Structural Coherence of Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman, The

College Literature, Spring 2004 by McLuckie, Craig

The primary aim of the police scene in Death is first to create a moment of suspension, and then to entertain. The contrasts between the comical in the police scene and the serenity of Elesin's sacrifice.. . emphasize the seriousness and beauty of Elesin's sacrificial ritual. ... In the Apidan theatre, a similar contrasting effect is brought about by the change from the efe to the idan genre.6 . . . Elesin's preparations for the sacrifice cannot be seen as an idan sketch, but the atmosphere, the sentiments and the effect created on the audience by the scene have affinities with those of an idan sketch. (Gotrick 1984,181)

Soyinka instructs his play's producers/directors that "The play should be run without an interval" (1975, 8). Such a procedure denies the audience relief from and an intermission for reflection on the Yoruba metaphysics, forcing the audience to inhabit its world. In the five acts, binary oppositions create the conflict of transition, some of which are: Elesin vs. the PraiseSinger; Elesin vs. lyaloja (Act I); Pilkings vs. Jane vs. Amusa/Joseph (Act II); Amusa vs. Women; Elesin vs. lyaloja; Elesin vs. self (Act III); England vs. Yoruba (Act IV); Olunde vs. Elesin (Act V). An examination, act by act, of these oppositions will underscore elements of mimicry within the play's structure and cultural hybridity within its content.

The play opens with a "market in its closing stages" (Soyinka 1975, 9), but the entrance of Elesin Oba immediately revivifies it. The vitality of the man is expressionistically represented in sound (drums, his singing, the women's chattering), movement (Elesin's dance), and sight (the colorful nature of the goods,7 etc., on display). The audience's response to this assault on their senses is positive. The opening exchange between Elesin and the Praise-Singer is littered with figurative language, which may confuse those uninitiated in Soyinka's dramaturgy, but not those initiated in Shakespearean tragedy; however, maintaining the audience's sense of being positively offbalance is necessary. The language itself emphasizes a change in Elesin's circumstances; the Praise-Singer comments of him that "Because the man approaches a brand-new bride he forgets the long faithful mother of his children" (9). The rite of marriage, a communion between two people, is suggested, but the Praise-Singer is referring to Elesin's inhabiting the moment of transition-of the Praise-Singer's world, but also of the world beyond (death). That Elesin takes the figurative language of the Praise-Singer as his model for response, but restricts the weight of his words to earthy, sensory (and sensual) content-"When the horse sniffs the stable does he not strain at the bridle? The market is the long-suffering hoirie of my spirit and the women are packing up to go." (9)-puts the audience on notice about where his flaw resides: with the sensuous engagement with life, with women. The Praise-Singer's counter response reinforces this idea by posing an opposition to the sensory evocation of the market: "but when the wind blows cold from behind, that's when the fowl knows his true friends" (9). Friends are those who provide support and warmth in adverse conditions. Elesin responds with a mantra-like use of the Praise-Singer's Yoruba name "Olohun-iyo" to which the Praise-Singer inquires "Are you sure there will be one like me on the other side?" (9). Midway through the opening exchange, the audience is forced into a reassessment of the significance of this ritual-"the other side" promotes a sense of separation, an opposition to marriage, a divide that only F.lesm ran cross or transcend.