Death and the King’s Horseman, written by Wole Soyinka in 1975, is a work that is rich with both history surrounding the colonization of African nations, and themes that both play into said history, and tell a story about the follies of human nature. In fact, these themes are what makes the play so highly regarded today and earning Soyinka a Nobel Peace Prize for his works in 1986. But while the themes of culture clash between colonizer and colonized or the duties and responsibilities that a person holds are very important themes of the play, the play also is a striking example of how patriarchal societies fail on several fundamental levels. While this may not have been the original intention of Soyinka while he was writing Death and the King’s Horseman, the text itself shows in vivid detail how patriarchal societies are destined to fail, showcasing how all genders put inside a system like that suffer from a singular gender being pressured with a majority, if not all, of the power.
The first time the audience is shown how much power men have in this system is in Act 1, when Elesin runs into the young girl who was just about to be married while Elesin is preparing for the ritual of his suicide. At the beginning of Act 1, Elesin seems to be unafraid of his upcoming death, with him telling stories about how he is unafraid of the Not-I bird, and that he is “master of his Fate” (Soyinka, pg. 14). Before he meets the woman, Elesin seems contented to leave this world behind with no regrets. However, his entire attitude changes when he sees the young woman. Elesin’s entire attitude changes at this point, demanding that he be able to leave something of himself behind in the world by having sex with, and presumably impregnating, the young woman. Elesin says to Iyaloja “Then honor me. I deserve a bed of honor to lie upon” (pg. 20), in reference to his taking of the young woman. While this switch in attitude may be simply attributed to Elesin’s flaw of not being able to follow through on his duties, there is more to what is being said by Elesin than simply what he wants. His request is an insistence, a demand that because of his position and what he must do, that he has a right to ravish this woman for his pleasure, or at least his ego, if it is to be believed that he is doing this for solely the purpose that he claims. This philosophy of men, particularly men in power, having the right to a woman’s body is one of the key components of a patriarchal society. Naomi Snider, a writer for the International Psychoanalytical Association, writes in her article “Patriarchy hurts men and women – how can therapy help us get rid of it?” that the patriarchy, “is based on a belief that men have an inherent right to dominate and that women should be subservient, selfless caregivers,” (Snider). Snider’s definition of the patriarchy rings true for all the major male throughout the story, especially Kipling’s, who believes that he has a right to wear the dress of another people’s culture for his own pleasure. It just so happens that Elesin is the best one at showing how women in this system are taken advantage of, and in quite a literal sense as well.
Even when Elesin is facing the consequences of his actions at the end of the play, he cannot stop pestering the young woman, blaming her for all the problems that are plaguing him. Elesin says “My young bride, did you hear the ghostly one? You sit and sob in your silent heart but say nothing to all of this. First, I blamed the white man, then I blamed my gods for deserting me. Now I want to blame you for the mystery of the sapping of my will,” (Soyinka, pg. 65). It is also extremely telling that the young woman does not get a single line in the entire play, as if she is unable to be an active participant in events, even when she is directly involved. Cynthia A. Bily, a professor of English at Adrian College, whose essay of Death and the King’s Horseman can be found on Gale eBooks, shows the impact of this silence, stating “We have no way of knowing whether she loved Iyaloja’s son, the man she was to have married, or what personal benefit she might look forward to in marrying a man whom she had never met, and who would be dead a few minutes after the marriage was consummated. The stage directions give no hint about her reaction to Elesin’s “proposal,” no description of joy or of protest” (Gale eBooks). The young woman is just an outlet for Elesin, and the entire relationship that Elesin has with this young woman shows just how unfairly women are being treated in this system and is also a great showcase of how patriarchal systems work as a whole.
But just because Elesin is a perpetrator in committing harmful acts against women, that does not mean that Elesin himself is not a victim of the patriarchy, or at least the victim of the patriarchal system. Patriarchal systems fail both genders, not just one, although the way that they fail men is very different from how it ruins women’s lives. Mayank Gupta, a writer for the National Library of Medicine, claims in their article “Critical Overview of Patriarchy, Its Interferences With Psychological Development, and Risks for Mental Health,” that “It bears repeating that patriarchy is a fundamentally oppressive, all-pervasive system that permeates all aspects of life” (Gupta), so it is important to look at how the patriarchal system that Elesin lives in fails him, even if his actions towards women are a problem with the system. The first way that the patriarchy fails Elesin is the fact that he is unable to cope with death in a healthy way. Elesin shows several times that he is unable to effectively cope with the fact that he is going to die. Going back to the beginning of the play and Elesin’s songs, it is evident that Elesin’s only way of handling his death is to act extremely brave, especially with his songs about his encounter with the Not-I bird, which in Elesin’s story, is a bird that visits people right before their death. Elesin claims that he is not afraid of this bird, claiming that “I unrolled my welcome mat for him to see,” (Soyinka, pg. 14).
However, despite all Elesin’s boastings about being ready to die, come Act 4, it is revealed that he did not have the strength to carry out the act at all. How could Elesin, the same man who was boasting about how he was ready to pass into the afterlife, be unable to complete his journey when it mattered most? Obviously, Elesin always had reservations about what he had to do; his boasting was just an act to trick himself into thinking that he was ready to pass on. And because of the patriarchal system that he is in, Elesin is unable to effectively deal with the complex emotions that he is dealing with. Again, Snider makes a point about this in her article; “Once the patriarchy gets into our heads, it affects the way we perceive and judge our self, our relationships and the world we live in. It causes many men to experience their vulnerability as weak and shameful,” (Snider). Gupta agrees with Snider’s claims, stating “Patriarchy perpetuates the psyche of equating biological sex with the socially constructed element of gender-pressurizing individuals in society to adhere to a strict set of narrow “acceptable behaviors” for each biological sex” (Gupta). Of course, speaking out about his inability to complete his duty, or even talk about his fears, falls outside of these “acceptable behaviors”, so Elesin is unable to effectively deal with his doubts, which through the events of the play, bring his nation to ruin.
The final act of the play shows the consequences of following a patriarchal system like this. Elesin’s failure to continue with the ritual causes several events to happen that lead to what seems to be either a major restructuring of the society that relied on that ritual, or the end of the society all together. Instead of Elesin being the one to perform the ritual, it is Olunde, Elesin’s son, that performs the ritual. When this is revealed to Elesin at the end of the play, Iyaloja chastises him, saying “There lies the honor of your household and of our race. Because he could not bear to let honor fly out of doors, he stopped it with his life. The son has proved the father Elesin, and there is nothing left in your mouth to gnash but infant gums,” (Soyinka, pg. 75). Shortly following this, Elesin commits suicide to attempt to make the ritual right again, but it is too late, as Iyaloja explains. “He is gone to the passage but oh, how late it all is. His son will feast on the meat and throw him bones. The passage is clogged with droppings from the King’s stallion; he will arrive all stained in dung,” (Soyinka, pg. 76). The entire system in which they relied upon to run their society has been fractured, and seemingly irreparably damaged. Iyaloja tells the young bride that Elesin had impregnated earlier that night to “Forget the dead, forget even the living. Turn your mind only to the unborn,” (Soyinka, pg. 76). What Iyaloja is saying sounds like there is no fixing the damage that has been done, and that the only way to fix their culture is to start over. This breakdown of the society that we had been following throughout the entire play is where the warning about patriarchal societies come from; these systems are unstable, and able to be taken apart within a seemingly small amount of time, like the single night the play’s events take place in.
While Soyinka almost definitely had other reasons for writing this play, as mentioned before, it is undeniable that it shows that patriarchal systems are oppressive and are doomed to fail for the various reasons mentioned before. And while the systems that the United States has are completely different from the ones shown in Death and the King’s Horseman, they are still just as fragile and at risk of falling apart. Once again, Gupta states “The virtues that supported human evolution since the Neolithic ages are no longer of similar importance” (Gupta), so it is imperative that societies learn form stories like Death and the King’s Horseman to work on changing these systems that oppress so many individuals and groups in our societies.
“References”
Gale, 2001, pp. 49-81. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2693500014/GVRL?u=plysc_main&sid=bookmark- GVRL&xid=d3e70727. Accessed 20 Oct. 2023.
Gupta, Mayank, et al. “Critical Overview of Patriarchy, Its Interferences With Psychological Development, and Risks for Mental Health.” Cureus, Cureus, Inc., June 2023, https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.40216.
Soyinka, Wole. Death and the King’s Horseman. Methuen Drama, 1975.
Snider, Naomi. The International Psychoanalytical Association. Patriarchy Hurts Men and Women. www.ipa.world/IPA/en/News/Patriarchy_hurts_men_and_women.aspx#:~:text=Patriarchy%20is%20not%20just%20something,vulnerability%20as%20weak%20and%20shameful.
Sprockets and Springes 