It is not enough to just analyse a passage or scene in isolation; you must also consider why that particular passage or scene is important to the text as a whole. What key themes or ideas does it represent? Does it foreshadow upcoming events? Does it reveal more about a character’s motivations, thoughts or feelings, given what has happened and/or what is to come? The following section includes some key moments from the play and how they are relevant to the rest of the text, but this list is not exhaustive, and you are encouraged to consider other moments and how these also relate to the play as a whole.
Key moment
Act 1
Elesin: “But the smell of their flesh, their sweat, the smell of indigo on their cloth, this is the last air I wish to breathe as I go to meet my great forebears”
Summary of key moment:
- This introduces Elesin’s love for life (and women) as he prepares for a Yoruba ritual
- The praise-singer is doubtful Elesin takes this seriously and this foreshadows problems:
- Elesin’s distractions with women and the earthly pleasures they offer present him as hedonistic
- His focus on the lavish attention they are about to bestow upon him is his primary concern: he says he wants the smell of women to be the “last air” he breathes
Why this is important in relation to the play as a whole:
- The tragic hero’s fatal flaw evokes sympathy from the audience:
- His character is larger than life and humorous despite his obvious ego and, thus, is presented as a flawed yet likeable hero
- This scene introduces Soyinka’s themes of duty and honour:
- The scene offers audiences a chance to reflect on personal responsibility
- It builds suspense so that, in the rising action, audiences are watching the decisions Elesin makes as a result of his nature
Key moment
Act 4
Elesin (an animal bellow from off): “Leave me alone! Is it not enough that you have covered me in shame!/White man, take your hand from my body!”
Summary of key moment:
- In Act 4, the British district officer, Simon Pilkings, has arrested Elesin:
- He has ordered for him to be taken to a cellar in the house where, Simon says, “the slaves were stored”
- This scene shows Elesin’s ritual has been interrupted: he has failed to carry out his duty
- In this climactic scene, Elesin breaks free of the guards and rushes in to the room where Jane Pilkings is trying to detain and distract Elesin’s son from seeing his father:
- Elesin is reunited with his son but it is not a happy reunion:
- The stage directions state: “Olunde stands frozen on the spot”
- Here, Elesin’s character shouts like an “animal”, presenting him as a caged beast:
- This may allude to primal emotions, illustrated in his exclamatory instructions
- Elesin’s desperate frustration is portrayed as he challenges Simon Pilkings and his team:
- The lines present conflicting cultures reaching a head:
- Elesin says the British have shamed him by preventing the custom
- He refers to their hands touching him, implying physical control and oppression
Why this is important in relation to the play as a whole:
- This scene reveals the consequences of Elesin’s tragic procrastination
- Elesin’s state of mind has declined as a result of his weakness and external pressures:
- In this way, Soyinka punishes Elesin for his selfishness
- However, Elesin’s words also show the impact of British interference
- The suspense ends in Elesin’s peripeteia, or reversal of fortune:
- The end of Act 3 shows Elesin entering a trance that implies his death
- Act 4 opens in the Pilkings’ residence and both Olunde and Jane surmise Elesin has succeeded in his ritual suicide as the drumming ends
- This scene reveals to audiences that Elesin is alive, but captured
- Soyinka’s protagonist blames his failures on external pressures to highlight his own victimisation:
- The scene draws attention to the impact of foreign rule that does not understand the local culture and enforces its will and values on the natives
Key moment
Act 5
Praise-singer: “Elesin, we placed the reins of the world in your hands yet you watched it plunge over the edge of the bitter precipice. You sat with folded arms while evil strangers tilted the world from its course and crashed it beyond the edge of emptiness”
Summary of key moment:
- The praise-singer admonishes Elesin for his part in the inevitable disorder to come
- Soyinka may be symbolising the significance of a single act at a time of crisis:
- Elesin’s failure to stand up for his community is symbolised as a success for the colonial powers, described here as “evil strangers”
- Elesin’s actions have tilted the scales further over the “edge” into the metaphorical void Iyaloja and the praise-singer warned Elesin about
Why this is important in relation to the play as a whole:
- In the play’s resolution, Elesin has not only doomed himself, but his son and the future of his local community:
- Soyinka ends the play with Elesin and Olunde’s tragic deaths
- Iyaloja leads Elesin’s widow away, referring to the “unborn”
- A dubious future awaits as the Yoruba culture has suffered a devastating blow
- The “emptiness” the praise-singer mentions may refer to the end of the line of king’s horsemen (which links to the title of the play):
- Soyinka conveys the significance of an individual’s actions on others’ futures