A Dance of the Forests

Major Themes - A Dance of the Forests 

Wole Soyinka:-

Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took his doctorate. During the six years spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London 1958-1959. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama. At the same time, he taught drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, where, since 1975, he has been professor of comparative literature. In 1960, he founded the theatre group, “The 1960 Masks” and in 1964, the “Orisun Theatre Company”, in which he has produced his own plays and taken part as actor. He has periodically been visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale.

During the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease-fire. For this he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969. Soyinka has published about 20 works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and his literary language is marked by great scope and richness of words.

As dramatist, Soyinka has been influenced by, among others, the Irish writer, J.M. Synge, but links up with the traditional popular African theatre with its combination of dance, music, and action. He bases his writing on the mythology of his own tribe-the Yoruba-with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the centre. He wrote his first plays during his time in London, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel (a light comedy), which were performed at Ibadan in 1958 and 1959 and were published in 1963. Later, satirical comedies are The Trial of Brother Jero (performed in 1960, publ. 1963) with its sequel, Jero’s Metamorphosis (performed 1974, publ. 1973), A Dance of the Forests (performed 1960, publ.1963), Kongi’s Harvest (performed 1965, publ. 1967) and Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970, publ. 1971). Among Soyinka’s serious philosophic plays are (apart from “The Swamp Dwellers“) The Strong Breed (performed 1966, publ. 1963), The Road ( 1965) and Death and the King’s Horseman (performed 1976, publ. 1975). In The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), he has rewritten the Bacchae for the African stage and in Opera Wonyosi (performed 1977, publ. 1981), bases himself on John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. Soyinka’s latest dramatic works are A Play of Giants (1984) and Requiem for a Futurologist (1985).

Soyinka has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965), narratively, a complicated work which has been compared to Joyce’s and Faulkner’s, in which six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and Season of Anomy (1973) which is based on the writer’s thoughts during his imprisonment and confronts the Orpheus and Euridice myth with the mythology of the Yoruba. Purely autobiographical are The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972) and the account of his childhood, Aké ( 1981), in which the parents’ warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Literary essays are collected in, among others, Myth, Literature and the African World (1975).

Soyinka’s poems, which show a close connection to his plays, are collected in Idanre, and Other Poems (1967), Poems from Prison (1969), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972) the long poem Ogun Abibiman (1976) and Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1988).

A Dance of the Forests:-

One of Wole Soyinka's most well-known plays, A Dance of the Forests, was commissioned as part of a larger celebration of Nigerian independence. It was a divisive play that enraged many Nigerians at the time of its release, owing to its indictment of political corruption in the country.

Soyinka returned to Nigeria in 1959, after attending university in England, to write this play, immersing himself in Yoruba folklore as a way of reconnecting with his homeland. The play is about a group of mortals who summon the spirits of the dead in the hopes that these wiser spirits will help them guide them, only to discover that the spirits are just as petty and flawed as they are.

Many have interpreted the play as a cautionary tale for Nigerians on the occasion of their newfound independence, reminding them to be critical and seeking, and warning them not to become complacent. It also serves as a metaphor for not romanticising pre-colonial Africa and remaining vigilant. When Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, A Dance of the Forests was cited as one of his crowning achievements, and he was referred to as "one of the finest poetical playwrights who have written in English."

Major Themes - A Dance of the Forests:-

1. Atonement

The play's central theme is atonement. The Dead Man and Dead Woman are brought back to life so that the four mortals who mistreated them in the past will recognize and atone for their transgressions. While the mortals are unaware for much of the play, they eventually realize that the Dead Man and Dead Woman's visitation is to teach them a lesson, and by the end, they have gone through a kind of conversion, realizing that they have sinned before.

2. Corrupted Power

Another major theme in the play is corrupted power, as exemplified by the characters of Mata Kharibu and Madame Tortoise. As we are taken back to the king's palace, we see that Madame Tortoise uses her beauty and power over men to sow discord. Mata Kharibu is also corrupted by his immense power, as evidenced by his insistence on his soldiers fighting against their better judgement and his merciless punishment of free thought. Wole Soyinka tells a storey that teaches the reader that all power is corruptible and that just because someone is given authority does not mean they are a good or ethical person.

3. Wounds & Trauma

The play depicts how people carry trauma and wounds from their past with them, and how everyone has some sensitive part of their biography that haunts and hurts them. The Forest Head is aware of this and works to bring these wounds to light in the hope that those who have been hurt in the past can move on.
4. The Past
Despite the fact that it takes place over the course of a single day, the play does not have a strictly linear structure. The narrative, as we quickly learn, is about past sins, and each mortal character has multiple identities, representing both who they are in the present and who they once were in the past. The present is layered on top of the past, as if to imply that nothing from our past is ever truly gone, that we are descended from patterns and events that came before us and continue to affect us in the present. The play's plot revolves around how humans must overcome and learn from their pasts.

5. Nature

The play takes place in a forest, and throughout, various elements of the natural world come to life to take part in the reckoning that is taking place with the mortals. The Forest Head is a spirit who presides over the forest, and during the welcoming of the Dead Man and Dead Woman, various spirits of different natural elements are called upon to speak their piece. These include Spirit of the Rivers, Spirit of the Palms, Spirits of the Volcanos, and others. All of these elements of nature are personified through verse, showing us the connection between the human and the natural world.

6. Birth 

One of the unresolved features of the Dead Woman is the fact that she was killed while pregnant with a child. She returns to the world of the living still with a pregnant belly, and during the welcome ritual, the fetus appears as a Half-Child, who is caught between being influenced by the spirit world and remaining with his mother. The Half-Child is a tragic figure, as he was never given the relief of life, and when he is given a chance to speak he says, "I who yet await a mother/Feel this dread/Feel this dread,/I who flee from womb/To branded womb cry it now/I'll be born dead/I'll be born dead." The figure of the child is a tragic one, standing in as the ultimate symbol for the wrongs done to the Dead Man and Dead Woman, and the unresolvedness of their plight.

7. Ritual:-

Rituals and tradition are another major themes as well as a formal element of the play. Throughout, we see the characters going through the motions in order to gain a better understanding of their circumstances. The ceremony for the mortals' self-discovery, in which the mortals must relive their crimes, the Dead Man and Dead Woman must be questioned, and the mortals must reveal their secret wrongs, is one of these rituals.

Another ritual that takes place is the Dance of Welcome, in which the forest spirits perform and deliver monologues. The Dance of the Half-Child then decides where the unborn child will go. Rituals, dances, and formal representations are frequently used to stand in for literal events. Indeed, the entire play can be seen as a collection of the various formalized rituals that comprise the narrative.