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May 9, 2018 · Death and the King’s Horseman reflected a new global culture and a linguistic destiny many did not see coming, writes Biodun Jeyifo. ... What makes Death and the King’s Horseman so powerful as ...
- Biodun Jeyifo
Aug 8, 2024 · Death and the King’s Horseman follows this tragic structure. Act 1 introduces Elesin and his duty. Act 2 presents the opposing force in the form of Simon Pilkings, who intends to prevent Elesin ...
The story of Death and the King's Horseman is based on real events that took place in Nigeria in 1946, when the English district commissioner attempted to stop the king's horseman from committing ritual suicide. Several historians have noted, however, that the tradition of the king's horseman following the king to the afterlife isn't actually ...
- Wole Soyinka
- 1975
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 that must happen one month after the king’s death, wherein the king’s horseman becomes honour-bound to commit suicide and follow the king to the afterlife. Soyinka’s play explores how the protagonist’s lust for life hinders an honourable death.
Quotes. Published in 1975, the play Death and the King’s Horseman tells the story of the obstacles that Elesin Oba—the king’s horseman—faces on the night he is supposed to commit ritual suicide to follow the recently departed king into the afterlife. Elesin struggles with his commitment to following through with the act, even as the ...
Nov 17, 2021 · This act of mercy backfired when Elesin’s eldest son committed suicide in his father’s place. Death and the King’s Horseman combines many different literary strands, and it is based on an actual event. A friend of Soyinka, Duro Ladipo, had already written a play on this theme in Yoruba under the title Oba Waja, “The King Is Dead.”.
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From among Soyinka’s many works, the Swedish academy singled out Death and the King’s Horseman as “a genuinely, dramatically convincing work full of many ideas and meanings, of poetry, satire, surprise, cruelty, and lust.”. In this play, the Swedish Academy noted, “the relationship between the unborn, the living, and the dead, to ...