Complete reading of The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka
The drama ‘The Lion and the Jewel’ is written by Nigerian playwright and political activist Wole Soyinka. Through this paper, I shall critically comment on mainly the theme of the drama as well as the socio-political aspects of the tribe and their culture and traditions.
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, also known as Wole Soyinka, was born on 13 July 1934 in Abeokuta, Nigeria. He belonged to the Yoruba tribe. He graduated with a degree in English from the University of Leeds in 1958. He was the first Black African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, which he was awarded in 1986.
The central theme of the drama is the impact of the western world on African cultures and traditions. The drama consists mainly of four characters. Lakunle, a school teacher who is ‘madly in love’ with Sidi, who is a village maiden; Baroka, the leader of the tribe, and Sadiku,
the chief of Baroka’s wives.
Lakunle is portrayed as a supposedly ‘educated’ villager, who seems to blindly ape the west. He is shown to wear ill-fitting trousers and a coat, and he tries to woo Sidi by reciting poetic verses which are highly dramatic, similar to english poetry, but these words are completely unrelatable and foreign to Sidi, who pays absolutely no heed to them. Although Lakunle promises to respect Sidi, he says things like he would never let her eat the left-overs from his plate, as that is for the children. He also verbally abuses her frequently and implies that women are creatures with low intellect and that they have smaller brains than men. He refuses to pay the bride-price on the pretence of considering it to be a disrespectful act towards women, when actually, he is a miser and he doesn’t want to spend any of his money. His idea of giving his wife a respectful position in society is making her wear western outfits instead of a broad cloth (of which he appears to be ashamed), making her wear lipstick and high heels, and so on. It can be concluded that Lakunle is the kind of man who has highly superficial knowledge of the western world and its ideologies. He uses his knowledge of the west to suit his own whims and fancies, and doesn’t try to inflict any positive change in his tribe. Even at the end of the play, when he should have been heart-broken over Sidi’s refusal to marry him, he runs after some other girl who tries to act a little friendly with him.
Sidi is portrayed as a simple-minded tribal girl, who doesn’t know what is best for her. When the foreigner takes pictures of her with his camera and makes an album, she is ecstatic and she considers herself to be very beautiful and above the rest of the members of the tribe. She is ready to marry Lakunle as long as he pays her bride-price. But she is adamant about the bride-price as she does not want to be the spittoon of the village. She abides by all the traditions of her tribe and doesn’t question anything. She is so naive that she falls into Baroka’s trap and ends up losing her virginity to him. At the end of the drama, she sees no other future for herself and decides to marry the Baroka, who is as old as her father. But she appears to be happy with the arrangement as she perhaps knows no better.
Sadiku is the chief of the wives of Baroka. She acts as a matchmaker for Baroka and tries to get him more wives all the time. For her, it is the way of life for a miden to lose her virginity to the Baroka and to be forced to marry him. She doesn’t question the patriarchal system of the tribe and devotes herself to Baroka. She is vile and cunning, and she does everything in her power to try to get Sidi to get married to Baroka. She also loves to gossip and she can never keep anything to herself. She is the reason Sidi believes that Baroka is incapable of raising his manhood.
Baroka is the wittiest character in the entire drama. He is the head of the village and he controls all the tribals. He is against ‘development’ as he believes that it would destroy their culture, when in fact it had the potential to threaten his power and position as head of the tribe. Although he is old, he uses his brains to have his way. His wrestling match in the drama is a metaphor for his use of tactics and strategy to trap his opponent. He is aware of Sidi’s simple-mindedness and he decides to use it to manipulate her into marrying him. He also decides to manipulate his wife Sadiku, by telling her that he is unable to raise his manhood as he is aware that she would not be able to keep this knowledge to herself and in turn would tell Sidi about it. Baroka seems to be completely against westernisation, not for the good of his people, but for his own selfish reasons. He practices patriarchy and doesn’t think it is unethical to have multiple wives as it is the culture of his tribe.
Through the drama ‘The Lion and the Jewel’ , Wole Soyinka makes a sarcastic comment on the ways of the tribes of Africa. The play is a satire on so-called ‘educated’ people and power hungry chiefs. He also shows how women in the tribes are treated and how they are not considered to have the same intellect as men. The drama shows that although a lot of the traditions portrayed seem to be unethical to us modern readers, the tribals are absolutely fine with it and don’t think it is anything but normal to follow them. They either are against the idea of westernisation, or have the wrong notion of it.