Essay on Death and the Kings Horseman and A Grain of Wheat

The following work will call your attention to the way in which a playwright and a novelist deploy key stylistic and dramatic effects and will be complete by means of examining a passage taken from each work. To follow a comparison and contrast of the techniques used within the two works will be observed. My rein is loosened. I am master of my Fate. When the hour comes, Watch me dance along the narrowing path, Glazed by the soles of my great precursors. My soul is eager. I shall not turn aside. (Soyinka, 2002:10). The play is set in the ancient Yoruban city of Oyo in Nigeria, nineteen forty three. The King has died and on the night in question his Horseman must escort him to the afterlife. The Kings Horseman, Elesin Oba, dancing†¦show more content†¦This is an interesting point of departure as to whether the happenings of the text are agreeable or disagreeable. The first standpoint is the thorny issue of suicide in African culture. The ceremony is that of a social process. Elesin wishes to perform this act not for personal gain, but as a social experience that will involve his fellow countrymen as it is his duty to do so. The second standpoint is that of suicide from a Western point of view. It is seen to have nothing that ties an individual’s death to that of another’s in the supernatural world. In accordance with Christianity if a person commits suicide that is the end of their journey. It is clear that the two standpoints differ in standing as one sees suicid e as a personal act and the other a communal. The play is certainly fascinating and stimulating, but as for taking a standpoint on the moral issues involved it is possible to say that despite tradition the willing suicide of an individual is not something to be celebrated as it is in Death and the Kings Horseman. But who tilled the soil on which grew coffee, tea, pyrethrum, and sisal? Who dug the roads and paid the taxes? The whiteman lived on our land. He ate what we grew and cooked. And even the crumbs from the table, he threw to his dogs. (NgÃ… ©gÄ ©, 2002: 216) The allegorical story of A Grain of Wheat takes place after World War II in the village of Thabai. It portrays several characters in a village whose