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A Critical Analysis of Wole Soyinka As a Dramatist, with Special Reference to His Engagement in Contemporary Issues

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A Critical Analysis of Wole Soyinka As a Dramatist, with Special Reference to His Engagement in Contemporary Issues A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF WOLE SOYINKA AS A DRAMATIST, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HIS ENGAGEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY ISSUES by MAJAHANA JOHN CHONSI LUNGA submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the subject ENGLISH at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: MR D. LEVEY NOVEMBER 1994 SUMMARY A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF WOLE SOYINKA AS A DRAMATIST, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HIS ENGAGEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY ISSUES This dissertation is mainly on Wole Soyinka as a dramatist. It aims to show that Soyinka, far from being an irrelevant artist as some of his fiercest critics have alleged, is a deeply committed writer whose works are characterised by a strong sense of concern with basic human values of right and wrong, good and evil. Furthermore, the dissertation shows that although Soyinka is not an admirer of Marxist aesthetics, he is certainly not in the art-for-art's-sake camp either, I because he is fully aware of the utilitarian value of literature. Soyinka's works are much influenced by his social and historical background, and the dissertation shows that Soyinka's socio-political awareness pervades all these works, although it will be seen that in the later plays there is a sharpened political awareness. Although largely concerned with his own country's issues, Soyinka also emerges as a keen observer of humanity universally. * * * * * * * * * * * * KEY TERMS DESCRIBING THE TOPIC OF THE DISSERTATION Wole Soyinka; critical analysis, evaluation, interpretation, criticism, critique, critic; drama, dramatic, dramatist; engagement, preoccupation, commitment, engage, committed writer; ideology; contemporary, colonial, pre-colonial, post­ colonial, post-independence, traditional; themes, issues, concerns; art, artist, Marxism, Marxist aesthetics, art-for-art's-sake literature. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following people: *Professor L. H. Hugo, who was my first direct contact with UNISA, *Mr David Levey, my supervisor, for his patience, incisive guidance, constructive criticism and moral support during my studies, *Mr Dawie Malan, the Subject Reference Librarian, and the UNISA Library staff, for their prompt responses to my requests, *Mr Paul Anthony Mitchell, formerly manager and proprietor of Northern Botsalo Bookshop in Francistown, who personally searched bookshops in the United Kingdom for Soyinka texts which most bookshops in Botswana had never heard of, *Mr Mark Guengrich, "the computer specialist", who taught me so much about using a computer when this project was being drafted, and last, but of course not least, *Barbara, my wife, and my children, Duduzile, Simakahle and Mayibongwe, who showed so much understanding when I spent long periods away from home, working on this dissertation. Without your love and support, I would never have completed this assignment. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGES INTRODUCTION Definition of terms 1 - 10 Outline of the nature, scope, and purpose of the dissertation. Historical, literary and biographical background. CHAPTER 1 11 30 A brief discussion of Wole Soyinka's non-dramatic creative works. The Novels: The Interpreters. The Man Died. Season of Anomy, Ake: The Years of Childhood. and lsara: A Voyage Around Essay. The Poems: ldanre and Other Poems, A Shuttle in the Crypt. Ogun Abibiman and Mandela's Earth and Other Poems. CHAPTER 2 31 83 Wole Soyinka's Plays of the Sixties. Part One: The Lion and the Jewel. The Swamp Dwellers. Camwood on the Leaves. The Trials of Brother Jero and A Dance of the Forests. Part Two: The Strong Breed. The Road and Kongi's Harvest. CHAPTER 3 84 113 Wole Soyinka's Plays of the Seventies. Madmen and Specialists. Jero's Metamorphosis and Death and the King's Horseman. CHAPTER 4 114 148 / Wole Soyinka's Plays of the Eighties. Opera Wonyosi, A Play of Giants and Requiem for a Futurologist. Bl BLIOGRAPHY 149 155 INTRODUCTION Some critics, for example Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa and lhechukwu, have alleged that Wole Soyinka is nothing but a literary charlatan "who delights in masquerading as the authentic and quintessential African literary force" ( 1982: 208). These same critics go on to accuse Soyinka of "cultural servitude" because of his "Euromodernist" style which makes his works "obscure" and "privatist" (Ibid. : 249). The primary aim of this dissertation is to show that Wale Soyinka, contrary to the views of the Chinweizus, is a committed writer who is deeply and consistently preoccupied with c.?ntemporary socio-political issues. That part of this dissertation's title which refers to "engagement in contemporary issues" should be briefly explained. "Engagement" in this discu'Ssion connotes the same as "commitment", a concept which is explained in Gray's definition of a "committed writer", who is: [a] writer or artist who sees his work as necessarily serving a political or social programme or set of beliefs, and not merely aimed at achieving literary ends. ( 1984: 49) Gray's definition of a "committed writer", with its extended explanation of "commitment", matches Amuta's definition of "commitment", which denotes "a preoccupation with issues of socio-political contemporaneity" ( 1989: 115). "Contemporary" in this sense will carry approximately the same meaning as "post-colonial", a term which, according to Ashcroft, Griffiths and T1ffin, is understood "to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day" (1989: 2). However, the issues explored by Soyinka are wider than the simply political. One may still ask a further question of the term "commitment": committed to what or to whom? Aristophanes, Swift, Orwell, Haggard, Ngugi, Ruark, Soyinka are all committed writers, but they are not all in one and the same camp. Aristophanes, Haggard and Ruark belong to one group, the rightist, conservative camp, while Swift, Orwell, Ngugi and Soyinka, although differing in their radicalism and revolutionary zeal, can be said to be writers with iconoclastic, sometimes SQCialistic.. tendencies.- Banham actually says Aidoo, Soyinka and Ngugi stand 2 together in challenging present-day African politicians (Jones 1984: 171-2), and Michael Thorpe notes that he has compared Soyinka "with such unsparing truth­ tellers as Orwell, Koestler, and Solzhenitsyn" C1989 : 39). There is some controversy, though, about a writer such as Ekwensi. Peter Nazareth argues (quite rightly) that in Survive the Peace ( 1976), Ekwensi emerges as a political novelist (Gugelberger 1985: 165 - 177). To Amuta, however, Ekwensi is a writer "without any discernible political commitment" whatsoever (Amuta 1989: 64). lyasere also does not think much of Ekwensi's works (Jones 1975: 20). To this writer, Ekwensi is strictly not a committed artist, but Soyinka is. It is~in this light, then, that Soyinka's commitment should be understood. It wi 11 be argued that Soyinka is a social critic who writes because he waots ta articulate ordinary people's aspirations, as he once said: ---·------·----~-~ ....... --·- ... because literature ... has to do with people, ... there is no way in which human relations, social relations, economic situations, the agonies and anguish of people can be avoided in [one's] writing. ... because I deal with human beings, I become infinitely involved in attempting to articulate their problems, their fears, their hopes, using my trade to challenge unacceptable situations in society, using that art as a means in fact of heightening the humane consciousness of people .... (Granqvist and Stotesbury 1989: 68) The theory of literary criticism that will be used in this discussion is based on f / Amuta's approach, which is expressed as follows: /( ... it is the socio-economic, political and ideoj_ggi~2ll...£Q!ltradictions /t which define the life and historical experience of the African people that form the basis of a new and more functionally relevant theoretical approach to African literature. C1989: vii - viii) This approach emphasises the "utilitarian" value of literature, as opposed to "art-for-art's-sake" aesthetics. Amuta's approach is therefore Mar xi st in orienation, as he CAmuta) explains (Ibid.: viii). This writer will adopt Amuta's approach. * * * Akinwade Oluwole Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934, in lsara, western Nigeria, of I jegba parentage. <The information on Soyinka's biography is taken from an assortment of sources, mainly from Moore ( 1978), Jones ( 1988) and from the journals "Contemporary Authors" and "Contemporary Literary Criticism", of various dates and by various authors too many to list here.) A member of the 3 Yoruba-speaking people, Soyinka grew up in a traditional town called Abeokuta. His father, Soditan Ayodele, was a headmaster, and his mother, Eniola, was also a school teacher. Both parents were ·ardent Christians, and Soyinka was brought up on Christian principles. Soyinka started his primary education in 1938 at St Peter's School, Ake, Abeokuta, completing it in 1943, and between 1944 and 1945 he attended Abeokuta Grammar School. From 1946 to 1950 he attended Government College, Ibadan, where he completed his high school education. From there he moved to University College in Ibadan, where he studied English, History and Greek, completing his degree in 1954. He then furthered his education at the School of English, University of Leeds, where he obtained a B.A. Honours Degree in English in 1957. During his stay in England, Soyinka spent eighteen months as a script reader at the Royal Court Theatre in London, a probable source of inspiration for his deep interest in theatre work (Moore 1978 :7). Soyinka is a prolific writer, primarily of plays, as can be seen from the list of his works below. (Only those that will be discussed, or referred to, in this discussion, are included. Some of his other works were never published, and those are not included here. ) Five novels have been published by Soyinka: The Interpreters ( 1965), The Man Died ( 1972), Season of Anomy ( 1973), Ake: The Years of Childhood ( 1981) and lsara: A Voyage Around Essay ( 1989). <The last two are autobiographies.) Two other prose works, collections of essays on criticism, have been published by Soyinka: Myth, Literature and the African World ( 1976) and Art.
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