THE SWAMP
DWELLER
-Wole Soyinka
“The Swamp Dwellers” play written by
Wole Soyinka. Wole Soyinka has survived to write so much about the African
experience is a wonder. Throughout his long and creative career Soyinka’s
politics have placed him in danger frequently. His education reflected both
African and Western influences and the conflict and interaction between these
two forces would occupy much of his writing particularly in the play Death and
the King's Horseman. Through drama, poetry, essays, and autobiographies,
Soyinka has documented not only the struggles of his homeland of Nigeria but of
the African continent as a whole. His works earned him the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1986, and he used the occasion to highlight the plight of fellow
activist Nelson Mandela. Soyinka’s life has been so full of intrigue and
accomplishment that he has published several memoirs in which the hardships of
the African nation overlap with Soyinka’s own personal evolution. Dramatic
methods are very vital in the art of playwriting as they assist in developing
and presenting effective plot structure. Different techniques are used for
different plot. Soyinka has been considered as a master-craftsman in the art of
drama. Let’s have a look at one of his important plays from structural point of
view.
The
Swamp Dwellers is a play of worldwide appeal. It talks about distant rural and
urban society, family life, conflict of old and new society, psychological
conflicts between old and young generations, love for modernity and love for
the swamp the supernatural, unfavorable forces of nature and so many problems.
He focuses on family ties, love for family, hints of love in trivial quarrel
between the married in the play.
Whenever they speak of their
twin sons Awuchike and Igwezu, Makuri and Alu are seen continually at each
other's throats. But their argument bears the testimony of deep love for each
other and for their future generations and exhibits great concern for family
ties that were in susceptible condition during the transitional period in the
post-colonial African states. AkinwandeOluwoleWole Soyinka vividly portrays
such family relationships, the individual and socio-cultural tensions pervading
in Nigeria in his widely read The Swamp Dwellers. The patches of stories
extremely adorned in the play give a preview of family bond throughout the
play.
The target of this study is
to discover the examples of family ties depicted, hinted and embedded in the
play. Soyinka focuses the life and culture of an African society, but the play
goes beyond the border of a particular area. It expands the border of readers‟
knowledge, and deals with tensions, problems, conflicts, calamities, and
struggles ever-present in human community across the world. The playwright through
his powerful imagination has made the language of the play metaphorical, and we
have got bundles of images reflecting his individual outlook of human life.
It also gives us a picture of
the consistency that existed between the individual and southern Nigerian
society. The conflict between tradition and modernity is also reflected in the
play. The play mirrors the socio-cultural pattern, the pain and the sufferings
of the swamp dwellers and underlines the need for absorbing new ideas. The
struggle between human beings and unfavorable forces of nature is also captured
in the play. His method is not only of sociological sense, but of
human beings. The characters presented in The Swamp Dwellers happen to exist in
a particular place and time, but the universally significant themes raises the
play to a great height. The support of his writings, especially The Swamp
Dwellers, may be the culture of Yoruba but the play excels the demarcation and
falls in the stream of international movements for humanity. On the other hand,
out of all these broadly discussed themes some examples of powerful family bond
can be discovered through an extensive and analytical study of the play. A
dramatist’s criticism of life is most fully personified in the spirit and trend
of the action
The Swamp Dwellers is
primarily concerned about social changes. An easy access to shortly abundant
oil has caused the social changes and has an impact on human relationships in
many African countries especially in Nigeria during mid-twentieth century. The
play demonstrates how a money-making society is ruined, and falls into a deep
tension, disappointment and frustration. The play concentrates on the conflict
between the old and the young who are constantly approaching for better life.
The clash between custom and innovation is also reflected in the play. It also
investigates the existentialist elements, and finds parity between the old and
the new. The priest Kadiye becomes fatter with gifts demanded in the name of
the serpent. The serpent is pacified whenever his high priest Kadiye receives
gifts from the swamp dwellers.
Igwezu becomes shocked to see
himself in a dilemma of two cultures- the city one and the rural one. Two
cultures have made him a union chamber causing deep frustration to him in the
long run through the depiction of transitional aspects, Soyinka’s attempt is to
strengthen the sense of nationality Instances of powerful family bond in
Soyinka’s The Swamp Dwellers.
In the very opening scene of
the play we can see Quarrels between Alu and Makuri. We see the hints of verbal
bicker between the two old married Alu and Makuri. Alu seems more impatient
than Makuri, and she is constantly nagging in the households. Alu has been
waiting for long for her dear son and in her every household work she attempts
to peep the doorways with great expectations of their son’s return.
The Swamp Dwellers is a close
study of the pattern of life in the isolated hamlets of the African countryside
as well as an existential study of the simple folk who face rigours of life
without any hope or succor. Soyinka tears apart social injustice, hypocrisy and
tyranny. The Swamp Dwellers expresses the necessity for a balance between the
old and the new. Soyinka is not for excessive glorification of the past. In the
play we see Soyinka’s crusade against authoritarianism, complacency and
self-delusion. Besides, in The Swamp Dwellers Soyinka satirizes the betrayal of
vocation for the attraction and power in one form or another. The
Swamp Dwellers reflects the life of the people of southern Nigeria. Their
vocation mainly is agro based. They weave baskets, till and cultivate land.
They believe in serpent cult. They perform death rites. They offer grain, bull,
goat to appease the serpent of the swamp. Traders from city come there for
crocodile skins. They lure young women with money. Alu withstands their
temptation. Young men go to the cities to make money, to drink bottled beer. In
fact the city ruins them. The Swamp Dwellers consummate their wedding at the
bed where the rivers meet. They consider the river bed itself as the perfect
bridal bed. Sudden flood ruin the crops throwing life out of gear.
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