Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou

Faculty of Letters and Languges

Department of English

M II: Literature and Civilisation

Modern African Literature

Title of the Presentation

Myth and African Ttragedy in Wole Soyinka’s

A Dance of the Forests (1960)

Prepared by: -Ms Kahina Aimeur

- Ms Kahina Dahmani

- Ms Sara Sebki

-Ms Zohra Gaad

Academic Year: 2019-2020

Introduction to Wole Soyinka (by Warda Challal)

Wole Soyinka is one of the most famous African writers whose literature showed his

commitment to the cause of justice in his country, Nigeria, as well as all African countries.

He was born in Nigerian Yoruba community in 1934 whose traditions and myths had a great

influence on him. Because of his political ideas, Soyinka faced jail and exile. In the Nigerian

Civil War (1967- 70), he was imprisoned without trial for eighteen months for his alleged

conspiracy with the Biafra rebels. His imprisonment showed him the extent to which justice

had died in his country and was replaced by corruption and dictatorship. He recorded his

experience in prison in his autobiography The Man Died. It was also during his time in Jail

that he wrote his collection of poems Poems from Prison. In the 1990s, he was in political

exile because of his open protestations against the violations of human rights in his homeland

by a military dictatorship. The atrocities of this dictatorship included the execution of the

writer Ken Saro Wiwa.

Wole Soyinka studied at the University College of Ibadan and graduated from the

University of Leeds in Britain in 1957. In 1996, he was appointed as professor of Arts at

Emory University of Atlanta, Georgia. Although he was brought up in a Christian and

Western Environment, his writings reflect African tradition and mythology while employing

Western literary forms. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming

the first African and black writer to win it.

Soyinka was highly concerned with politics and the post-colonial corruption which

seemed to pervade all post-colonial African nations. He was a human rights campaigner and

a strong opponent of all kinds of dictatorships, including religious fundamentalism. This

concern is shown in his writings which have political themes. His major works including

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The Lion and the Jewel (1963), Kongi’s Harvest (1965), The Death of the King's Horseman

(1975), The Interpreters (1965), etc.

Tragedy is Soyinka's favorite literary genre, as it allows him to combine his interest

in his community's mythology and rituals with his political concerns. The Dance of the

Forests (1960) is one of his tragedies in which his interests are reflected. The play was

published to celebrate Nigeria's independence in 1960. It is an allegory not only of the future

of Nigeria, but of post-colonial African countries as a whole. This short paper is an attempt

to study this play as a reflection of African tragedy and mythology. Our work is divided into

four main parts in which we will discuss the historical background of play, introduce the plot

of the play and discuss its main themes. The last part is devoted to the study of the difference

between Aristotelian and African tragedy as well as the manifestation of the characteristics

of the African tragedy in Wole Soyinka's A Dance of the Forests.

I- Historical Background (by Kahina Dahmani)

A Dance to the Forests was written in a time of censorship where authors were not

allowed to express their thoughts and opinions freely. This play is an allegory of the Nigerian

post-colonial political situation. The play was first performed as part of the celebration of

the Nigerian independence from the British rule in 1960.

With the end of the first Era of European imperialism and the beginning of the

Industrial Revolution, the demand for raw materials increased considerably. To satisfy their

needs, the super powers used Africa as a means for storing merchandise. But quickly this

huge warehouse became the principle source of the raw materials. In 1884, the German

Chancellor Otton Von Bismark called for what later became known as ‘The Berlin

Conference’ with the purpose of civilizing what they saw as the savage and ignorant Africans

in what they nicknamed ‘the white man’s burden’. The real objective of this meeting was

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the paration of Africa to prevent a war between the super powers, letting the floor for ‘The

Scramble for Africa’. In other words, the colonization of Africa started.

Pre-colonial Nigeria:

A long time ago, different groups of people ruled Nigeria. Each group had its own

language, religion, and History. Even before colonialism, they were living under different

administrations based on customs and conventions that varied from one region to another

because of different ethnic groups such as the Yoruba and the Igbo, kinship-based societies.

1/ The Yoruba people:

The Yoruba are the most popular ethnic group in all Africa primarily located in

Nigeria. Their origins are a mystery and their myths are different. For example, every single

Yoruba town has its own myth of creation. But they all consider Oludumare, god of skies,

as their father and first king. Moreover, The Yoruba believe in many deities, approximately

200 deities. The Yoruba universe is filled with spirit of life force called Ase which comes

from the creator, Oludumare. This spirit is found in all the living things. Ase is flexible and

can be used for good and bad. In addition, Singing and dancing are important elements of

their religion and tradition.

A picture of the Yoruba people

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Famous Yoruba Creation Myths

According to one of the Yoruba creation myths, the deities originally lived in the sky

with only water below them. Olorun, the Sky God, gave Orishala, the God of Whiteness, a

chain, a bit of earth in a snail shell, and a five-toed chicken. He told Orishala to go down and

create the earth. Orishala approached the gate of heaven. He saw some deities having a party

and he stopped to greet them. They offered him palm wine and he drank too much and fell

asleep. Odua, his younger brother, saw Orishala sleeping. He took the materials and went to

the edge of heaven accompanied by Chameleon. He let down the chain and they climbed

down it. Odua threw the piece of earth on the water and placed the five-toed chicken upon

it. The chicken began to scratch the earth, spreading it in all directions. After Chameleon

had tested the firmness of the earth, Odua stepped down. A sacred grove is there today

Nigeria as a Colony (1800-1960)

The region of west Africa was ruled by Great Britain. In 1893 the Yoruba kingdoms

became part of the protectorate of Great Britain. When missionaries arrived to Nigeria, they

looked at the inhabitant with racial and masculine superiority. During colonization, Nigeria

was divided into two parts under different rulers, Western institutions were established and

Christianity spread.

After the Second World War (1939-1945), there was a rise of nationalism in Nigeria

and the demand for independence reached the pick. Nigerians gained their independence in

October 1st, 1960 and became part of the Commonwealth of Nations.

About the Play

Franz Fanon claims that, ‘Decolonization never take place unnoticed, for it influences

the Individuals and modifies them fundamentally.’

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 To start, the story of the dead couple goes back to pre-colonial period. First, Soyinka

used his traditional culture and tradition as to correct the colonial misrepresentation of his

country. Through the celebration of indigenous traditions and values, he reclaimed the native

culture. He used the theater to explore and re-affirm their cultural values and denounce the

pejorative representation of his culture and civilization. This return to the source and

ancestral traditions by post-colonial writers aims to eradicate the cultural hegemony of the

colonizers, challenge and struggle against myths and pejorative discourses that followed

colonial conquest. Wole Soyinka pushes his audience to change their world view by calling

into question the underlying assumptions about their respective traditional culture and

colonial legacies. Second, since Nigeria experienced the process of linguistic imperialism,

post-colonial writers used a unique form of English, a combination of English and with

metaphorical and sonorous Yoruba traditional language. Through the use of pure traditional

names and proverbs in the play under examination we may notice: Agboriko, “… he wears

white Agbada and white wrapper …” . This combination is a mark of fidelity and attachment

his culture so as to resist the cultural hegemony. Third, Wole Soyinka did not want to present

a joyful, enthusiastic and optimistic play to suggest that with independence all the Nigerian

ills will vanish. Finally, the author argues that colonialism is not the catchall and the only

responsible for all the dysfunctions of his country. This play was interpreted as a Cautionary-

tale. It warned Nigerians that their energies should be spent trying to avoid the mistakes that

have already been made by their ancestors.

A Dance of the Forests was a polarizing play that made many Nigerians angry

especially politicians and the elite because of its portrayal of post-colonial Nigerian politics

as aimless and corrupt.

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II- Plot Summary of A Dance of the Forests (by Sara Sebki)

A Dance of the Forests is a seminal work written by the acclaimed Nigerian playwright,

poet and essayist Wole Soyinka. The three-act play combines traditional aspects of western

drama with aspects of African drama. It is deemed to be a reflection of Yoruba belief system

and as an allegory for modern Nigerian society. Having said that, it is important to note that

Wole Soyinka combines not only elements of European drama and African myth, but also

the world of humans with the supernatural which is evidenced by the presence of spirits in

the play.

The play begins as the two main characters from the world of the dead emerge from the

earth, creating an eerie atmosphere that will be dominant throughout the paly. The dead man

is ‘fat and bloated’ and is wearing traditional warrior clothing while the woman is pregnant.

In this light, it is worth noting that the stage acts as a liminal space between the realm of the

dead and the realm of the living.

The play’s main event consists of a ceremony of self-discovery that revolves around

four mortal characters: Rola, Demoke, Adenebi, and the Soothsayer. It comprises three

distinct parts: First, the four mortals are reminded of their dismal crimes in the past; second,

the questioning of the dead couple which sheds more light on the details of their story;

third, the dead couple are welcomed into the realm of the living .

Soon after the characters are presented to the audience, the link between them and the

way their stories are intertwined is revealed. In this context, the time frame of the play is not

static. For this reason, it is made known from the beginning that the dead couple, who were

a soldier and his wife during the reign of the emperor Mata Kharibu, were brutally tortured

for their lack of subservience.

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 As the play progresses, more events from the past are brought into broad light. Eshuro,

one of the spirits, takes revealing Demoke’s crime upon himself when he interrupts the

proceedings of the ceremony. In this context, he accuses Demoke of pulling his apprentice

off the top of an araba tree they were carving. Despite these accusations, Ogun, the god

of carvers, stands up for Demoke against Eshuro’s claims.

At the end of the paly, the mortal characters experience rebirth and learn the lessons

from their former lives. This rebirth is reflected in the words of the forest head while the

forests are being smoked out with a petrol truck, when he says that he must ‘pierce the

encrustations of soul-deadening habit, and bare the mirror of original nakedness .’

To sum up, it is worth pointing to the fact that the play has been considered a good

subject of criticism and interpretation for many critics and a cautionary tale for Nigerians.

CHARACTERS OF TH PLAY

1) Dead man: He was a prominent soldier in the army of Mata Kharibu who was castrated

and rendered a slave for his unwillingness to wage a war he considered unjust against a

neighboring tribe. His act of thinking and defiance cost him his freedom.

2) Dead woman: She is the soldier’s wife. She was pregnant when she tried to plead

for her husband’s life in the court of Mata Kharibu. She was eventually killed.

3) Forest Head: He is a god. From the beginning of the play, he attempts to make the four

characters who contributed to the dreadful fate of the dead couple realize their sins and

atone for them.

4) Rola: she is a prostitute who was previously known as Madame Tortoise. She is the

wife of the emperor Mata Kharibu. She is the main reason for the castration of the dead

man and the killing of the dead woman.

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5) Demoke: He is a carver who has once been a poet during the reign of Mata Kharibu.

One of his sins is pushing his apprentice from the top of the araba tree that he is carving.

The Forest Head attempts to make him atone for his sin.

6) Adenebi: He is a court historian for Mata Kharibu. His sin consists of accepting a

bribe from a slave trader to sell the soldier as a slave.

7) Eshuro: He is one of the spirits who is trying to avenge the death of Oremelo.

8) Agboreko: He is known as the ‘The Elder of the Sealed Lips’ who made sacrifices for

the Forest Head. In the play he disguised himself as a mortal named Obaneji .

III- THEMES (by Zohra Gaad)

Soyinka’s works are at once deeply rooted in the traditional rituals and myths in

which the ideal purpose is to awake and build up the black consciousness regarding their

changing society under Western culture influence and to help African renew with their

cultural values. According to Soyinka, it is through this ritual enactment of self-discovery

that human being can be aware of his condition in order to better face socio-political

problems. Therefore, in A Dance of the Forests, Soyinka explores various issues and themes

that convey the Yoruba worldview and it link to the contemporary African nations.

1- Parallels between past rituals and the present:

In A Dance of the Forests, Soyinka depicts Yoruba beliefs which are transmitted

through ritual drama. The play is composed at a time when Soyinka felt his country should

be rethinking its cultural heritage, its past and its present, in terms of the future that lay before

it. It is considered as celebration (or anti-celebration) within the celebration, a play within a

play, offering a series representations of reality as well as fantasy. The narrative of play

concerns the sins of the past and each living character has multiple identities, where each of

the characters such as Demoke, Rola and Adenebi, who uphold different social status, have

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to relive their bad and good deeds with the enactment of ritual artworks such as poetry,

sculpture, masquerade which are grounded on Yoruba mythology. In fact, the the ideal goal

is to experience self-discovery within the context of African spiritualism. For instance,

Soyinka uses poetic and music arts such as Agboreko’s proverbs and The Dirge-man’s poetic

mourn. Mainly, to embody Yoruba mythic beliefs such as the tragedy of the god Ogun. In

addition to this, Soyinka adopts Yoruba masquerade called “elgungun” as narrative device

of the three mortals such as Demoke, Rola, and Adenebie, they are reliving their past crimes.

Soyinka sets up the contrast between the past and the present, between the living

and the dead through his showcasing the play in 1960 while celebrating Nigerian

independence. He takes the chance to reveal the true nature of the Nigerian government, and

that people shouldn’t really sink in their joy of independence, he tries to highlight how

freedom is linked to the idea of rectifying past mistakes and for people to build a better future

for the generations to come. He wanted to remind people that it is only a temporary

celebration, once it done people should go back to fix their internal issues

2- Corruption

The theme of corruption plays a major role within the play. Through Soyinka’s

construction of a dystopian world, that pictures the past rituals of Yoruba society, that we

learn more about the injustice and corruption of the modern system of Nigeria. Abraham

Lincoln describes democracy “as a system of government for the people, of the people and

by the people”. If this is the case, then it means the governed people form part of government.

If politicians therefore become corrupted, the implication is that most people if not all have

played a role, consciously or unconsciously in corrupting the system.

Therefore, corruption it has permeated all aspects of the moral fiber of Nigerians to

the extent that before one can get someone to do an official job, there will be the need to

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bribe the person. Thus, these acts are committed by even the very high in society, and the

guiltiest are the politicians of the day. Soyinka therefore used his work as a medium reveal

these human ticks. This clearly portrayed through the character Obaneji who relates about a

politician who takes a bribe so that a lorry can be overloaded with passengers. Eventually

the lorry caught on fire and 65 passengers died. This reflects how corruption can deal a heavy

blow in a given society.

Thus, it attempted to draw the attention to Wole Soyinka’s frustration at the sinking

moral decadence within the continent of Africa. His choice of a title like ‘A Dance of the

Forests’ is not a mere coincidence but rather very thoughtful. At first glance we may think

it about a dancing ceremony, but, in fact, its reveals the inner side of Nigerians celebration

of independence. Despite the positive outlook of most Africans of the time, Soyinka is trying

to get the continent to consider the past and to remember that poverty, violence, and

discrimination happened in the past and could absolutely happen again.

3- Trauma & Regeneration

The play depicts the ways that people carry around trauma and wounds from the past,

that everyone has some sensitive part of their biography that haunts and hurts them.

The Forest Head knows this and attempts to bring these wounds to light in hopes that those

who have been hurt in the past can move on. When he says:

Trouble me no further. The fooleries of beings whom I have fashioned closer

to me weary and distress me. Yet I must persist, knowing that nothing is ever
altered. My secret is my eternal burden—to pierce the encrustations of soul-
deadening habit, and bare the mirror of original nakedness—knowing full
well, it is all futility.

Through this statement he reveals his desire for human beings to improve

themselves, as well as his knowledge that this hope is futile. It represents the ways that the

spirits of nature have little faith in the abilities of human beings to improve themselves. In

addition to this, through the observation of the Dead mean and Dead women that we learn

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more about Soyinka’s thoughts for a utopian vision regarding Africa’s nations. For instance,

the dead couple are invited by the god Aroni to join the ceremony in the forest. It is important

to note that the dead couple have come in judgment against the living characters and ask

them if they can take their case and learn more about their lives but they in return get rid of

them.

IV- African Tragedy (By Kahina AIMEUR)

1- Aristotelian Tragedy VS African Tragedy
A- Aristotelian Tragedy

Aristotle’s ideas about an ideal tragedy became a guideline for a considerable number

of playwrights. His ideas are found in his famous Poetics (About 330 BC). The most

important characteristics of a tragedy according to Aristotle are found in the following

definition translated from his Poetics:

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of

a certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of artistic
ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the
form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear affecting the proper
purgation of these emotions.
According to this definition, one may understand that tragedy is a dramatic imitation

of a tragic action written in a rhetorical language. Aristotle stresses the completeness of a

tragedy, or what is commonly known as the three unities: unity of time, space and action. It

means that the events of an ideal tragedy must take place over one day and in one place and

deal with one subject.

Another important feature of an Aristotelian tragedy is the pity and fear evoked in the

audience as a result of the tragic fall of the hero. The hero of a tragedy must be of a high

social rank and commits a tragic flaw which causes a reversal of his situation from good to

bad (pripeteia in Aristotle’s words) which eventually brings about his downfall. All this

must be found in a plot that has a beginning, middle (climax) and an end. Therefore, the plot

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of an Aristotelian tragedy –which is of a paramount importance- forms a chain of cause and

effect.

B- African Tragedy and Its Manifestation in Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests

In their attempt to separate themselves from the Western canonical theatre, Africans

created their own tragedy in which they incorporated their religion, myths and oral traditions.

Therefore, what one can say about the African tragedy is that it was established by Africans

to detach their theatre from the Western one which has long dominated the world drama and

to show that they can be creative and that they have their own tradition. They undermined

the Western tragedy in both form and content.

First of all, an African tragedy does not respect Aristotle’s division of the plot into

a beginning, middle and end and even the three unities. A Dance of the Forests has no

beginning. It starts immediately with a climax which is the emergence of the dead couple

from the ground which means that the injustices of the characters Lora, Adenebi and Demoke

are on the verge of being exposed. Besides, the play has no unity of time because the play

spans more than one day as the playwright uses flashbacks to introduce us to the previous

life of the characters nor a unity of space as we see the setting of the play shift from the

Forest of the Dead to the court of Mata Kharibou. As regards the unity of action, the play

deals with more than one subject. Each character of the play has his/her own story. Although

the main subject of the play is the trial of the those who did wrong to the dead couple, we

are introduced to the stories of other character, such as the story of the carver Demoke who

kills his apprentice.

Second, the tragic hero of an African tragedy is not necessarily of a high social rank

as the tragic heroes of an Aristotelian tragedy. In A Dance of the Forests, the dead couple

who are the tragic heroes of the play, are common people. The dead man has been a member

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of the King’s army, and the dead woman is his wife. Besides, the downfall of the tragic

hero/s of an African tragedy is not a result of a fatal mistake. A tragic hero can simply come

to his end because of the rituals and rules of his society or because of an injustice against

her/him. The dead couple in the play come to their tragic end merely because of King Mata

Kharibou and his accomplices’ injustice against them.

Third, in an African tragedy, African rituals, myths and culture are explicitly shown.

They use their local deities instead of Greek gods and they incorporate some aspects of their

local language (such as untranslated words or proverbs) alongside English or any other

language of the colonizer. In A Dance of the Forest, several African spirits and gods appear

as characters, such as Eshuoro, Murete, Aroni, Forest Head, and god Ogun. Besides, Wole

Soyinka uses many untranslated words and African proverbs in the play, such as ‘[e]nter

Agboreko, Elder of the Sealed Lips. He wears a white agbada and a white wrapper’ and the

proverb ‘if the wind can get lost in the rainstorm it is useless to send him an umbrella.’

Furthermore, the need for a disastrous ending is eliminated in African tragedy. While

Aristotle believes in the reversal of situation, African believe in the reversal of calamity

as they have an optimistic vision about tragic situations. There is always a positive change

in the community’s fate. This is because of the hero’s fortune which always results in a

positive fortune for the community even if s/he himself/herself may face a negative change.

In other words, a tragic hero of an African tragedy suffers for the sake of his/her community.

The final and important result is not what happens to him/her, but rather what happens to the

community as a result of his/her suffering. In this way, an African tragedy does not

necessarily evoke feelings of pity and fear in the audience as it is the case in Aristotelian

tragedies.

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C- Wole Soyinka’s Theory of Tragedy and ‘the Fourth Stage’

Wole Soyinka was the first African to produce a theory of tragedy. Most of his ideas

about tragedy are presented in ‘The Fourth Stage’ found in his book Myth, Literature and

the African World. The distinctiveness of his theory lies in the fact that it is based on Yoruba

myths and rituals, particularly the myth of god Ogun. In Yoruba mythology, Ogun is the god

of war, iron and also creativity. Ogun is Soyinka’s mythic hero and he calls him ‘the first

actor.’ This is because in Yoruba mythology, the gods were separated from humans by an

impassable gulf, and Ogun managed to cross this gulf and led the other gods down to earth.

Therefore, he was the first god who managed to unite the gods with the mortals and establish

a successful connection between them.

Soyinka believes the role of the protagonist to be the recreation of Ogun’s

experience. For this, the events of a Yoruba tragedy centre around characters showing

transition from the world of the living to the world of the dead or vice versa. A Dance of the

Forests is all about characters showing this transition from the world of the dead to the world

of the living. The play starts with the stage directions showing the dead couple coming out

from the ground to join the world of the living.

Therefore, in Soyinka’s terms, ‘Yoruba tragedy plunges straight into the chthonic

realm’, by which he means the world of the ancestors (i.e., the dead), the living and the

unborn. These worlds are separated, but Soyinka believes that there is a gulf of transition

between them which he calls ‘the fourth stage.’ Thus, the characters have to cross this gulf

to reach another world. In Yoruba mythology, this gulf has to be ‘constantly diminished’ by

their rituals, such as sacrifices and ceremonies. In A Dance of the Forests, a ceremony is

organized for the gathering of the tribes and the coming back of the ancestors who are

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believed to have an ability to foresee the future, i.e., what is going to happen in the world of

the unborn. Therefore, this ceremony is supposed to bring the three worlds together.

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References

(By Kahina Dahmani)

1-Primary Sources

Soyinka.W 1963, A Dance of the Forests. London: Oxford University Press

2/Secondary sources

Oluonye M.O 1998, Nigeria. Country explorers.

Anda .M 1996, Yoruba. The heritage of Library of Africa.

Toyi .F 2001 Culture and Customs of Nigeria .Greenwood publisher group.

Everyculture.com. (2019). Yoruba - Introduction, Location, Language, Folklore, Religion,

Major holidays, Rites of passage. [Online] Available at:

https://www.everyculture.com/wc/Mauritania-to-Nigeria/Yoruba.html [Accessed 15nov.

2019

Murry J. A., (1887) Oxford English Dictionary. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

(By Kahina AIMEUR)

Khelfane, M., (2015) ‘Tragedy in Wole Soyinka’s The Death of the King’s Horseman and

John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea: A Post-Colonial Study’, Master’s dissertation,

Mouloud Mammeri University, Tizi-Ouzou

Msiska, M. H., (1998) Wole Soyinka, Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers

Soyinka, W., (1963) A Dance of the Forests, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Soyinka, W., (1976) Myth, Literature and the African World, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

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Wallace, J., (2007) The Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy, Cambridge: Cambridge

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of Classical Greek Tragedy, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

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