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Women and Power
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Death and the King’s Horseman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Death and the King's Horseman is extremely interested in exploring what it means to be dutiful and honorable—to oneself, to one's people, and to one's spiritual beliefs. Given that duty is what drives Elesin in his attempts to commit suicide and is also what drives Pilkings's attempts to stop Elesin, it's worth considering the ways in which the respective duties of these two men and their two cultures mirror each other. Though the play is upfront, both in its introduction and in the text itself, to show that Pilkings is inarguably wrong to try to stop Elesin from killing himself, it nonetheless suggests that the fault of both men was acting selfishly, rather than acting for the greater and collective good: that is, doing their duty to others.
It's important to keep in mind that while none of the play's characters explain what would happen if Elesin fails in his suicide attempt, Iyaloja, Olunde, and the praise-singer all say at various points that the results would be disastrous. Olunde points out that while Pilkings fears a riot if Elesin succeeds, he should actually fear a riot if Elesin doesn't—Elesin's death is important enough to the Yoruba people that denying it to them is extremely dangerous. Despite the fact that Elesin is aware of the importance of his death and knows that it's the only way to maintain this cosmic order, he nonetheless chooses to behave selfishly in his final hours by marrying the young woman he sees in the market. Notably, there's no ceremonial or spiritual reason why Elesin decides he must have this young woman—and indeed, the woman is engaged and Elesin marries out from under her fiancé, who is Iyaloja's son. With this, Elesin not only upends the equilibrium of the community by denying Iyaloja's son his bride; he does so for no other reason than his own pleasure. Because he later blames his inability to follow through with his suicide on his bride, this suggests that Elesin's downfall was his decision to behave selfishly, rather than die for the greater good.
As the district officer, Pilkings is tasked with maintaining order in the colony, primarily by stamping out the local religion and replacing it with Christianity. However, the way that Pilkings behaves suggests that while he doesn't respect the local people and their religions at any time, he has even less respect for them when someone is watching—in this case, the prince of England. Pilkings takes the news of Elesin's impending suicide so seriously only because there's someone extremely important around whom he'd like to impress by making it appear as though the colony is safe and under control. This is something that, in the context of the logic and goals of a colonial power, Pilkings should be trying to do all the time in order to properly serve the British Empire. In this way, Soyinka shows that Pilkings's attempt to stop Elesin isn't actually undertaken to help the empire further its goals: it's a way for him to look good and nothing more. His failure to either stop Elesin or impress the prince shows that performing one's duty only when it's convenient is wildly ineffective and misguided.
In his conversation with Jane, Olunde encourages her to look beyond her horror at the idea of ritual suicide and see that within the Yoruba belief system, Elesin is doing his people a massive favor by insuring their spiritual wellness. He also expands this idea to encompass the entire globe by suggesting that sacrificing one person for the sake of hundreds or thousands of others is usually worth it. Jane mentions in an offhand way that several weeks ago, a ship's captain died in the harbor when he exploded his ship, which contained some kind of dangerous material and posed a risk to the people living around the harbor. She insists that the captain's sacrifice was disgusting and unnecessary, while Olunde encourages her to see it as "an affirmative commentary on life." In contrast, he points out that English soldiers are dying at alarming rates in the war, while English newscasters insist that the country is experiencing victory after victory—in other words, that the English are sacrificing droves of people, while also refusing to honor them by calling the deaths of those men a massive humanitarian crisis.
Because Olunde believes so strongly in this sense of duty to the communal good, it's shocking for him when Elesin appears, very much alive and therefore, within the logic of Yoruba theology, not looking out for the good of his people. Olunde then shows himself to be the most honorable and dutiful character of the play by doing what he knows he must do and killing himself to take Elesin's place as the king's horseman in the afterlife. While this poses its own moral dilemmas (Olunde won't be able to go on and save lives as a doctor, for instance, nor will he be able to serve the next king as a horseman), taking Elesin's place means that Olunde is at least attempting to rebalance the cosmic order of the entire world and perform his duty by being willing to properly complete the task set out before him that benefits many, not just himself.
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Duty and Collective Responsibility ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Duty and Collective Responsibility appears in each act of Death and the King’s Horseman. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Duty and Collective Responsibility Quotes in Death and the King’s Horseman
Below you will find the important quotes in Death and the King’s Horseman related to the theme of Duty and Collective Responsibility.
Act 1
Quotes
Ah, companions of this living world
What a thing it is, that even those
We call immortal
Should fear to die.
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Praise-Singer: I say you are that man who
Chanced upon the calabash of honour
You thought it was palm wine and
Drained its contents to the final drop.
Elesin: Life has an end. A life that will outlive
Fame and friendship begs another name.
What elder takes his tongue to his plate,
Licks it clean of every crumb? He will encounter
Silence when he calls on children to fulfill
The smallest errand! Life is honour.
It ends when honour ends.
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Act 3
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Amusa: The chief who call himself Elesin Oba.
Woman: You ignorant man. It is not he who calls himself Elesin Oba, it is his blood that says it. As it called out to his father before him and will to his son after him. And that is in spite of everything your white man can do.
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- One might even say, difficult?
- Indeed one might be tempted to say, difficult.
- But you do manage to cope?
- Yes indeed I do. I have a rather faithful ox called Amusa.
- He's loyal?
- Absolutely.
- Lay down his life for you what?
- Without a moment's thought.
- Had one like that once. Trust him with my life.
- Mostly of course they are liars.
- Never known a native to tell the truth.
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Then tell him to leave this market. This is the home of our mothers. We don't want the eater of white left-overs at the feast their hands have prepared.
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Our marriage is not yet wholly fulfilled. When earth and passage wed, the consummation is complete only when there are grains of earth on the eyelids of passage. Stay by me till then. My faithful drummers, do me your last service. This is where I have chosen to do my leave-taking, in this heart of life, this hive which contains the swarm of the world in its small compass. This is where I have known love and laughter away from the palace.
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But will they know you over there? Have they eyes to gauge your worth, have they the heart to love you, will they know what thoroughbred prances towards them in caparisons of honor? If they do not Elesin, if any there cuts your yam with a small knife, or pours you wine in a small calabash, turn back and return to welcoming hands.
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Act 4
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Resident: You should have kept me informed Pilkings. You realise how disastrous it would have been if things had erupted while His Highness was here.
Pilkings: I wasn't aware of the whole business until tonight sir.
Resident: Nose to the ground Pilkings, nose to the ground. If we all let these little things slip past us where would the empire be eh? Tell me that. Where would we all be?
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Olunde: I don't find it morbid at all. I find it rather inspiring. It is an affirmative commentary on life.
Jane: What is?
Olunde: The captain's self-sacrifice.
Jane: Nonsense. Life should never be thrown deliberately away.
Olunde: And the innocent people round the harbour?
Jane: Oh, how does anyone know? The whole thing was probably exaggerated anyway.
Olunde: That was a risk the captain couldn't take.
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How can I make you understand? He has protection. No one can undertake what he does tonight without the deepest protection the mind can conceive. What can you offer him in place of his peace of mind, in place of the honour and veneration of his own people? What you think of your Prince if he had refused to accept the risk of losing his life on this voyage? This...showing-the-flag tour of colonial possessions.
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Act 5
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Elesin: You did not save my life District Officer. You destroyed it.
Pilkings: Now come on...
Elesin: And not merely my life but the lives of many. The end of the night's work is not over. Neither this year nor the next will see it. If I wished you well, I would pray that you do not stay long enough on our land to see the disaster you have brought upon us.
Pilkings: Well, I did my duty as I saw fit. I have no regrets.
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You were the final gift of the living to their emissary to the land of the ancestors, and perhaps your warmth and youth brought new insights of this world to me and turned my feet leaden on this side of the abyss. For I confess to you, daughter, my weakness came not merely from the abomination of the white man who came violently into my fading presence, there was also a weight of longing on my earth-held limbs. I would have shaken it off, already my foot had begun to lift but then, the white ghost entered and all was defiled.
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It is when the alien hand pollutes the source of will, when a stranger force of violence shatters the mind's calm resolution, this is when a man is made to commit the awful treachery of relief, commit in his thought the unspeakable blasphemy of seeing the hand of the gods in this alien rupture of his world. I know it was this thought that killed me, sapped my powers and turned me into an infant in the hands of unnamable strangers.
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Elesin: Go to the gates, ghostly one. Whatever you find there, bring it to me.
Iyaloja: Not yet. It drags behind me on the slow, weary feet of women. Slow as it is, Elesin, it has long overtaken you. It rides ahead of your laggard will.
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No child, it is what you brought to be, you who play with strangers' lives, who even usurp the vestments of our dead, yet believe that the stain of death will not cling to you. The gods demanded only the old expired plantain but you cut down the sap-laden shoot to feed your pride. There is your board, filled to overflowing. Feast on it.
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