Season by Wole Soyinka There seems to be a strange contrast between his choice of the word “decay”, which suggests things going to ruin and the final sentiment where the word “promise” indicates hope. I get the sense that Soyinka’s poem is contrived. He feels the urge to speak lyrically about this subject but does not seem to have found his authentic voice, or perhaps the theme is too complex for him to address in a sixteen line poem. This is reflected in lines such as “Pollen is mating
The Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka The "Telephone Conversation" by Wole Soyinka is a poem that's title is very casual and straight forward. The poem's title shows the reader that what they are meant to read is realistic and free flowing. Like most poems there is a general theme that is carried on from start to end. The "Telephone Conversation" has two main obvious themes; these are racism and the lack of education and understanding that some people may have. As the reader reads
Commentary on Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka recollects vividly in Ake Mrs. Huti talking about white racism. He was thus mentally prepared to cope with the racism before he left for England. The race problem which has been treated with levity in the immigrant poems is treated from the poet’s personal experience in “Telephone Conversation.” “Telephone Conversation” involves an exchange between the black speaker and a white landlady. This poem more than any other is
The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka The three main characters in ‘The Lion and the Jewel’ are called Sidi, Lakunle and Baroka the Bale. Each character has different thoughts about one another and each views the society in a different way. This essay introduces and describes each character and analyses their role in the play. Sidi ==== Sidi is the first character that the audience meets. She is a very attractive woman, known as the village ‘belle’. Her attractiveness influences
Social Issue on Racism “The Telephone Conversation” Wole Soyinka is a name that is larger than life in the literary world. His masterclass comes to the fore in the poem Telephone conversation (Soyinka 52). The poem has subtitles, irony, and an underlying theme, which is racism. A dark reality that he skillfully reveals and shows is utterly ridiculous. The poem introduces a West African persona to the audience. The poem tells the story of the man who makes a phone call to a potential landlady, as
Reader Response Essay - On The Strong Breed Reading Wole Soyinka’s Strong Breed, I get to wondering about disclosure and ritual, disclosure between characters and to audiences, rituals of drama and religion. As I read the play, I see ample signs that both Sunma and Eman know about the curse-binding ritual that is to take place before midnight. I see signs of Sunma’s more specific knowledge in her shunning of Ifada from the start of the play. She declares, “Get away, idiot” (853). From
Student’s Name Professor Course Title Date of Submission Social Issue on Racism Wole Soyinka is a name that is larger than life in the literary world. His masterclass comes to the fore in the poem Telephone conversation (Soyinka 52). The poem has subtitles, irony, and an underlying theme, which is racism. A dark reality that he skillfully reveals and shows is utterly ridiculous. The poem introduces a West African persona to the audience. The poem tells the story of the man who makes a phone call
In his play Death and King’s Horseman, Wole Soyinka shows that women had important and recognized roles in traditional Yoruba society. Women fulfill their social, moral and spiritual roles as mothers, enforces of the discipline, show guidance to the community. Iyaloja, the Mother of the Market, is politically and spiritually critical. Aside from being the enforcer of discipline, her towering image in terms of influence is a great source of nourishment to the entire community. In the play, the women
poems entitled Abiku discuss the title child who returns to haunt his family after dying at a young age. However, they are formatted and presented in different manners to give alternate meanings to the story presented. The first, written by Wole Soyinka, is written in stanzas, while John Pepper Clark’s is in block form. However, they also share a variety of qualities in common, such as nature imagery and belief in incarnation. One similarity between Soyinka’s and Clark’s poems is the belief in incarnation
Otherness in Euripides'Bacchae and Soyinka's The Bacchae of Euripides Both Euripides and Wole Soyinka are focused on a fundamental ethical imperative in their plays: welcome the stranger into your midst. Acceptance of Dionysus as a god, as "an essence that will not exclude or be excluded", is stressed (Soyinka 1). Pentheus is punished severely for excluding, for refusing to acknowledge or submit to, Dionysus' divine authority. In order to carve out a place for himself (in the pantheon, in the
ambivalence that traps the colonized and prevents him from ever becoming the same as the colonizer. Works Cited Bhaba, Homi. The Location of Culture. Emecheta, Buchi. The Joys of Motherhood. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1994. Soyinka, Wole. Death and the King's Horseman. New York: Norton, 2003.
black child vacationing in Baltimore. The child is mistreated by a white child and disturbed in his innocence so much that after spending seven months in Baltimore, this is all he remembers. A different poem, "Telephone Conversation, " by Wole Soyinka, also deals with this issue, but from a different perspective. In this poem a man is trying to rent an apartment but the owner of the complex doesn’t want him to move in because he is African. She asks him "How dark? Are you light / Or very dark
line "Someone proposed that we search their luggage...and was vociferously cheered." The writing of a memoir through the eyes of a child can produce a highly entertaining work, as proved by Wole Soyinka. Through the use of third person and the masterful use of the innocence and language of childhood, Soyinka has written a memoir that can make us remember what is was like to see the world through the eyes of a child.
The African world-view in Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman In his play, Death and the King's Horseman, Wole Soyinka uses certain literary forms and devices to intermix Yoruba culture and a predominantly European dramatic form to create a play easily understood by the audience, but that allows the introduction of a foreign influence. These devices include the use of a songlike quality in dialogue and the telling of stories, the use of personification and metaphor to give an exotic quality
in his works can be related back to the period of his imprisonment for twenty seven months for his involvement in the events at the Biafran War. Torn between the Yoruba culture of the black man and the white man’s culture of British imperialism, Soyinka, through his works merges the western elements with the elements of Yoruba culture and brings to light the problems of culture, tradition and politics. He not only emerges as a figure of resistance, to remain opposed to the tyrannical political order
not used too. Throughout reading these novel, with all the similar messages that are obtained within them, one main message from each other is similar, a better understanding of cultural difference. Authors Dai Sijie, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Wole Soyinka all exemplify what life is like in other cultures and regions of the world. The Machiguenga, The Yoruban tribe, and people involved in the Cultural Revolution era, are all timeframes and people that we will never understand or have to experience first
Both "Sizwe Bansi is Dead", (written by Athol Fugard in collaboration with John Kani and Winston Ntshona) and "Death and the King's Horseman" (written by Wole Soyinka) are both set in South Africa, in two important and significant cultural moment for the country. "Swize Bansi is Dead" tells the difficult reality of Africa under apartheid (1950s), analysing the complex issue of identity in that time. The rules of Apartheid meant that people were legally classified into a racial group, mainly Black
The drama of Wole Soyinka is the creative mixing of Yoruba rituals, dramatic techniques, music and dance with the foreign language, English. The rites, rituals, gestures, music and dance are some of the nonverbal techniques Soyinka employs in order to achieve his dramatic effect. The language is full of wit and graphic insult. Language is not the only thing Soyinka relies on for effective theatre but also on so many techniques. This is an attempt to discuss these techniques in some important plays
of the play, it seems rather evident for which side Soyinka himself is more of a prominent advocate, obvious by the way he portrays both Lakunle and Baroka, and how they conclude their roles in the play. Lakunle’s follies in the play become his undoing, whereas Baroka’s strength and titular power as the Bale of the village wins Sidi’s hand in marriage, ultimately proving tradition to be the ultimate survivor in this battle royale. However, Soyinka seems to blur the lines a bit more by including the
Wole Soyinka, like other Nigerian writers, characterizes the conflict of cultural and religious choices in his country and emphasizes the distinct customs of society (Tucker 9). Born into the Yoruba tribe and culture, Soyinka’s writings are clearly influenced by Yoruba culture and practices. Communities and societies in Africa today religiously partake in ancient rituals that some may consider extreme, such as cannibalism and self-mutilation. In the village in The Strong Breed, the extent to which