gilbert 32).

Lo ve Gilbert’a göre tiyatro sanatı performansın tarihsel, coğrafi ve

sosyal kategorileri açısından genel anlamda kültürlerarası (cross-

cultural) bir tür olarak tanımlanabilir; fakat eleştirel ve kurumsal ilgi,

bazı açılardan daha güçlü konumda bulunan Batı ile dünyanın geri

kalanının etkileşimleri üzerine yoğunlaşmıştır (32). Tarihsel olayların

yanında seyahat imkânı, iletişim ve bilgiye erişimin de artışına bağlı

olarak bu etkileşimler zamanla daha belirgin hâle gelmiş; tiyatro sanatı

da kültürel hareketlilikler ile, şekil ve üslup açısından giderek

zenginleşmiştir. Paradoksal olsa da kolonyal ve postkolonyal

karşılaşmalar bu değişim ve gelişim sürecinde etkili olmuştur. Ayrıca,

Batı’nın tiyatro kuramının Aristoteles’in Poetika (M.Ö. 330) adlı eserinde tragedya

türünü tanımlaması ile başladığı kabul edilir; fakat Afrika draması ve tiyatrosu

uzmanları bu yaklaşımın kolonyalizm öncesinde Afrika’da tiyatro/drama türünün

var olmadığını ima ediyor olması nedeniyle, Aristoteles’i başlangıç noktası olarak

almayı reddetmektedirler. Bu tartışmanın detayları için şu kaynaklara

başvurulabilir: Tejumola Olaniyan, Scars of Conquest, Masks of Resistance (1995),

syf. 37; John Conteh-Morgan ve Tejumola Olaniyan (editörler), African Drama and

Performance (2004), syf. 2; Lokangaka Losambe ve Devi Sarinjeive (editörler) Pre-

Colonial and Post-Colonial Drama and Theatre in Africa (2001), syf. viii.

208

20. yüzyıl ve sonrasının çeşitlilik (diversity) ve çokkültürlülüğü

(multiculturalism) öne çıkaran postyapısalcı ve postkolonyal akımları

da tiyatronun (ve dramanın) gelişmesine katkıda bulunmuştur.

Batı’nın Batı-dışı kültürlerin performans sanatlarına olan ilgisi 20.

yüzyılın başlarından itibaren görünür hâle gelmiş ve bu ilgi giderek

artmıştır (Lo ve Gilbert 32). Kültürlerarası etkileşimler ile, Batı-dışı

bölgelerin tiyatroları da uluslararası arenada daha görünür hâle

gelmiş, güçlenmiş ve böylece tiyatro türünün kendi içerisinde kayda

değer bir melezleşme (hybridization) ortamı oluşmuştur (Brater 271).

Dolayısıyla, 20. yüzyılda Batı tiyatrosu Batı-dışı kültürlerin

tiyatrolarına ilgi gösterirken, (post)kolonyal ülkelerin oyun yazarları da

-Wole Soyinka (Nijerya), Derek Walcott (St. Lucia), Athol Fugard

(Güney Afrika), Girish Karnad (Hindistan), Jack Davis (Avusturalya),

Ama Ata Aidoo (Gana), Vincent O’Sullivan (Yeni Zelanda) ve Kee Thuan

Chye (Malezya) gibi- uluslararası alanda eserleriyle daha çok yer

edinme imkânı bulmuşlardır (Crow ve Banfield xi; Peyma 7).

Bu bilgiler ekseninde denebilir ki; postkolonyal edebiyat içerik ve

bağlam açısından geniş bir çalışma alanı olmasına rağmen, drama

türü ve dolayısıyla tiyatro sanatı özel bir yere sahiptir; çünkü tiyatro,

ulusal kültür bilinci olan izleyici kitlelerinin oluşmasında önemli bir

rol oynamıştır; bireysel ve toplumsal bilincin gelişiminde etkili

olmuştur (C. L. Innes, Cambridge Introduction 19). Bunun sebebi

Frantz Fanon’un da The Wretched of the Earth (Yeryüzünün Lanetlileri)

(1961) adlı eserinde belirttiği gibi, roman ya da şiir türlerinden ziyade

dramanın anti-kolonyal hareketin içinde yer alan insanların bilincini

harekete geçiren, aktif bir tür olmasıdır (C. L. Innes, Cambridge

Introduction 19). Kökleri kolonyalizm öncesi geleneklere dayanan sözlü

kültürlerde ve okur yazarlığın küçük ve seçkin gruplarla sınırlı olduğu

toplumlarda drama ve tiyatral performans, daha geniş yerli izleyici

kitlelerine ulaşmayı da sağlamaktadır (19).

209

Dekolonizasyon ve postkolonyalizm açısından bu ayırıcı niteliğe

rağmen drama türü, postkolonyal edebiyat çalışmalarında nispeten az

yer edinebilmiştir (19). Bu durum, Innes’in de vurguladığı gibi

şaşırtıcıdır; çünkü dramatik performans, postkolonyal kültürlerle

alakalı birçok konuyu (“kimlik, dil, mit ve tarih sorunları;

çevrilebilirlik, ifade ve izleyici ile ilgili konular; üretim, altyapı ve

sansür ile ilgili problemler”

100

) ele alma imkânı sunar (19).

Brian Crow ve Chris Banfield’a göre postkolonyal oyun yazarları

eserlerini “süregelen kültürel, ekonomik ve siyasal boyun eğdirme

durumu karşısında kendi insanlarının kültürel karakterini

tanımlamak ve olumlamak amacıyla” üretmişlerdir (17). Buna bağlı

olarak, postkolonyal oyun yazarları marjinlerden eserlerini yazarken

kolonyal geçmişin problemli süreç ve sonuçlarını gözler önüne

sermişler ve kolonyalist söylemlere karşı özgürleştirici fikirler

geliştirmişlerdir. Sonuç olarak, postkolonyal edebiyatta gördüğümüz

bazı ortak konular şunlardır: kimlik ve aidiyet arayışı, kolonyal

geçmişin sorunsallığı, Batı kanonuna karşıt bir yazın geliştirilmesi,

beyazlaştırılan tarihin ve edebiyatın yeniden yazılması, ırkçı

ayrımcılığa ve diğer eşitsizliklere karşı savaşılması (sınıfsal sorunlar,

toplumsal cinsiyet eşitliği konuları gibi), çokkültürlülük, melezlik vb.

Kolonyal/postkolonyal çalışmalar kolonyal baskının insan psikolojisi

üzerindeki etkileriyle bu durumun sosyolojik sonuçlarını da inceler.

Bu bağlamda bu çalışmanın amacı, postkolonyal dramanın yukarıda

bahsedilen başlıca argümanlarını da göz önüne alarak,

kolonyal/postkolonyal şartlarda çifte bilinçliliğin (double

consciousness) dışavurumlarını incelemektir. Bu çalışmada Nijeryalı

yazar Wole Soyinka’nın oyunları W.E.B. Du Bois’nın (1868-1963) çifte

100

Alıntıların İngilizceden Türkçeye çevirileri bu tezin yazarı tarafından yapılmıştır.

210

bilinçlilik kavramının ve bu kavramın günümüzdeki kuramsal

yansımalarının ışığında incelenmiştir.

Çalışmada Soyinka’nın üç eseri belirtilen sırayla ele alınmıştır

101

Death and the King’s Horseman (Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi) (1975), The

Lion and the Jewel (Aslan ile Mücevher) (1963) ve The Invention (İcat)

(1959). Bu oyunlar, sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasındaki çift taraflı

süreçleri içeren bir durum olarak çifte bilinçliliğin çeşitli şekillerde

dışavurumlarını gözler önüne seren örneklerdir. Her bir oyun,

genişletilmiş anlamıyla çifte bilinçliliğin farklı bir yönünü ortaya

koymaktadır. Bahsi geçen oyunların incelenmesinde, Du Bois’nın

terminolojisine ek olarak Homi K. Bhabha ve Stuart Hall’dan da bazı

terimler kullanılmıştır. Çifte bilinçlilik ile ilgili olup bu çalışmada en

çok yer verilen terimler şunlardır: renk çizgisi (the colour line), peçe (the

veil), ikinci görü (second sight), öykünme (mimicry), melezlik (hybridity),

muğlaklık (ambi valence), eylemlilik (agency), kültürel kimlik (cultural

identity), konumlanma (positioning) ve bir yüzergezer gösteren olarak

ırk (race as a floating signifier).

Yukarıda ismi geçen oyunlar bu tez çalışmasında ters kronolojik

sırayla incelenmiştir. Geriye dönük inceleme biçimi, çifte bilinçlilik

tartışmasının yanında, Soyinka’nın bir oyun yazarı olarak gelişimini de

görme fırsatı sunmaktadır. Bu tez çalışmasının üçüncü bölümünde

incelenen Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi, Aristoteles tragedyasının tüm

özelliklerini taşıyan bir şaheser olarak kabul edilmesinin yanında,

Yoruba kültürüne ait performatif ögeleri de çokça barındırmaktadır.

Ondan daha önce yazılmış olan ve bu tez çalışmasında dördüncü

bölümde ele alınan Aslan ile Mücevher adlı oyununda ise Soyinka,

101

Bu tez çalışması altı ana bölümden oluşmaktadır; ancak tezin Türkçe özeti tezin

içeriğine göre yedi bölüme ayırılmıştır. Tezin “Introduction” bölümündeki iki alt

başlık, bu özet bölümünde okuyucu için konunun anlaşılır olabilmesi amacıyla

“Amaç ve Kapsam” ile “Wole Soyinka’nın Eserlerinin Sosyopolitik Çerçevesi”

başlıkları altında iki ayrı bölümde ele alınmıştır.

211

komedi türünün karmaşıklıklarını ve hiciv sanatını daha fazla

mevzuyu ele almak için kullanmıştır. Soyinka’nın kariyerinin erken

aşamalarında yazdığı ve bu tezin beşinci bölümünde incelenen İcat

isimli oyun ise, kara mizah türünün daha ağır tematik karmaşıklığını,

yoğun tarihsel ve siyasal referanslarla da birlikte gözler önüne

sermektedir.

2. Kuramsal Çerçeve

Du Bois yirminci yüzyılın ilk yarısında siyahi kültürel çalışmalara

öncülük etmiş bir isimdir. Irkçı ayrımcılığa karşı çalışmaları olan

önemli bir sosyolog ve aktivisttir. Aynı zamanda Harvard

Üniversitesi’nde doktorasını tamamlamış ilk siyahi Amerikalıdır. Du

Bois bir 20. yüzyıl düşünürü olsa da onun çifte bilinçlilik ve ırkçılık ile

ilgili düşünceleri günümüz eleştiri kuramlarına, özellikle de

postkolonyal kuramcılara ilham kaynağı olmuştur. David Johns’un da

dediği gibi bunun sebebi, birçok çağdaşı ırk temalı çalışmalar

üretirken, Du Bois’nın, sosyolojik tartışmaları ırka dayalı sorunlara

anlamlı çözümler bulmak üzere işlevsel hâle getirmiş olmasıdır (“Why

W.E.B. Du Bois Matters”).

Du Bois çifte bilinçlilik kavramını “Strivings of the Negro People”

(“Siyah Halkın Mücadeleleri”) (1897) isimli yazısında ilk kez

kullanmıştır. Daha sonra bu makale Du Bois’nın The Souls of Black

Folk (Siyah Halkın Ruhları) (1903) başlıklı eserinde “Of Our Spiritual

Strivings” (“Manevi Çabalarımız Hakkında”) başlığı ile yeniden

yayımlanmıştır. Du Bois çifte bilinçlilik terimini daha sonraki

eserlerinde tekrar doğrudan kullanmamıştır; fakat bir kavram olarak

çifte bilinçlilik ve diğer bazı ilgili terimler sonraki eserlerinde de yer alır.

Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (Karanlık Su: Peçenin İçinden

Sesler) (1920) bunlardan biridir.

212

Du Bois Siyah Halkın Ruhları adlı eserinde hem kendi deneyimlerine

hem de başka siyahilerle ilgili gözlemlerine dayanarak çifte bilinçlilik

kavramını anlatmıştır. Du Bois’ya göre, ırksal ayırmacı yerel

yasaların

102

(racial segregation) uygulandığı Amerika Birleşik

Devletleri’nde siyahi bireyler, ten rengi siyah olan bir bedende ikiye

bölünmüş bir benlik algısı ile yaşamaktadırlar. Başka bir deyişle,

Afrikalı Amerikalı bireyler beyazların baskın olduğu Amerikan

toplumunda “ırksallaştırılmış baskı ve değersizleştirme” gibi

sorunların bir sonucu olarak psiko-sosyolojik açıdan içsel bir ikilik

hissi içerisindedirler (Pittman, “Double Consciousness”). Du Bois

Siyah Halkın Ruhları’nda çifte bilinçliliği şöyle açıklar:

Mısırlı ve Hintli, Yunanlı ve Romalı, Cermen ve

Moğol’dan sonra Zenci, bu Amerikan dünyasında—

ona gerçek bir öz bilinçlilik algısı kazandırmayan,

yalnızca diğer dünyanın ifşası aracılığıyla kendini

görmesine müsaade eden bir dünyada—peçeyle

doğmuş, ikinci görü kabiliyeti olan bir tür yedinci

oğuldur. Bu çifte bilinçlilik, kişinin kendine her

zaman başkalarının gözünden bakması hissi,

kendi ruhunu ona her zaman eğlenerek

küçümseme ve acımayla bakan bir dünyanın

şeritleriyle ölçmesi hissi, tuhaf bir duygudur. Kişi

sürekli iki-liğini hisseder: Bir Amerikalı ve bir

Zenci; iki ruh, iki düşünce, iki uzlaşmaz çaba;

sadece azimli gücü onu paramparça edilmekten

koruyan siyah bir bedende savaşan iki ideal. (2)

Kuşkusuz bu ikilik hissinin sebebi, yukarıda da belirtildiği gibi, ırkçı

ayrımcılıktır. Du Bois’ya göre Afrikalı Amerikalılar hem “siyah” hem de

“beyaz olmayan” bireyler olarak bedenlerinde hapsolmuş gibidirler

(Buchanan 136). Du Bois bu duruma dikkat çekmek için “Tanrı neden

beni kendi evimde dışlanmış ve yabancı yaptı?” sorusunu ortaya atar

(Siyah Halkın Ruhları 2). Ve Du Bois “Sorun olmak nasıl bir his?” diye

de sormaktadır (“Siyah Halkın Mücadeleleri” 194; Siyah Halkın Ruhları

102

1880’lerden 1960’lara kadar Jim Crow yasaları uygulanmıştır.

213

1). Beyaz tenin aksine siyah ten renginin sorun olarak görüldüğü ve

ayrımcılığa malzeme olduğu o yıllarda Du Bois, Afrikalı Amerikalı

bireylerin içsel çatışmalarının farkına varmış ve bu sorunu

çalışmalarında dile getirmiştir.

Du Bois Afrikalı Amerikalıların çifte bilinçliliği hakkında yazmış olsa

da aslında bu kavram ten rengi nedeniyle ayrımcılığa uğrayan ve

sömürülen tüm bireyleri (ve kitleleri) kapsayan, yani tüm dünyayı

ilgilendiren bir psiko-sosyolojik durumdur. Du Bois’nın çifte bilinçlilik

kavramını ortaya attığı yıllarda, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’ndeki

ırksal ayırmacı yasaların yanında, Avrupa da kolonyalist politikalarına

devam etmekteydi. Ayrıca, Du Bois’nın Siyah Halkın Ruhları’nda da

anlattığı ırksal ayırmacı yasal sistemin, daha sonra Güney Afrika’da

uygulanan Apartheid sisteminin erken bir örneği olduğu da

söylenebilir (Eze 885).

Du Bois’nın çifte bilinçliliğe olan bakış açısı, dönemi için devrimsel

özellikler taşımaktadır; çünkü Du Bois’ya göre, ırkçı ayrımcılığın

rahatsız edici taraflarına rağmen çifte bilinçlilik, siyahilere ikinci görü

kabiliyeti kazandıran bir durumdur. Afrikalı Amerikalı bireyler

beyazlar tarafından aşağılanmadan ve küçümsenmeden öz

gerçekliklerini yaşamak ve korumak isteği içerisindedirler. İkinci görü

kabiliyeti ise, iki benlik algısını bir araya getirip daha doğru bir benlik

algısını kazanabilme potansiyeli yaratmaktadır (Edwards xiv; Holt,

“The Political Uses of Alienation” 306). Du Bois’nın çifte bilinçlilik

kavramı ile günümüzün postkolonyal kuramları arasındaki

benzerlikler de daha çok bu noktada ortaya çıkmaktadır. Bu

bağlamda, Henry Louis Gates Jr. ve Cornel West de, The Future of Race

(Irkın Geleceği) (1996) başlıklı çalışmalarında, siyahi kültür ile ilgili

herhangi bir ciddi araştırmanın Du Bois’nın eserlerinin incelenmesiyle

başlaması gerektiğini ileri sürerler (79).

214

Du Bois’nın fikirleri Henry Louis Gates Jr., Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall ve

Homi K. Bhabha gibi isimlere de ilham kaynağı olmuştur. Bu bilgiler

ışığında bu çalışmanın kuramsal çerçevesi, Du Bois’nın önceki

yüzyılda ele aldığı çifte bilinçlilik kavramının günümüzde

kolonyal/postkolonyal çalışmaların da etkisiyle daha geniş bir anlam

kazandığı fikri üzerine kurulmuştur.

Du Bois’nın Siyah Halkın Ruhları adlı eserinde çifte bilinçliliği

anlatırken ürettiği, bu çalışmada da yararlanılan birkaç terim vardır.

Bunlar renk çizgisi, peçe ve ikinci görü kabiliyetidir. Du Bois’ya göre

“yirminci yüzyılın problemi renk çizgisi problemidir” (v, 9, 24). Du Bois

renk çizgisini “Asya ve Afrika’da, Amerika’da ve deniz adalarında daha

koyu olanın daha açık olan insan ırklarıyla ilişkisi” olarak tanımlar

(Siyah Halkın Ruhları 9). Irkçı ayrımcılığı betimlemek için kullanılan

renk çizgisi kavramı, ne yazık ki 21. yüzyılda bile devam eden, ten rengi

farklılıklarına bağlı küresel sorunların özünü anlamaya yardımcı

olmaktadır. Öte yandan, Du Bois renk çizgisi sorununa ilerici bir bakış

açısı da getirmektedir: Sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasındaki iktidar

ilişkisi içerisinde taraflar, renk çizgisinin iki yanında yer almaktadırlar;

fakat bu çizgi yalnızca sömürüleni değil, sömürgeciyi de bağlar ve onun

sınırlarını da belirler (Siyah Halkın Ruhları 111). Dolayısıyla renk

çizgisi kararsız ve muğlak bir güç dengesi yaratmaktadır ve böylece

iktidara karşı bir tehdit özelliği de barındırmaktadır.

Paul Gilroy ise Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the

Color Line (Irka Karşı: Politik Kültürü Renk Çizgisinin Ötesinde Hayal

Etmek) (2000) başlıklı kitabında renk çizgisi sorununa daha güncel bir

bakış açısı getirmiştir. Gilroy, 2. Dünya Savaşı’ndan bu yana atılan

tüm ilerici adımlara rağmen ırka dayalı hiyerarşinin hâlâ var olduğunu

belirtmektedir (1). Fakat Gilroy’a göre renk çizgisi 21. yüzyılda şekil

değiştirmiştir: artık ırksal çatışmalar renk çizgisinden ziyade kültür

çizgileri (culture lines) olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır (1). Bu kültür çizgileri

215

de iktidar gücünü elinde bulunduranların yönetilenleri tanımlamaya,

kategorilere ayırmaya yönelik çabaları ile oluşmuştur (1).

Du Bois’nın çifte bilinçliliği tanımlarken kullandığı başka bir terim de

peçedir. Du Bois, daha önce de belirtildiği gibi, siyahilerin beyazların

dünyasında bir peçeyle doğduklarını ileri sürer (Siyah Halkın Ruhları

2). Du Bois’ya göre siyahilerin gözlerinin önündeki peçe, aynı ülkede

yaşayan siyahilerle beyazları birbirinden ayıran bir perde gibidir; fakat

bu ayrım illa olumsuz bir anlam içermez; çünkü siyahi nüfusu

etkileyen ırksal baskının boyutlarını tam olarak algılayamayan

Amerikalı beyazların aksine, Amerikalı siyahiler, peçeli konumları

nedeniyle dünyayı hem bu örtünün içinden hem de dışından görme

kabiliyetine sahiptirler.

Du Bois peçenin yanında ikinci görü terimini de kullanır. Siyahi

insanların bir perspektif, yani ikinci görü kabiliyeti ile doğduğunu, bu

kabiliyetin peçe sayesinde beyaz dünyayı hem dışarıdan hem de

içeriden görmeyi sağladığını ileri sürer (Siyah Halkın Ruhları 2).

Beyazlarda ise ikinci görü kabiliyeti, yani bu çift taraflı bakış açısı

yoktur; çünkü onlarınki, kendi yansımalarıyla kendilerini

tanımladıkları tek bir bilincin sınırları içerisinde kalmaktadır.

Dolayısıyla siyahilerin bu ayrıcalıklı özelliği, beyaz egemenliğini

istikrarsızlaştırma ve itibarsızlaştırma olasılığını doğurmaktadır.

Yaşadığı dönem açısından postkolonyal bir düşünür olmasa da Fanon

ile Du Bois arasındaki bağlantı göz ardı edilemez; çünkü Fanon Black

Skin, White Masks (Siyah Deri, Beyaz Maskeler) (1952) ve The Wretched

of the Earth (Yeryüzünün Lanetlileri) (1961) başlıklı eserlerinde çifte

bilinçliliğin yalnızca Afrikalı Amerikalıları etkilemediğini, dünyanın

çeşitli yerlerinde sömürülen tüm bireylerin de deneyimlediği bir durum

olduğunu göstermiştir (Black 393). Fanon Fransa’nın kontrolündeki

Cezayir’de bir psikiyatri bölümünde çalışırken kolonyalist şiddetin

216

bireyler üzerindeki travmatik etkilerini yakından inceleme fırsatı

bulmuştur. Siyah Deri, Beyaz Maskeler’de Fanon’un kullandığı

“epidermalizasyon” terimi ise Du Bois’nın renk çizgisi terimine

benzemektedir. Fanon, epidermalizasyonun kolonyalist baskının

içselleştirilmesine bağlı olduğunu ve bunun siyahi insanlarda aşağılık

kompleksine neden olabileceğini iddia eder (4). Bu anlamda hem Du

Bois hem de Fanon siyahi insanların insan haklarının hukuki olarak

tanınması ve renk ayrımı olmadan benliğin özgürleşmesi için kendi

dallarında savaş vermişlerdir.

Bu çalışmada Du Bois’nın terimlerinin yanında, konuyla ilgili bazı

postkolonyal kavramlara da yer verilmiştir. Eylemlilik bunlardan

biridir. Bireylerin “özgürce ve bağımsızca bir eylemi başlatıp

başlatamayacakları” anlamını taşır (Ashcroft ve diğerleri, Post-Colonial

Studies 8). Postkolonyal kuramda eylemlilik ise, “post-kolonyal

öznelerin emperyal güçle angaje olma veya ona direnme eylemini

başlatma becerisi” anlamına gelmektedir (8).

Muğlaklık terimi ise, “bir şeyi istemek ile onun tersini istemek

arasındaki sürekli dalgalanmayı anlatmak için” kullanılmaktadır

(Ashcroft ve diğerleri, Post-Colonial Studies 12). Bhabha bu terimi

“sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasındaki ilişkiyi karakterize eden çekme ve

itme karmaşıklığını” ifade etmek üzere postkolonyal kurama

uyarlamıştır (Ashcroft ve diğerleri 12). Bhabha The Location of Culture

(Kültürel Konumlanış) (1994) isimli eserinde, kolonyalist söylemin

amacının, sömürgeci istilayı haklı çıkarabilmek için, sömürülenleri

ırksal köken açısından yozlaşmış bir tür olarak göstermek olduğunu

söyler (101). Fakat bu amaç hiçbir zaman tam olarak karşılık bulamaz

(McLeod 63); çünkü sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasındaki ilişki sabit

değildir; istikrarsız ve muğlaktır. Bu muğlak ilişkide sömürülen özne

hiçbir zaman sömürgeciye tam olarak karşı değildir. Daha çok,

sömürgeciye suç ortağı olmak ile ona direniş göstermek arasında

217

dalgalanan bir durum içerisindedir (Ashcroft ve diğerleri, Post-Colonial

Studies 12-13). Sömürgeci ise sömürülenin kendisine benzemesini

istemekte, fakat asla kendisiyle aynı olmasını istememektedir.

Sömürülen öznenin hareketliliği, sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasında

muğlak bir durum yaratmakta ve dolayısıyla kolonyalist söylem ve

iktidarlara karşı bir tehdit oluşturmaktadır.

Öykünme de bu çalışmada yer verilen bir başka terimdir. Öykünme,

sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasındaki muğlak ilişki ile bağlantılıdır.

Bhabha kolonyal öykünmeyi “neredeyse aynı ama tam olarak da aynı

olmayan bir farklılığın öznesi olarak, ayırt edilebilir bir Öteki’ye

duyulan arzu” olarak tanımlar (Kültürel Konumlanış 122-23).

Öykünme durumu etkisini sürdürmek için sürekli muğlak alanda

kalmalı ama aynı zamanda farklılıklar üretmelidir. Çünkü bu şekilde,

sömürülen özne, kolonyalist söylemin otoritesini sarsma olasılığı elde

edebilir (Bhabha, Kültürel Konumlanış 122-23).

Hall’un kültürel kimlik kavramına da bu çalışmada yer verilmiştir.

Hall’a göre kültürel kimlik, benliğin farklı kültürel konumlanmalarına

bağlı olarak ortaya çıkar. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” (“Kültürel

Kimlik ve Diaspora”) (1990) isimli yazısında Hall, kimliğin “bizim

düşündüğümüz kadar apaçık anlaşılır ya da problemsiz olmadığını”,

belki de kimliği “asla tamamlanmayan, sürekli işlem gören bir ürün”

olarak değerlendirmemiz gerektiğini söylemektedir (222). Kimliğin

sabit değil dönüşümsel olduğunu ve kültürel açıdan farklı

konumlanmalara bağlı olduğunu iddia etmektedir (222). Bunun

yanında Hall, hepimizin “belirli bir yer ve zamandan, belirli bir tarih ya

da kültürden yazıp konuştuğumuzu”, söylediklerimizin ise her zaman

“konumlanmış”, yani belirli bir pozisyondan dile getirilmiş olduğunu

söylemektedir (222). Hall’a göre kültürel kimliğin bu şekilde

algılanması postkolonyal mücadeleyi anlamaya yardımcı olmaktadır

(223).

218

Hall’un, bir yüzergezer gösteren olarak ırk tanımlaması da bu

çalışmada çifte bilinçlilik kapsamında ele alınmıştır. Hall’a göre ırk

değişken bir gösterendir, sabit değildir; çünkü ırk kültürel

konumlanmaya bağlı bir kavramdır. 1996’da yaptığı “Irk: Bir

Yüzergezer Gösteren” başlıklı konuşmasında Hall, Du Bois ve

Fanon’un ırk konusundaki fikirlerine de değinir ve ırk kavramının “bir

dil gibi” işlediğini, bu bağlamda ten renginin bir gösteren (signifier)

olduğunu söyler (“Irk: Bir Yüzergezer Gösteren”). Hall’a göre ten

renginin yüklendiği anlam, kültürel bağlamına göre değişmektedir.

3. Wole Soyinka’nın Eserlerinin Sosyopolitik Çerçevesi

Siyasal sorunlar ve askeri müdahaleler Nijerya tarihinin önemli bir

parçası olagelmiştir. Bu durum Soyinka’ya ek olarak Chinua Achebe

(1930-2013), Ben Okri (1959-…), Femi Osofisan (1946-…) gibi başka

Nijeryalı yazarların da eserlerinde sıkça ele alınmıştır. Bu açıdan

denebilir ki, Nijerya edebiyatı, kolonyalizm yanında sıkı yönetim ve iç

savaş olaylarından da muzdarip bir ülkenin sıkıntılarını anlatır.

Nijerya’nın 1960’ta bağımsızlığını kazanmasından sonra ülkenin oyun

yazarları ve diğer entelektüeller, kazanılmış bağımsızlığın yanında

fikirsel ve kültürel özgürleşmenin de inşası niyeti ile, kendi yerli

performatif sanatlarını Batı’nın tiyatral geleneği gibi

kurumsallaştırabilmek için yoğun çaba içine girişmişlerdir (Balme 40).

Kuşkusuz, neredeyse otuz oyun

103

, üç roman, beş anı yazısı, çok

sayıda şiir, şiir koleksiyonu, birçok eleştiri yazısı ve birkaç kısa hikâye

üretmiş bir yazar olarak Soyinka

104

bu süreçte önderlik etmiş

103

Soyinka 1960’ta “The 1960 Masks” isimli tiyatro grubunu; 1964’te de kendi

oyunlarını yazıp oynadığı “Orisun Theatre Company” isimli grubu kurmuştur.

104

Soyinka Leeds, Princeton, Harvard ve Cambridge Üniversitelerinden fahri doktora

ünvanı almış olmasının yanı sıra (Gibbs, Critical Perspectives 5); Harvard, Yale,

Oxford, Cambridge ve İbadan Üniversitelerinde dersler vermiştir. Hâlen New York

Üniversitesi Abu Dabi yerleşkesinde tiyatro profesörüdür. Soyinka “Afrika’nın

219

isimlerden biridir. Ayrıca 1986 yılında Nobel Edebiyat ödülünü

kazanan ilk Afrikalı yazardır. Soyinka bu ödülü kendisinden daha da

ünlü olan, Apartheid karşıtı, Güney Afrikalı aktivist Nelson Mandela’ya

(1918-2013) adamıştır.

Awam Amkpa’ya göre, hiçbir Afrikalı yazar politik aktivizmi, sanatı ve

felsefi çözümlemeleri Soyinka kadar belagat, enerji ve entelektüel

titizlik içinde bir araya getirememiştir (22). Crow ve Banfield’e göre,

hiçbir Afrikalı oyun yazarı farklı kültürel ögeleri (Batı’ya ve Afrika’ya,

özellikle de Nijerya’nın Yoruba kültürüne ait) Soyinka’nın eserlerindeki

kadar sıklıkla ve biçemsel çeşitlilik içinde ele almamış ve bu kadar

derin entelektüel ve estetik etkiyi yaratamamıştır (80). Bu nedenlerle

Soyinka, günümüz Afrika’sının en önemli edebiyat yazarı olarak kabul

edilmektedir (Ogunba 1).

Soyinka Nijerya’ya ve özellikle Yoruba kültürüne bağlılığını eserlerinde

açıkça ortaya koyan bir yazardır. Kendi ülkesinin zengin kültürel

mirasını, performatif yönlerini Batı’nın edebi geleneği ile başarılı bir

şekilde harmanlar. Eserlerindeki döngüsel olay örgüsü, örtük dil

kullanımı, yerel müzik ve danslar, yerel kültüre ait sembolik anlamlar

içeren maske ve diğer kostümlerin kullanılması gibi bazı bileşenleri

Afrika’nın (Nijerya’nın) ritüelleri ve festivallerinden almıştır (Ukala 135;

Peyma 79). Oyin Ogunba’ya göre Soyinka, bir Yoruba olarak,

eserlerinde yerel kültürden karakterlerin yanında Yoruba inancında

yeri olan tanrılar, ruhlar, iblisler ve ölmüş atalara da yer vermektedir

(1).

Öte yandan Soyinka, Yoruba diline ait kelimeleri sıklıkla kullansa da,

eserlerini İngilizce dilinde üretmektedir ve Batı tiyatrosunun yapısal

Shakespeare’i” olarak da anılmaktadır. Detaylı bilgi için şu kaynaklara

başvurulabilir: Caroline Davis, “Publishing Wole Soyinka: Oxford University Press

and the Creation of ‘Africa’s Own William Shakespeare’” (2011); Meg Greene, Henry

Louis Gates, Jr.: A Biography (2012).

220

unsurlarını—Aristoteles’in tragedya kuralları gibi—eserlerinde

başarıyla kullanmaktadır. Dolayısıyla Soyinka’nın oyunlarında şekil ve

içerik bakımından senkretik (bağdaştırmacı) bir yaklaşım, bir

hibritleşme söz konusudur. Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi başlıklı eser buna

en güzel örneklerdendir ve Soyinka uzmanları tarafından bir “şaheser”

olarak tanımlanmaktadır (George xvi; Banham ve Plastow xxvii;

Lombardo 98; Irele, The African Imagination 236).

Soyinka oyunlarında geleneksellik ile Batılı anlamda modern yaşam

biçimlerinin arasındaki ilişki ve çatışmaları sıklıkla ele alır. Soyinka

Afrika’da değişim ve gelişimi çok önemseyen bir yazardır; fakat bu

değişimin hızlı olması hâlinde yaşanabilecek bireysel ve toplumsal

sorunlar üzerine de düşünmekte ve bu düşüncelerini eserlerinde

yansıtmaktadır. Bu nedenle Soyinka değişimin, yerel kültürü

koruyacak şekilde gerçekleştirilmesi gerektiğini savunur. Aslan ile

Mücevher isimli eser de Soyinka’nın bu bakış açısına güzel bir örnek

teşkil etmektedir.

Soyinka’yı başarılı bir yazar yapan özelliklerinden biri de hiciv sanatına

eserlerinde çokça yer vermesidir. En ağır eleştirileri kendi ülkesinin

siyasal ve toplumsal problemleri hakkında yaparken, tüm dünyayı

ilgilendiren güce dayalı ilişkiler, kolonyalizmin doğurduğu türlü

sorunlar, ırkçılık ve diğer ayrımcılıklar, siyasi ve ahlaki çöküntü gibi

konuları da eserlerinde ele alır. Buna da en güzel örneklerden biri,

Soyinka’nın ilk eserlerinden olan İcat isimli oyundur.

4. Soyinka’nın Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi (1975) Adlı Oyununda

Çoklu Kültürlülük ve Çifte Bilinçlilik İlişkisi

Afrikalı yazarlar sömürgeciliğin ve başka iç sorunların etkisiyle, içinde

yaşadıkları toplumların sesi olma görevini benimsemişlerdir.

1950’lerde yazmaya başladığından beri Soyinka da bu yazarlardan biri

221

olmuştur. Soyinka eserlerinde kültür, kimlik ve siyaset ile ilgili

sorunları dile getirmektedir. Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi bu eserlerin en

önemlilerindendir. Soyinka bu oyununda toplumsal durum

çözümlemeleri yanında, geleneksel ve evrensel bazı değerleri de ustaca

bir araya getirmiştir.

Soyinka çoklu kültürlülüğe (plural culturality) önem veren bir yazardır.

Birden fazla kültürün bir arada olduğu kolonyal ortamlarda çifte

bilinçlilik de birçok farklı şekilde ortaya çıkabilmektedir. Soyinka’nın

Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi başlıklı oyununda bu çeşitlilik açıkça

görülmektedir. Çeşitli çifte bilinçlilik deneyimlerini kolonyalizmin

yanında sınıf ve toplumsal cinsiyet gibi faktörler de etkilemektedir.

Soyinka Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi adlı oyununda 1945’te Nijerya’da Kral

Alafin’in ölümünden sonra yaşanan gerçek bir olayı konu etmiştir

(Banham ve Plastow xxv). Yoruba inanışına göre, kralın süvarisi

Olokun Esin Jinadu’nun Kral Alafin’e ölümden sonraki yolculuğunda

eşlik etmesi gerekmektedir. Bunu yapabilmek için de ritüel intihar

gerçekleştirmesi şart olmuştur; ancak ritüel intihar yöntemi hâlen

İngiliz sömürgesi olan bölgede yasadışıdır. Dönemin İngiliz sömürgesi

bölge sorumlusu Olokun’un intiharını engeller. Olokun’un oğlu

Murana babasının intihar edemediğini öğrenince, Yoruba

geleneklerine göre sıradaki isim olarak, toplumun beklentilerini

karşılamak üzere intihar eder. Soyinka 1960

105

yılında bu trajik olayı

duyduktan sonra Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi isimli oyunu yazmaya karar

verir (Plastow xxvii). Oyunda Elesin Oba isimli karakter Olokun’u,

Olunde isimli karakter de oğlu Murana’yı temsil etmektedir.

105

Soyinka’nın oyununun 1975’te yayımlanmasından çok önce, Yoruba dilinde

yazan Duro Ladipo da aynı konu hakkında, 1964 yılında Oba Waja (Kral Öldü) isimli

oyununu yazmıştır (Banham ve Plastow xxvi; Kerr 121). Ayrıca Soyinka, dramatik

gerekçelerle, bazı gerçek hayat detaylarını oyunda değiştirmiştir: maskeli balo, Galler

Prensi’nin maskeli balodaki varlığı, Elesin’in oğlunun Birleşik Krallık’taki öğrenciliği

gibi detaylar kurgusaldır (Banham ve Plastow xxvi).

222

Ölüm ve Kralın Süvarisi, pazarcı kadınların Elesin Oba’nın ölümlü

dünyadan göçüşünü beklerken ona şarkılar söyleyip dans ettiği, yerel

bir âşığın davul çalarken Elesin Oba’ya methiyeler düzdüğü, geleneksel

bir Yoruba pazar yeri sahnesi ile başlar. Yoruba inancına göre, ölmüş

kralın ardından Elesin’in ritüel intihar gerçekleştirmesi, ölümlü dünya

ile ölüm sonrası dünya arasında kalıcı bir denge sağlamak için

gereklidir. Elesin ölüme hazır olduğunu iddia etmektedir; ancak

dünyevi isteklerden vazgeçebilmiş değildir. Pazarın ana kadını

Iyaloja’nın da yeni gelin adayı olan genç bir kadına gözü takılır ve

onunla son bir gece geçirmek ister. Elesin Yoruba geleneklerine göre

seçilmiş isim olduğu için, isteklerinin geri çevrilmemesi gerekmektedir.

İsteği yerine getirilir.

Yoruba halkı bunlarla meşgulken İngiliz sömürgesi bölge sorumlusu

Simon Pilkings ve eşi Jane ise, kutsal Egungun

106

kostümleri içinde,

tam da o gece gerçekleşecek olan, Galler Prensi’nin de katılacağı bir

kıyafet balosu için tango gösterisi hazırlamaktadırlar. Simon Elesin’in

ritüel intihar planını duyar duymaz uşağı Amusa’yı Elesin’i

tutuklaması için görevlendirir. Eski bir Yoruba olmasına rağmen,

Elesin’in geleneksel açıdan önemini görmezden gelip sömürgeciye

uşaklık eden Amusa’yı, pazar kadınları sert bir şekilde eleştirip pazar

yerinden kovarlar. Sonraki sahne baloda geçmektedir. Pilkings çiftinin

Egungun dansı, prens de dahil herkes tarafından beğenilir. Halbuki

çiftin, bu kutsal kostümleri sıradan kıyafetlermiş gibi maskeli balo için

kullanmış olmaları, Yoruba halkına, geleneklerine saygısızlık

içermektedir; çünkü Yoruba atalarının ruhlarının Egungun yoluyla

insanların dünyasına girdiklerine, maskeli performansçıların da

106

Afrika’nın yerel kültürlerinde yıl boyunca düzenlenen ritüeller ile festivallerin

önemli bir yeri vardır. Egungun (veya Egungen) maskesinin kullanıldığı dini ritüeller

ise Nijerya’da on üçüncü yüzyıldan beri düzenlenmektedir. Bu ritüeller yerli halklar

tarafından atalarına adanmıştır ve kullanılan maskeler, inanışa göre, yaşayanlarla

ölüler, geçmiş ile şimdiki zaman arasında manevi bağ kurmayı sağlamaktadır

(Brockett ve Hildy 471).

223

“bedenlenmiş ruh” haline dönüştüklerine inanılmaktadır (Banham ve

diğerleri 4).

Babası Elesin’in itirazına rağmen Pilkingslerin maddi desteği ile

Britanya’da tıp eğitimi alıp yenice Nijerya’ya dönen Olunde’yi partide

gören Jane çok şaşırır. Olunde’nin neden döndüğünü anlayamaz.

Olunde aslında yerel geleneklere göre en büyük oğul olarak

babasından sonra ikinci sırada sorumlu olması nedeniyle, kutsal

görevini yerine getirebilmek için geri dönmüştür. Balo devam ederken,

Elesin Simon’ın görevlendirdiği memurlar tarafından tutuklanır.

Sonraki sahnede Elesin bir köle hücresinde zincirlenmiş

beklemektedir. Elesin’in başarısızlığı, Yoruba halkı için Yoruba

evreninde büyük bir yara açıldığı, döngüsel yaşam-ölüm-yaşam

düzeninin alt üst olduğu anlamına gelmektedir; fakat Batı inanç ve

geleneklerine göre yaşamlarını sürdüren Pilkings çifti bu durumu pek

de anlayamazlar. Simon Yoruba halkını manevi açıdan nasıl bir kaosa

sürüklediğinden habersizdir. Oysa Yoruba halkı büyük bir keder

içindedir. Pazarcı kadınlar da büyük bir yükü yüklenmiş, Elesin’in

hücresinin de bulunduğu tepedeki meskene doğru yaklaşmaktadırlar.

Bu yük aslında Olunde’nin cansız bedenidir. Olunde, babasının

başarısızlığından sonra hem aile onurunu kurtarmak hem de Yoruba

evreninin dengesini yeniden sağlayabilmek amacıyla intihar etmiştir.

Oğlunun cansız bedenini gören Elesin ise, üzüntüden, bağlı olduğu

zincirlerle kendini boğarak orada intihar eder. Oyunun sonunda, baba

ile oğlunun trajik ölümüne rağmen, genç kadının Elesin’in bebeğini

doğuracağına inanılmaktadır. Böylece oyunda bir ölümle başlayan

süreç, yeni ölümler ardından gelen yeni bir hayat umuduyla sona erer.

Oyunda tüm karakterlerin psikolojileri ve yaşam şekillerinin

sömürgecilikten etkilendiği, sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasında bu

açıdan bir benzerlik olduğu görülmektedir. Her iki taraf da kolonyal

yaşam koşullarında kendi varoluş mücadelelerini vermektedirler. Bu

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benzerliklere rağmen karakterlerin çifte bilinçlilik deneyimleri kültürel

konumlanmalarına bağlı olarak değişiklik göstermektedir. Buna göre

karakterler farklı konumsallıklar açısından üç ana grupta

incelenmişlerdir. İlk grup, sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasındaki ırksal

farklılığın göstergelerini temsil eden Elesin Oba, Iyaloja ve diğer pazar

kadınlarını kapsamaktadır. Bu karakterler sömürgeciyle olan

diyaloglarında hemen hemen aynı ifadeleri kullanmaktadırlar.

Geleneklere bağlılıklarının yanında, kendilerini renk çizgisine göre

konumlandırdıklarını sözleri ve eylemleri ile göstermektedirler. Oyun

boyunca bu karakterler sömürgeci ile ten rengi farklılıklarına vurgu

yaparlar. Örneğin, Elesin Simon ile olan diyaloglarında “beyaz adam”

(65), “albino” (66), “hayalet” (67) gibi sıfatlar kullanmaktadır.

Dolayısıyla, bahsi geçen karakterlerin renk çizgisini kullanış biçimi,

Du Bois’nın çifte bilinçliliği tanımlarken kullandığı renk çizgisi

kavramından biraz farklıdır. Elesin Oba, Iyaloja ve diğer pazar

kadınları için renk çizgisi, sömürgeciye karşı bir direniş çizgisi gibi işlev

görmektedir. Başka bir deyişle, bu karakterler ten rengi farklılıklarını

vurgulayarak sömürgecinin ayrımcı dilini tersine çevirmekte ve

sömürgeciden gelebilecek potansiyel zararlara karşı kültürel

kimliklerini korumaya almaya çalışmaktadırlar. Bu durum bize

Hall’un kültürel kimlik ile ilgili fikirlerini de hatırlatmaktadır. Ayrıca

bu karakterler oyun boyunca belirgin bir psikolojik değişim

göstermemekte ve yaşadıkları toprakların sahipleri olarak Yoruba

kültürüne kökten bağlı olduklarını tüm eylemleri ve sözleriyle ortaya

koymaktadırlar. Bütün bunların yanında, pazar kadınlarının

sömürgeciye öykünen Amusa’ya karşı alaycı direnişleri de bize

konumsallık ile çifte bilinçlilik arasındaki ilişkinin toplumsal cinsiyet

boyutunu göstermesi açısından önemlidir.

İkinci grupta, sömürüleni temsil eden Amusa ve Joseph karakterleri

ile sömürgeciyi temsil eden Simon ve Jane karakterleri ele alınmıştır.

Oyunda sömürgeci ile sömürülen taraflar birbirileri ile muğlak

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(ambivalent) bir ilişki içerisindedirler. Amusa ile Joseph köken olarak

Yoruba olmalarına rağmen, Amusa İslam’a, Joseph ise Hristiyanlık

inancına geçmiştir. Her ikisi de Simon’ın emri altında görev

yapmaktadırlar. Bu karakterler, din değiştirmelerinin de etkisiyle,

farklı kültürel kodlar arasında kalmış karakterlerdir. Diğer

karakterlerle iletişim şekilleri, sömürgeci ile sömürülen arasındaki

muğlak ilişkiyi gözler önüne sermektedir. Aslında kültürel açıdan

arada kalmış olmak, yani Batı kültürüne maruz kalmadan önceki

Yoruba geçmişi, onlara sömürgecinin bilmediği kültürel kodları

tanımanın ve anlamanın gücünü de vermektedir; fakat bu karakterler

ne sömürgeci ne de sömürülen Yoruba insanları tarafından tam

anlamıyla kabul görmektedirler.

Denklemin diğer tarafında ise sömürgeciyi temsil eden Simon ile eşi

Jane bulunmaktadır. İronik bir biçimde, kolonyal düzende güçlü

tarafta olmalarına rağmen bu karakterler de ikili bir bilinç ile

yaşamaktadırlar. Pilkings çiftinin yerel halkla olan ilişkileri bu

ikiliklerini ortaya koymaktadır. İkisi de yerel gelenekleri ve insanları

anlamakta güçlük çekmektedirler ve bilinmezliğin getirdiği kaygı, içten

içe davranışlarını ve tepkilerini etkilemektedir; ancak Jane’in Simon’a

kıyasla halka karşı daha empatik yaklaşması da sömürgecilik ile

toplumsal cinsiyet arasındaki bağlantıları görmemize olanak

sağlamaktadır.

Üçüncü kısımda, oyunun en karmaşık karakteri olan Olunde’ye

odaklanılmıştır. Olunde karakterinde hem kolonyal hem de

postkolonyal açıdan daha incelikli, daha rafine bir çifte bilinçlilik

durumu görülmektedir. Olunde karakteri hem Du Bois hem Hall hem

de Bhabha’nın fikirlerini kendinde toplamış olması açısından çok

önemlidir. Sömürgecinin maddi desteği ile Britanya’da eğitim almış ve

sömürgecinin kültürünü yakından tanıma fırsatı bulmuş, yani Yoruba

ama aynı zamanda melezleşmiş de bir karakter olarak Olunde, Du

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Bois’nın tanımıyla peçenin her iki tarafını da görebilme kabiliyetine

sahip tek karakterdir. Yurt dışı eğitimi ona, yine Du Bois’nın tanımıyla,

ikinci bakış kabiliyeti kazandırmış, ancak öz kültürüne olan bağlılığını

değiştirmemiştir. Öte yandan, Olunde’nin kendi kültürüne olan

bağlılığı, Hall’un kültürel konumlanma konusundaki fikirleriyle de

örtüşmektedir. Tüm bunlara rağmen unutulmamalıdır ki; bir Yoruba

olarak kültürel konumuna bu kadar keskin bir şekilde bağlı kalması,

kendisini Yoruba halkının beklentilerini karşılamak üzere trajik bir

şekilde kurban etmesine de neden olmuştur. Ayrıca bu oyunda bir

değil, iki ana karakter olduğu da söylenebilir; çünkü Olunde karakteri

de en az Elesin Oba kadar önemli bir roldedir. Olunde’yi bu kadar

önemli kılan şey, farklı kültürel konumlanmaları bir araya getirmiş

olmasıdır.

Sonuç olarak, oyundaki tüm karakterler çifte bilinçliliği

deneyimlemektedirler; fakat bu deneyim şekilleri kültürel

konumlanmalarına bağlı olarak çeşitlilik göstermektedir. Soyinka’nın

bu oyunu bize çifte bilinçliliğin yalnızca sömürgeci ile sömürülen

arasındaki ilişkiye bağlı olmadığını; ırk, inanç ve toplumsal cinsiyet

açısından farklı kültürel konumlanmaların da çifte bilinçliliği

şekillendirdiğini göstermesi açısından önemlidir. Öte yandan, Olunde

karakterinde de gördüğümüz gibi, kültürel konumlanmalar bireylerin

kendi seçimlerine de bağlıdır. Bazı durumlarda bireyler bölünmüş bir

bilinç ile devamlı olarak yaşayamazlar ya da bunu tercih etmezler;

bunun yerine, kolonyalizmin getirdiği psikolojik yükten kurtulmak için

kendi varlıklarını sürdürme yollarını üretebilirler.

5. Soyinka’nın Aslan ile Mücevher (1963) Adlı Oyununda

Karakterlerin Kolonizasyon ile Müzakeresi

Soyinka eserlerinde iktidar ve kültür ile ilgili karşılaşma, çatışma ve

uzlaşmaları incelemektedir. Soyinka’nın eserlerinde hem geleneksel

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(özellikle Nijerya’daki) hem de sömürgeci iktidar yapılarında yer alan

bireylerin çifte bilinçlilik durumlarını gözlemlemek mümkündür. Bu

bağlamda, Soyinka’nın Aslan ile Mücevher (1959) isimli oyunu,

romantik komedi özelliği taşıyan, ama hiciv sanatını da kullanan bir

oyundur. Bu oyun, bu ikili perspektifin yanında, kültürel pratikler ve

nesne gösterenlerin (signifying objects) çok değerliliğini de ortaya

koymaktadır. Soyinka bu oyununda tüm bu bileşenleri kullanarak

çifte bilinçlilik açısından farklı bölünmeleri ve çatışmaları bize

göstermektedir. Bu oyunda, güce bağlı olarak şekillenen yapılara göre

karakterlerin nasıl muğlak şekillerde konumlandıkları görülmektedir.

Oyundaki trajikomik unsurların da kaynağı bu muğlaklık durumudur.

Dolayısıyla bu bölümde, kültürel bölünmelerin oyundaki temsilleri ile

komiklik içeren öykünme durumları çifte bilinçlilik bağlamında

incelenmiştir.

Bu incelemede çifte bilinçlilik ve diğer ilgili kavramlar açısından

karakterlere, nesnelere ve tiyatro ötesi (metatheatrical) performanslara

bakılmıştır. Ayrıca karakter analizinde yaş, cinsiyet, ekonomik durum

gibi bazı faktörlerin çifte bilincin farklı tezahürlerini nasıl etkilediğine

de odaklanılmıştır. Tüm bu faktörlere bağlı olarak, oyundaki

karakterlerin kültürel konumlanmalarını kolonizasyon ile müzakere

edecek biçimde seçtikleri ve buna bağlı olarak çifte bilinci yaşadıkları

görülmüştür. Oyunu postkolonyal perspektiften ve çifte bilinçlilik

kavramıyla ilintili olarak incelemek bize şu soruyu sordurmuştur:

Karakterlerin davranışları ve aldıkları kararlar, içinde bulundukları

topluma ve toplumun geleceğine (dolayısıyla Nijerya’ya ve Afrika’ya)

yarar sağlamakta mıdır? Sonuç olarak görülmüştür ki; oyunun verdiği

mesajın kendisi muğlaklık içermektedir, çünkü karakterler

konumlanmalarını müzakere etseler de çok fazla değişim

gösterememişlerdir.

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Aslan ile Mücevher 1959’da Ibadan’da sahnelenmiş, Nijerya’nın

1960’ta bağımsız olmasından sonra 1963 yılında yayımlanmıştır.

Yayımlandığı eşiksel dönem ve ele aldığı kaygılar açısından bu oyun

postkolonyal dramanın erken bir örneği olarak da kabul edilebilir.

Mark Fortier’a göre ise, “Batı’nın dramatik formlarını (şiirsel drama,

George Bernard Shaw tarzı fikir komedisi ve yatak odası farsı)

Afrika’nın halk masalı, dans ve hikâye anlatımı gelenekleriyle”

birleştiren bir oyundur (200).

Aslan ile Mücevher, Ilujinle isimli hayali bir Nijerya köyünde geçen

olayları konu etmektedir. Köy halkı kolonyal yönetim sonrası

bağımsızlığın getirdiği hızlı değişime yeterince uyum sağlayamamış,

arada kalmış haldedir. Batılı modernleşme modeli ile geleneksel yaşam

tarzı arasındaki ikilem devam etmektedir. Bu oyun da geleneksel bir

pazar yerinde, yerel şarkılar eşliğinde başlar. Pazar yerinin hemen

yanında Batılı eğitim anlayışının temsilcisi bir okulda, İngiliz tarzı eski

moda kıyafetleri ve beyaz teniz ayakkabılarıyla Lakunle isimli genç

öğretmen öğrencilerine çarpım tablosunu ezberletmektedir. Oyunun

başlığındaki “mücevher” (Aslan ile Mücevher 21) lakaplı, genç ve güzel

kadın Sidi de etnik giysileri ve su testisiyle okulun önünden

geçmektedir. Lakunle Sidi’yi çok beğenmekte ve onunla evlenmek

istemektedir; fakat Sidi’nin geleneksel davranışlarını, giyim tarzını ve

onunla evlenmek için ödemesi gereken başlık parasını sürekli

eleştirmektedir. Lakunle’ye göre Sidi Batılı kadınlar gibi olamamış,

yeterince modernleşememiştir.

Sidi’yi beğenen diğer karakter ise oyunun başlığındaki “aslan” (Aslan

ile Mücevher 12), Ilujinle köyünün şefi Bale Baroka’dır. Lakunle ne

kadar Batılılara öykünen, taklitçi ve komik bir karakter ise, Baroka da

o kadar geleneksel yaşam tarzına bağlı, kolonyalizm ile gelen değişimi

sorgulayan bir karakterdir. Dolayısıyla Sidi oyunda iki erkeğin

arasında dengeyi sağlayan baş karakter görevindedir. Baroka’nın en

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yaşlı eşi Sadiku, Baroka’nın sözcüsü olarak Sidi’ye gidip Baroka’nın

Sidi’yi evine davet ettiğini, onunla evlenmek isteyeceğini söyler. Sidi bir

yabancının çektiği ve şimdi bir derginin kapak sayfasında olan

fotoğraflarıyla köyde ünlü olmuş, kendi güzelliğiyle övünmekten başı

dönmüş bir halde, Baroka’nın teklifini reddeder. Bunun üzerine

Baroka kurnazlık yapıp, yaşlılıktan dolayı cinsel gücünün bir süre

önce bittiği dedikodusunu, bunun Sadiku aracılığıyla Sidi’nin kulağına

gideceğini bilerek, ortaya atar. Sidi biraz meraktan, biraz gençliğin

saflığıyla, Sadiku’nun Baroka’nın artık “erkek olmadığı” (Aslan ile

Mücevher 32) konusundaki alaycı laflarına inanır ve Baroka’yı ziyarete

gider. Baroka Sidi’yi baştan çıkarmayı başarır. Lakunle Sidi ile hala

evlenmek istediğini söylemektedir; fakat Lakunle’nin bitmek bilmeyen

şikayetlerinden, aşağılamalarından sıkılan Sidi, yaşlı Baroka ile

evlenmeye karar verir. Sidi nikah törenine giderken Lakunle çoktan

başka bir kadının peşine düşmüştür ve oyun, hayatın her şeye rağmen

devam ettiği temasıyla, kimse üzülmeden, oyunun başında da olduğu

gibi yerel şarkılarla sonlanır.

Aslan ile Mücevher bu çalışmada dört başlıkta incelenmiştir. İlk

kısımda Lakunle, Baroka, Sidi ve Sadiku karakterleri çifte bilinçlilik,

toplumsal cinsiyet ve kolonyalizm ilişkileri açısından incelenmiştir.

Lakunle yabancı kültürün faydalı yönlerini kişisel ve toplumsal gelişim

için gözlemleyip içselleştirmek yerine, eylemleriyle ve dış görünüşüyle

sömürgeciyi taklit etmenin modernleşme olduğunu zanneden, gülünç

bir karakterdir. Baroka ise Lakunle’den farklı olarak kurnaz ve

deneyimlidir. Baroka bu kurnazlığıyla ve çift anlamlı, oyunlu

davranışlarıyla, hilebaz Yoruba tanrısı Esu’ya

107

benzemektedir.

Oyunda Lakunle ile Baroka karakterlerinin aşk yarışının ardında,

sömürgeciliğin kişisel ilişkileri, günlük yaşamı ve ekonomik durumu

107

Eshu, Legba, Elegba, Elegbara isimleri de kullanılmaktadır.

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nasıl etkilediği, çifte bilincin bir tezahürü olarak kendi kendini

sömürgeleştirme (self-colonialism) gibi daha ciddi konular da

yatmaktadır. Baroka Lakunle’nin aksine, Batı modernitesinin faydalı

yönlerini yerel halka yarayacak şekilde benimseyip, geleneksel yaşamı

koruyarak bir şeyleri değiştirme isteği içerisindedir. Bu kurnaz bilgeliği

ile aşk yarışını da kazanır.

Sidi ile Sadiku ise çifte bilinçliliği toplumsal cinsiyet rollerinden dolayı

erkek karakterlerden daha farklı deneyimlemektedirler; çünkü bu

karakterler (sesini çok az duyduğumuz Ailatu da dahil) kadın olarak

çift katmanlı sömürüye maruz kalmaktadırlar. Bu özellikleriyle kadın

karakterler, nesneleştirilip mağdur edilen Afrika kıtasını da sembolize

etmektedirler.

İkinci kısımda karakterlerin nesnelerle olan ilişkilerine ve bu nesneleri

işgalci kültürle olan karşılaşmalarında nasıl kullandıklarına

bakılmıştır. Oyunda Lakunle ve Sidi’nin zıtlık içeren giysilerine ek

olarak odan ağacı, kamera, dergi, damga makinesi, posta pulu, köprü,

demiryolu, araba ve motosiklet gibi nesneler bulunmaktadır. Bu

nesneler sahne dekoru olmaktan ziyade, karakterler için Batı

modernitesi ile Yoruba yaşamı arasındaki ikilemi gösterdikleri için

önemlidir. Sonuç olarak, karakterler bu objeleri sömürgeciye karşı

direnç göstermek ya da sömürgeci kültüre öykünmek üzere, yani kendi

konumlanmalarını belirlemek üzere anlamlandırmışlardır.

Soyinka Afrika kültürlerinden gelen bir farkındalıkla, oyunlarında

performatifliğin farklı biçimlerine yer vermektedir. Bu bağlamda bu

bölümün üçüncü kısmında oyundaki tiyatro ötesi (metatheatrical)

performans örneklerine ve tiyatral alanın eylemlilik açısından nasıl

kullanıldığına bakılmıştır. Sadiku’nun Baroka’yı temsil eden heykelin

etrafında döne döne, kahkahalar içinde dans etmesi; Sidi, Lakunle ve

dört yerli kadının “Kayıp Gezginin Dansı” (Aslan ile Mücevher 13)

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oyununu sergilemeleri; sömürgecinin yapmayı planladığı demiryolu ile

ilgili rüşvet dedikodusunun canlandırıldığı sahne, oyundaki tiyatro

ötesi performans örneklerini oluşturmaktadır. Bu örnekler toplumsal

cinsiyet rolleri ile sömürgeci ve sömürülenin ilişkisi arasındaki

bağlantıları ve bu bağlantıların da çifte bilinçlilik sürecinde ne

şekillerde ortaya çıktığını göstermeleri açısından önemlidir. Ayrıca,

belirtilen sahnelerdeki yoğun müzik, dans, ritim ve pantomim

kullanımları da Afrika’nın performatif zenginliğini ortaya koymaktadır.

Dördüncü kısım ise bu bölümün sonuçlarını ele alır ve çifte bilinçliliğin

ikilemini açıklar: Kendilerini ve çevrelerini değiştirme çabalarına

rağmen ve kendi konumlarını sömürgeci ile müzakere etmelerine

rağmen, karakterlerin kimlik arayışı bitmemiştir ve ikilemlerden

kurtulamamışlardır. Sonuç olarak oyunda, bütün komik unsurlara

rağmen, kolonyal düzenin ikilemde kalmış özneler yarattığı

gözlemlenmiştir.

6. Soyinka’nın İcat (1959) Adlı Oyununda Irkın Yeniden

Yaratılması Problemi

Bazen yazarların ilk dönem eserlerini incelemek, yazarın daha sonraki

yıllarda ne kadar başarılı bir edebiyatçı olacağının işaretlerini verir

(Irele, Foreword ix). Bu tez çalışmasının beşinci bölümünde

Soyinka’nın ilk eserlerinden olan İcat incelenmiştir. Tek perdelik bu

kara mizah oyunu, Soyinka’nın eserlerini ve aktivist kimliğini

şekillendiren kaygı ve konuları gözler önüne sermektedir. Daha da

önemlisi, Soyinka’nın kariyerinin başından beri çifte bilinçlilik

kavramıyla bağlantılı eserler ürettiği fikri, bu oyunun da

incelenmesiyle netlik kazanmıştır.

Soyinka Royal Court Theatre’da on sekiz ay (1957-1959) metin

okuyucusu ve oyun yazarı olarak çalışmıştır (Gibbs, Critical

232

Perspectives 7). 1959’da Soyinka’nın eserlerine özel bir akşam

düzenlenmiş ve İcat oyunu ilk defa orada sahnelenmiştir. Oyun

Soyinka’nın ilk ciddi eserlerinden biri olarak anılmasına rağmen

(Motsa, Giriş 1; Larson 80), Zodwa Motsa oyunu 2005’te yayımlatana

kadar, neredeyse yarım yüzyıl günyüzüne çıkmamıştır. Bu nedenle

Soyinka’nın “kayıp oyunu” (Motsa, Giriş 1) olarak da bilinir ve bu tez

çalışması öncesinde detaylı bir akademik incelemesi yapılmamıştır. Bu

nedenle tezin bu bölümünün Soyinka çalışmalarına önemli bir katkıda

bulunacağına inanılmaktadır.

İcat Soyinka’nın diğer oyunlarından farklıdır; çünkü Nijerya’yı değil,

Güney Afrika’yı konu etmiştir. Oyun Güney Afrika’da 1948 ve 1994

yılları arasında uygulanan Apartheid rejimi üzerinedir; fakat Amerika

Birleşik Devletleri ile Avrupa’daki ırkçı ayrımcılıklar da oyunda alaycı

sert bir üslupla eleştirilmektedir. Soyinka bu oyununda bugün hala

tüm dünyayı ilgilendiren çeşitli ayrımcılıklar, kolonyalizm ve

emperyalizmin izleri gibi konulara da yer vermiştir.

Oyunun konusu Güney Afrika’da bir laboratuvarda geçmektedir.

1976’da Amerika’nın bağımsızlığının 200. yıldönümü ile İnsan Hakları

Evrensel Bildirgesi’nin yıldönümü kutlamaları kapsamında Amerika,

Jüpiter’e bir nükleer roket göndermek ister; fakat roket patlar ve

gökyüzünde, dünyanın bir orasında bir burasında bir süre dolaştıktan

sonra Johannesburg’da kullanılmayan bir maden kuyusuna düşer

(İcat 21). Başta patlamanın zararsız olduğu düşünülür; ancak çok

geçmeden insanlar ya ölmeye başlar ya da beden bütünlükleri bozulur.

Bomba deri rengini ortadan kaldırdığı için siyahilerle beyazlar arasında

ayrım yapmak imkânsızlaşmıştır. Yüzler grileşmiş ve ifadesizleşmiştir.

Bu mutasyon, yönetim biçimlerini ırkçılık, kolonyalizm ve emperyalizm

üzerine inşa etmiş tüm devlet yöneticilerini endişelendirir.

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Bir grup Güney Afrikalı bilim insanı, Amerika ve Britanya’dan da gelen

maddi destekler ile, bir laboratuvarda görevlendirilir. Bu bilim

insanları ırkları yeniden ayırabilmenin yolunu bulmak üzere canlı ve

ölü insan bedenleri üzerinde çeşitli deneyler yaparlar. Amaçları,

bireylerin genetik ten renklerini gösterebilecek bir makine icat

etmektir. En çok Güney Afrika halkı bu durumdan etkilendiği için, tüm

Güney Afrikalıların ırkçı testlerden geçmesi zorunludur. Sahnede

görünmeyen ama sesi duyulan bilim insanlarından birisi olan

Inventor, yalnızca siyah ve beyaz değil, tüm ten rengi farklılıklarını

gösterebilen bir makine icat ettiğini iddia eder (29); fakat Amerika’nın

roketi gibi, makine de patlar ve Inventor da makineyle birlikte yok olur.

Bir Ku Klux Klan üyesi olan Amerika Birleşik Devletleri temsilcisi

Briklemaine ile İngiliz Ev Sahipleri, Ev Hanımları ve Toprak Sahipleri

Birliği’nin sekreteri olan Britanya temsilcisi Bayan Higgins, icadın az

önce yok olduğundan habersiz, laboratuvar çalışmalarını görmek için

ziyarete gelmek üzeredirler. Onlar gelmeden, acilen yeni bir şeyin icat

edilmesi gerekmektedir. Fremuler, çok az zaman kalmış olmasına

rağmen, yeni mucit olarak atanır. Fremuler konuklara “üç ya da dört

hiçbir şey” (İcat 59) gösterir, yani gerçek bir icat gösteremez; ancak

konuklar icadı görmeye o kadar heveslilerdir ki, gerçek bir icat görmüş

gibi davranırlar; hatta icadın görünüşünü pek beğenmediklerini

söylerler. Oyunun sonunda, laboratuvardaki diğer karakterlerin

sürekli deli muamelesi yaptıkları Hardiburr, “İmparatorun Yeni

Giysileri” (1837) masalındaki gibi, aslında ortada bir icat olmadığını

anlar ve bunu söylemeye yeltenir; fakat gardiyanlar tarafından

uyutularak susturulur. Böylece icadın varlığına inanmak isteyen

herkes rahat bir nefes alır.

Bu oyun çifte bilinçlilik konusuna farklı bir yaklaşım gerektirmiştir;

çünkü oyunun kendisi çift söylemli bir kara mizahtır. Dolayısıyla, tezin

bu bölümünde tematik bir inceleme yapılmıştır. Oyunda ırkçılık,

faşizm, sömürgecilik, hatta melezlik ile ilgili bazı temalar ve temsiller

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hakimdir. Önceki bölümlerde tartışılan oyunların aksine, İcat’ta tüm

olay örgüsü hem toplumsal hem de uluslararası bir fenomen olarak

çifte bilinçlilik durumunu yansıtmaktadır. Ayrıca Soyinka bu oyunda

siyahi/beyaz, Asyalı/beyaz, zalim/ezilen, Batılı/Batılı olmayan,

sömürgeci/sömürülen gibi çift taraflı karşıtlıklarla oynamaktadır.

Birinci alt bölüm, oyunda bilimsel araştırmaların politik ve ekonomik

gücün sahipleri tarafından nasıl kötüye kullanıldığını ve bunun ırk

kavramının sorunsallaşmasındaki etkisini incelemek amacıyla

yazılmıştır. Oyunun odağında bilimsel ırkçılık olsa da bu bir ironidir

ve bu ironi oyunun ikili söylemini oluşturmaktadır. Oyunda genetik

ırka bağlı farklılıkları ortadan kaldırmanın, ulusların güç yapılarını

istikrarsızlaştırdığı gösterilmektedir. Aynı zamanda oyun, ayrımcılığın

baskın siyasi ve kültürel söylemlerin doğal ve ihtiyaç duyulan bir

parçası olduğunu ve ten rengi gibi farklılıkların ortadan kalkması

halinde ırkçılığın daha da şiddetleneceğini gösterir.

Bu anlamda İcat, ırkçı düşünce ve eylemlerin çeşitli sarsıcı örneklerini

son derece hicivsel bir üslupla izleyiciye sunar. Buna göre birinci alt

bölümde, pigment kaybıyla oluşan melezlik; devletleri yönetenlerin

icadı olarak renk çizgisi; insan bedeninin hem tarihte hem de oyunda

zalimce ırkçı deneyler için kullanılmış olması; Nazi Almanya’sında

insan cesetlerinden sabun yapıldığına dair söylentiler; Apartheid

döneminde kadınlara uygulanmış olan katmanlı ayrımcılık; genetik

melezliğin Apartheid kanunlarıyla önlenmesi; delilik söyleminin,

insanları kontrol etmek ve bilgiyi kanalize etmek amacıyla, gücü elinde

tutanlar tarafından oluşturulmuş bir araç olduğu; deliliğin getirdiği

ikinci görü kabiliyeti gibi konulara değinilmiştir.

İkinci alt başlıkta oyunun dramaturjik açıdan önemine

odaklanılmıştır. Oyunun Royal Court temsili, bize seyirci ile yazarın

çifte bilinçlilik bağlamında konumsallıklarını göstermesi açısından

235

önemlidir; çünkü oyun ele aldığı konular nedeniyle 1959 Londra’sında

pek de hoş karşılanmamıştır. Hatta ertesi günün gazetelerinde oyun ve

yazar hakkında oldukça olumsuz ve ırkçı yorumlar yer almıştır. O

dönemin insanları oyunda kendilerine de yöneltilen öfkeli ve protest

eleştirileri görmeye hazır olmasa da İcat, yazarın konumu açısından

önemlidir; çünkü Soyinka bu oyun ile Royal Court sahnesine

Afrikalı/siyahi bir boyut kazandırmıştır. Aslında Soyinka dönem

itibariyle 1950’lerin Öfkeli Genç Adamlar akımı çerçevesinde

değerlendirilmesi gereken bir yazardır; fakat bugün bile Soyinka ismi,

birlikte çalıştığı Edward Bond, Arnold Wesker, John Arden gibi

isimlerle birlikte pek anılmamaktadır. Bu da mesleki ve akademik

anlamda ayrımcılığın bir örneği olarak düşünülebilir.

Üçüncü kısımda ise oyunun başlığı, çift söylemli bir metafor olarak

değerlendirilmiştir. Sonuç olarak görülmüştür ki; oyunda ırkçı

ayrımcılığı yeniden yaratmaya yönelik hiçbir girişim, küresel

yatırımlara rağmen, mümkün olmamıştır. Dolayısıyla oyun, ırk

kavramının bir uydurma, bir insan icadı olduğu mesajıyla sona erer.

7. Çalışmanın Sonuçları

Bu tez çalışmasında kolonyal/postkolonyal koşullarda çifte bilincin

çeşitli şekillerde tezahür ettiği fikri üzerinde durulmuş ve Soyinka’nın

oyunlarında çifte bilinçliliğin dışavurumları incelenmiştir. Başka

şartlarda ayrı ayrı incelenecek kuramsal kavramlar ve konular, çifte

bilinçliliğin yalnızca Afrikalı Amerikalıları etkileyen bir durum

olmadığını göstermek üzere bir arada incelenmiştir ki; bu da bu tezin

postkolonyal edebiyat çalışmalarına başlıca katkısıdır. Bu çalışmada

incelenen oyunlar özenle seçilmiş olsalar da varılan sonuçlar,

Soyinka’nın otuza yakın oyununda aynı sonuçların elde edilebileceği

anlamını taşımaz; ancak çifte bilinçlilik kavramının Du Bois’nın

orijinal kullanımından daha geniş bir içerikle incelenmiş olması, bu

236

metodolojinin başka oyun yazarlarının eserlerinde de uygulanabilmesi

imkânını ortaya çıkarır. Dolayısıyla, bu tezde genişletilmiş anlamıyla

çifte bilinçlilik kavramı üzerinden yapılacak çalışmaların, yirminci ve

yirmi birinci yüzyıl tiyatro araştırmalarına, özellikle postkolonyal

drama alanına önemli bir katkı sağlayabileceğine inanılmaktadır. Son

olarak belirtmek gerekir ki; İngilizce yerine kendi dillerinde yazmayı

tercih eden postkolonyal yazarların eserlerinin, dil sorunu nedeniyle

bu çalışmanın metodolojisine uygun olup olmadığı bilinmemektedir;

ancak çifte bilinçlilik ve postkolonyal konular dilleri aşan meseleler

olduğu için, bu tezde izlenen metodolojik yaklaşımın, dili ve coğrafi

konumu fark etmeksizin bu tür konuları ele alan oyunlar için de

kullanılması umulmaktadır.

237

C. THESIS PERMISSION FORM / TEZ İZİN FORMU

ENSTİTÜ / INSTITUTE

Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences

Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü / Graduate School of Social Sciences

Uygulamalı Matematik Enstitüsü / Graduate School of Applied Mathematics

Enformatik Enstitüsü / Graduate School of Informatics

Deniz Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Graduate School of Marine Sciences

YAZARIN / AUTHOR

Soyadı / Surname : Kutluk

Adı / Name : Aslı

Bölümü / Department : İngiliz Edebiyatı / English Literature

TEZİN ADI / TITLE OF THE THESIS (İngilizce / English): MANIFESTATIONS OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS

IN WOLE SOYINKA’S DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN, THE LION AND THE JEWEL, AND THE

INVENTION

TEZİN TÜRÜ / DEGREE: Yüksek Lisans / Master Doktora / PhD

1. Tezin tamamı dünya çapında erişime açılacaktır. / Release the entire

work immediately for access worldwide.

2. Tez iki yıl süreyle erişime kapalı olacaktır. / Secure the entire work for

patent and/or proprietary purposes for a period of two years. *

3. Tez altı ay süreyle erişime kapalı olacaktır. / Secure the entire work for

period of six months. *

* Enstitü Yönetim Kurulu kararının basılı kopyası tezle birlikte kütüphaneye teslim edilecektir. /

A copy of the decision of the Institute Administrative Committee will be delivered to the library

together with the printed thesis.

Yazarın imzası / Signature ..................................... Tarih / Date .........................................

(Kütüphaneye teslim ettiğiniz tarih. Elle doldurulacaktır.)

(Library submission date. Please fill out by hand.)

Tezin son sayfasıdır. / This is the last page of the thesis/dissertation.

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