Benue State University, Makurdi

Modern African Drama and the Philosophy of Life After Dealth: Lessons from Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman

Marcellinus A. Asen, PhD and John Abutu Ejeh

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify the place of the philosophy of life after death in modern African drama. This is predicated on the need to accentuate the role of drama in fostering the belief system of the people and their values which go a long way in informing their way of life. The philosophy of life after death in Africais based on African cosmology that death is not the end of life but rather, the beginning of a new phase of life. It stresses that, the soul of man in death transits from the physical to the spiritual essence of being, to join and commune with the ancestral spirits of dead relatives. Using the content analysis method, the paper analyses the philosophy of life after death from the perspective of African Traditional Religion, particularly the Yoruba cosmology using Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman as a paradigm. In achieving this, the paper adopts the Mythodramatic theory advanced by Soyinka which is anchored on myth and the existence of spirit entities as well as reincarnation. The paper thus submits that drama has adequately reflected the theme of life after death as exemplified in Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman. Though life and death are antithetical and cannot come to someone at the same time, when one comes, the other is certainly bound to follow as revealed by Soyinka that the soul of man is in transition from the world of the living to that of the dead, a journey which Elesin, the horseman is prepared to undertake but is thwarted by personal attachment to the material world and the influence of western religion and culture. The paper therefore recommends that the living should be in a state of constant preparation, readiness and willingness for life after death by purging their soul of all that is against nature and humanity and by detaching their soul completely from materialism in order not to be distracted.

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