Summary Of Death And The King Horseman

In the tragic play Death and the King’s Horseman by the Nigerian author Wole Soyinka in 1975, the author provides more insight into the periods of history by making clear allusions to the era of colonialism in Africa, and to World War 2. He is able to provide insights about the periods of history through his retelling of past events from the perspective of Africans. Given that Soyinka wrote the tragic play in 1975, he has been able to learn from others about the past and also lived through some historical events. This allowed him to have more insight from various perspectives on how situations in Africa were believed to have occurred and what actually occurred. The play is set to have taken place during wartime as pointed out by Olunde’s appraisal …show more content…
I believe that Soyinka’s tragic play would be a better fit for an interdisciplinary World History and World Literature course due to its direct reference to the historical events such as the Transatlantic slave trade, and the indirect rule of British officials that took place in Africa which led to the collision of cultures. This resulted in different written representations of what was happening in Africa during that specific time period, whether it be the European perspective or the African perspective. As better described by Olunde, the Europeans “have mastered the art of calling things by names which don’t remotely describe them” (161). This relates to the idea of colonialism when European countries were “discovering” Africa and hoped to Westernize them by slowly integrating their ideals into African’s cultural traditions. Literature writings during this “discovery” period were European representations for the most part. Even though the information may not be false completely, it often contained euphemisms and were written to favor the Europeans beliefs such as when Olunde points out that “history is made by describing murderous defeats as strategic victories” (161). Soyinka demonstrates that for the purposes of pleasing the people in a country, it may be necessary to leave out or alter parts of what would eventually become historical events. In addition to this, even African writers may often exclude important aspects in their writings. This can be seen in Chinua Achebe’s critique of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness in which he argues the image of Africa “has no reality and the natives no individuality” (Davis 33). This refers to the idea of not giving the African slaves in the story any names, which is not different than the denial of identity