Death and the King's Horseman

"Life is honour. It ends when honour ends."

Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman is one of the most intriguing examples of postcolonial literature I have encountered. Inspired by a historical event that took place in 1946, the short play examines the consequences of colonial intervention during a suicide demanded by custom in Oyo. Open to multiple interpretations based on gender (it is mostly women who uphold traditions in the text), generational conflict, postcolonial thought, duty, 'tradition' vs. modernity, or tragedy (as well as death, or the cycle of life), the play is much more than a simple dichotomy of West versus tradition.

Certainly, this tragedy is an indictment of colonialism in its entirety and the white man's hubris going so far as to disrupt the natural order. Yet it is by no means a rejection of all of the West, as Olunde's powerful character shows. The cycle of life and death, for posterity's sake, by no means condemns all aspects of British civilization, but proffers a coexistence cut short by colonial intervention in the ritual suicide. Olunde's character, educated in England and studying medicine, the new generation of Nigerians who carry the best of the West and local traditions, is ultimately made to the pay the final cost and Nigeria loses the potential of such courageous figures. 

Furthermore, the play throws into question categories such as 'civilized' or 'modern' because 'modernity' in Europe, as Olunde explains, is the contemporary savagery of World War II and the mass suicide of soldiers. If the ritual suicide of the deceased Yoruba alafin's horseman to accompany him into the other world is barbaric, what does that say about 'modern' Europe, as Olunde poses the questions to Pilkings's wife, Jane? And what of the excess and decadence of holding a ball for the Prince of England when Britain is at war? While the Europeans desecrate the ancestral spirits and culture of death in Oyo (the use of egungun masks for the masked ball at the European club foreshadows Picklings's dishonor of the community by disrupting the suicide and arrested Elesin), they are in the midst of a global conflict where millions of Europeans died. 

Where Soyinka further complicates things is in how the dishonor wrought by the colonial state's intervention to prevent the suicide is the wavering commitment of Elesin himself to carry out the act, suggestive of an internal conflict within Yoruba culture and society regarding its cultural values and traditions as somehow static or evolving over time. The very notion of tradition itself is undermined by the play's powerful conclusion, and, as the 'mother' of the market, Iyajola, explains, the world of the Yoruba remains cast into the void. 

This play is well-worth the time for a serious literary endeavor into colonialism in an African context. While undoubtedly critical of British cultural imperialism, arrogance, or brutality, the play does much more than construct some impenetrable wall between the West and Africa, which would be too simplistic or reductionist of a viewpoint. Instead, Soyinka welcomes the reader to contemplate the very notion of value judgments of civilizations as 'civilized' or barbaric. In addition, the play is steeped in the Yoruba worldview and cultural world, revealing its sophistication and lyrical beauty of the riddles and oral traditions. Possibly the take away of such a complex play is that the worldview of Yoruba culture is equally developed and contradictory like that of British civilization, or any other human society on the face of the globe.