Death and the King's Horseman

Content Warning: This section of the study guide references ritual suicide.

Preceding Death and the King’s Horseman is an author’s note in which Soyinka argues against the “reductionist tendency” of using “the facile tag of ‘clash of cultures’” to understand the play’s conflict (5). Instead, Soyinka writes, “The Colonial Factor is an incident, a catalytic incident merely” (6), and the focus should remain on the “threnodic essence” of Elesin’s struggle to come to terms with his mortality. Although cultural differences might not be the ultimate cause of the play’s tragedy, the theme of cultural conflict and the impact of colonialism still drives much of the play’s action. It creates tension as Pilkings tries to stop Elesin’s suicide, and the play’s setting in colonial Nigeria during World War II illustrates the many issues with and contradictions of colonialism.

In Death and the King’s Horseman, characters can be divided into three categories: the British, the Yoruba, and the Yoruba characters like Amusa and Joseph, who have tried assimilating into British culture. Paradoxically, Amusa and Joseph have not succeeded in becoming any more British; rather, they have created a third category, distinct and distanced from both the British and the Yoruba.