Death & the King's Horseman: Key Quotations (CIE IGCSE English Literature)

The Assessment Objectives for the CIE IGCSE Literature in English state that you should demonstrate your knowledge of the content of the text through reference to detail and quotations from the text. This means summarising, paraphrasing, referencing single words and referencing plot events are all as valid as direct quotations in demonstrating that you understand the text. It is important to remember that you can evidence your knowledge of the text in these two equally valid ways: both through references to it and direct quotations from it. 

Overall, you should aim to secure a strong knowledge of the text, rather than rehearsed quotations, as this will enable you to respond to the question. It is the quality of your knowledge of the text that will enable you to select references effectively.

If you are going to revise quotations, the best way is to group them by character or theme. Below you will find definitions and analysis of the best quotations, arranged by the following themes:

• Life and death
• Power and influence
• Culture and religion
• Duty and responsibility

Death is a central theme of the play, as demonstrated in the title of the play, which refers to a Yoruba custom, a ritual sacrifice. The play explores how the protagonist’s lust for life hinders his honourable death, as well as drawing attention to cultural attitudes and divisions.

“Life is honour. It ends when honour ends” – Elesin, Act 1

“When the moment comes, don’t turn the food to rodents’ droppings in their mouth. Don’t let them taste the ashes of the world” – Iyaloja, Act 1 

Meaning and context

• At the beginning of the first act, Elesin suggests that the purpose of life is to be honourable and that an individual is essentially dead if they are dishonourable
• Towards the end of the act, Iyaloja reminds Elesin of the significance of his self-sacrifice: 
• She says that if he fails at his moment of death, their world will burn
• She uses a proverb that implies Elesin will go to the afterlife tasting rat droppings instead of praise 

Analysis

• At the beginning, Elesin reassures the village that he is ready to die in his position as king’s horseman and establishes himself as honourable and respected in his community:
  • In this way, Soyinka can illustrate the changes in Elesin’s character as the play develops and raise questions about life and death

• Soyinka foreshadows problems later in the act when Iyaloja doubts Elesin’s readiness

• She warns him of the importance of the ritual using an African proverb:

• • This shows the community’s beliefs about life and death are rooted in tradition

• She tries to appeal to Elesin’s cultural identity here 

“If they want to throw themselves off the top of a cliff or poison themselves for the sake of some barbaric custom what is that to me?” – Simon Pilkings, Act 2

“You who play with strangers’ lives, who even usurp the vestments of our dead, yet believe that the stain of death will not cling to you” – Iyaloja, Act 5

Meaning and context

• In Act 2, when Simon Pilkings is told of events in the village he tells Jane and Joseph, the servant, that he does not care what happens to the natives:
• He describes the Yoruba customs as brutal and savage 
• In the play’s resolution, however, Iyaloja tells Simon his disregard for the Yoruba beliefs leaves him culpable for Elesin and Olunde’s deaths:
• She implies he will be “stained” by the deaths for which he is responsible

Analysis

• Soyinka introduces the British authority figure as dismissive of the villagers’ lives and their beliefs about death:

• • The adjective “barbaric” connotes to uncivilised savages:

• This presents Simon as judgemental, believing his attitudes are superior
• His rhetorical question and animated descriptions convey his frustration: he implies the lives of the villagers are inconvenient to him 

• By the resolution, Soyinka concludes the tragedy with a curse or punishment:

• • Iyaloja’s metaphorical imagery ominously describes Simon’s guilt as a stain that will “cling” to him

Soyinka explores themes of power by illustrating dynamics between those who have power and those who do not. The play particularly depicts imbalances of power between men and women, local peoples and foreign rulers, and leaders and subordinates. 

“Look, just when did you become a social anthropologist, that's what I'd like to know” – Simon Pilkings, Act 2 

“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” – Girl, Act 3

Meaning and context

• In Act 2 Simon Pilkings sarcastically tells his wife she knows nothing about local culture:
• His comment comes as Jane tells Simon that the word “bastard” has more serious connotations in the community
• Jane relents, saying she does not know anything, and that she has just overheard things
• In contrast, in Act 3, a girl in the market stands up to Amusa and the police officers: 
• She orders him to leave and says he intrudes in a “home” of “mothers”
• The village girl (and the other women) mocks Amusa and says he is a “pet” or a “slave” as he eats the “left-overs” of the British, meaning he works for them 

Analysis

• Soyinka’s presentation of power allows him to convey cultural themes, too
• Simon Pilkings’s disrespect for his wife is mocked in this ironic line:
• Audiences are shown that Jane’s warnings to Simon are, in fact, rightly delivered
• He comes across as arrogantly, and ignorantly, dismissive of Jane’s intelligence
• In contrast, Soyinka presents the women in the village as powerfully influential 
• Here, a girl is able to stand up to powerful authority figures with the strength of the village women behind her:
• The use of the first-person plural emphasises strength when the girl says “our mothers”:
• In contrast, Jane, the only British female character, is alone in her challenges to Simon
• The girl’s metaphorical language presents her as intelligent and powerful as she insults the officers of the British Empire

“I know it was this thought that killed me, sapped my powers and turned me into an infant in the hands of unnamable strangers” – Elesin, Act 5

Meaning and context

• Elesin’s inaction has led to his failure to carry out his duty, the ritual suicide 
• Here, he blames the British influence in the colony for his weakness

Analysis

• Soyinka shows Elesin’s sense of powerless under British rule with imagery connoting to his vulnerability: 
• He is an “infant” and in their hands, or under their control
• Elesin refers specifically to the powerful influence of “strangers”, connoting to the British
• He describes them as a force able to take away (“sap”) his strength 

Soyinka sets his play in a village with diverse religious beliefs and traditions to explore intolerance and prejudice specifically related to religious and cultural beliefs. 

“Women, let my going be likened to/The twilight hour of the plantain” – Elesin, Act 1

“The gods demanded only the old expired plantain but you cut down the sap-laden shoot to feed your pride” – Iyaloja, Act 5 

Meaning and context

• At first, Elesin’s commitment to his tribe is strong:
• He sings about an African proverb that speaks of local beliefs
• He tells the women that he is ready to die because, like an old plantain, he is making room for new growth
• In Act 5, Iyaloja refers to this same proverb (in fact, she mentions it repeatedly throughout the play), suggesting how significant this idea is to the tribe
• Here, she tells Simon Pilkings his interference has disappointed the gods because, instead of Elesin’s death, Olunde, his son, died instead

Analysis

• Elesin is introduced as an important and committed member of the community:
• This line emphasises his commitment to the Yoruba culture and to the entire tribe
• He refers to a proverb that relates the order of the universe:
• The old must die to make way for the young (an old plantain dies as it has given to its young)
• However, the British interference in this custom disrupts this order:
• Iyaloja uses the metaphor of an “old expired plantain” to represent Elesin and the “sap-laden shoot” to refer to Olunde and emphasise his potential
• Iyaloja’s strong words to Simon present him as arrogant and greedy:
• He wanted to “feed” his “pride”
• She alludes to his destructive power with imagery describing the cutting down of a tree

“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” – Simon Pilkings, Act 2

Meaning and context

• When Simon and Jane Pilkings wear egungun costumes to a party, the native sergeant, Amusa, expresses his disgust
• Here, Simon responds, calling the native customs “nonsense” 
• He refers to Amusa’s religion, suggesting that as he is Muslim, he should not be concerned with offensive behaviour towards other faiths

Analysis

• Soyinka presents Simon Pilkings as ignorant about the district’s culture
• Worse, though, is his emphatic dismissal of other religions or cultures, belittling the Yoruba customs as “nonsense” and, later, “mumbo-jumbo”
• As well as this, Soyinka exposes Simon’s weakness as a representative of the British Empire and Christianity:
• His intolerance makes him a poor role model 

Duty and responsibility

Death and the King's Horseman closely examines the idea of personal duty and responsibility to community. Soyinka’s main characters are from two different cultures and both deny their duties. Soyinka’s tragedy conveys the damaging consequences of this.

“That captain's self-sacrifice” – Olunde, Act 4

“And not merely my life but the lives of many” – Elesin, Act 5 

Meaning and context

• In Act 2 Olunde tries to explain to Jane that the Yoruba sense of shared responsibility and self-sacrifice is similar to the patriotism shown in World War II:
• Here, he refers to a naval captain who destroyed his dangerous ship, taking his own life in the process, to save the lives of people nearby
• His reference to “self-sacrifice” alludes to Elesin’s ritual suicide
• In the resolution, Elesin also comments on the impact of his failure to carry out the ritual in terms of self-sacrifice:
• He tells Simon Pilkings that his interference has consequences for many people

Analysis

• Olunde’s rhetoric presents him as an intelligent critical thinker:
• Here, his short sentence emphatically states his opinions on a recent event and he uses this to draw parallels between the Yoruba sense of duty and British patriotism
• Elesin’s powerful language to Simon Pilkings in Act 5 shows his emotional response to being captured and being unable to fulfil what he repeatedly calls his “duty”
• The parallelism within “life” and “lives” presents Elesin’s realisations:
• An individual is responsible for others 

“I no like trouble but duty is duty” – Amusa, Act 3

“Well, I did my duty as I saw it. I have no regrets” – Simon Pilkings, Act 5

Meaning and context

• In Act 3, Amusa, a police sergeant, tells a crowd of angry women to allow him through to arrest Elesin
• Here, he places full responsibility for his unpopular actions on “duty”:
• By saying that “duty is duty”, he implies a lack of accountability for any actions
• In Act 5, Simon responds to Elesin’s blame by saying he was doing his duty in a way that he believes was right
• His lack of accountability is emphasised in his emphatic sentence: “I have no regrets”

Analysis

• Soyinka’s play presents Amusa and Simon Pilkings as authority figures in the community with positions of responsibility 
• However, they are shown as weak and unable to manage their duties responsibly
• Soyinka uses these characters to convey the danger of allowing unaccountable people to lead