Nationalist Approach in Appropriating Traditional and Modern Identity in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel
Abstract
Wole Soyinka, an African dramatist, has represented Nigerian culture and traditions in his works. He has highlighted the post-colonial context and the resistance by the natives to European cultural hegemony. This research paper aims at exploring the nationalist approach in explaining the current state of values and the attitude of people in Nigeria through a nationalistic idea that ascribes gender roles in its attempt to retain true self-identity. The nationalistic approach propounded by Fanon has been employed as the framework for Soyinka’s play The Lion and the Jewel. The study finds out that Soyinka has highlighted gender roles and the customs related to marriage, bride price, and the relation between husband and wife. He emphasizes the responsibility of women in terms of defining their roles and retaining their values by accepting the prescribed status assigned to them in a patriarchal setup.
Keywords: Wole Soyinka, Nigerian culture, post-colonial, nationalist approach
References
Fanon, F. (1967). The wretched of the earth. (Trans. C. Farrington,). New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
George, O. (2008). The national and transnational: Soyinka’s The Interpreters and Ake: The Years of Childhood. Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 41(2/3), 279-297.
Kumar, N. (2011). Yoruba Tradition and Culture in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel.
Journal of Arts, Science and Commerce, 2(3), 88-97.
Liton, H. A. (2012). Towards a Critique of Cultural Hegemony and Nationalist Resistance:
A Reading of Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel. Language in India, 12, 418-433.
Niven, A. (1976). Reviewed work: Notes on Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel by Laban
Erapu. Research in African Literatures, (7)2, 282-284.
Ojaide, T. (2000). Reviewed work: Wole Soyinka: A quest for renewal by Mary T. David.
Research in African Literatures, 31(1), 179-180.
Said, E. W. (1994). Culture and imperialism. London: Vintage Books.
Soyinka, W. (1974). Collected Plays. New York: Oxford University Press.
Whitehead, A. (2008). Journeying through hell: Wole Soyinka, Trauma, and Postcolonial Nigeria. Studies in the Novel, 40(1/2), 13-30.
Wilkinson, J. (1986). Daring the abyss. The art of Wole Soyinka. Quarterly Review of Studies, 41(4), 603-611.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
- for any purpose, even commercially.
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
