The Lion and the Jewel

WOLE SOYINKA
Nigeria
•15th century, the Portuguese were the first white people to arrive in Nigeria-began to trade with the Portuguese,
selling slaves, buying spices and firearms, and learning the art of writing and the Christian religion.
• When European conflict erupted over claims in Africa, the Berlin Conference was scheduled to formalize the process
of African colonization.
•The Berlin Accord of 1889 divided Africa among various European powers. Britain was granted territory around the
Niger River, which it managed as two separate protectorates.
• forced a multitude of diverse indigenous tribes with distinct, ancient, and sophisticated cultures to live within the
economic, political, and cultural strictures of a single modern state.
•Trouble brewing within the state
•Nigerians fought for the British in World War I (1914–18) and demanded political reforms after the war in exchange
for their service.
•Independence from Britain was granted in 1960 with a constitution that established a federal government, which
concentrated political power in the more populous northern region, while keeping the English monarch as the
ceremonial head of state and a British court as the highest judicial authority. The 1963 constitution abolished these
final direct political ties to Britain.
•1963- Soyinka wrote the play
Theme of decolonization
•Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka
•Received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.
•Soyinka grew up in British-ruled Nigeria
•Soyinka studied in Nigeria at a college affiliated with the
University of London and he relocated to England after
graduation, where he pursued an advanced degree at the University
of Leeds.
•The Lion and the Jewel was his second play, and its success
allowed him to move to London.
•Soyinka continued to write plays and edit literary periodicals both
in England in Nigeria.
•In the 60s, Soyinka became involved with politics. He was arrested
several times and one of his books was banned in Nigeria.
 Baroka
(village chief; selfish and powerful)

Suitor

Sidi
(Belle of Ilujinle; vain and naïve)
First Wife

Suitor

Lakunle
(Modern school teacher) Sadiku
(Traditional matchmaker)
 Baroka

•Baroka is the “baale” or village head of Ilujinle Village. He is sixty-two years of age.
•Baroka is projected as an upholder of African customs and tradition. He represents everything Lakunle isn’t.
•He is wise, polygamous, and energetic for his age, and, he cherishes the African culture and tradition. In the
ordinary sense, African traditional rulers are seen as custodians of customs and traditions. Baroka may be merely
fulfilling his duty as the village head.
Throughout the play, he is addressed by several epithets on the account of his attributes, worthy of which are “the
fox” and “the lion”. He is called the fox because of his cunning tricks, one of which Sidi falls for. And he is
severally addressed as the lion because of his impressive feats of strength and his position as the village head.
Baroka also has a harem of wives, his oldest wife being Sadiku, the woman he inherited from the previous village
head. He marries new wives at the interval of months. He begins to notice Sidi’s beauty with influx of the glossy
magazine to the village. He is however at a disadvantage because:
(a) his picture is placed side by side with the village latrine
(b) the picture portrays him like a bearded he-goat
(c) the magazine inflates Sidi’s ego and self-importance.
•Baroka, the village chief, who sees modern ideas as a threat to his power
•In order to make Sidi his, he manipulates Sadiku into believing that he has become impotent, knowing the latter
would tell Sidi and Sidi would want to mock him. That way and with his sweet-tongue, he takes Sidi’s pride, her
virginity that is, and makes her his latest wife.
•Even though Lakunle thinks Baroka is set on preserving his traditional way of life and the stasis of culture, there
is no question about Baroka’s appreciation of education. In justification of this, when Sidi said Lakunle is better
as a court jester, Baroka tells her the village needs Lakunle as the teacher he is so he can educate their children
and guide the village.
•Baroka also believes that progress should be made on his own terms. That perhaps explains why he bribes the
railway engineer into diverting the rail line from his village. He is in other words keen on a progress that would
not alienate the village from the traditional perception. Unlike Lakunle, he is positive about the co-existence of
Western education and African education if made on their terms.
•Lakunle and Baroka embody the contrary urges toward modernity and tradition. They personify the two sides of
the major social and political issue in Africa during the last half of the 20th century.
 Lakunle
• Lakunle is a village school teacher in Ilujinle Village. He is said to be in his early twenties. He makes passes at Sidi and claims to
love her and wants to marry her.
• He is the typical example of a confused educated African who embrace European values at the peril of their cultural heritage and
antecedents.
• Lakunle, an eager but naïve schoolteacher who accepts Western ideas and modernity without really understanding them
• Lakunle is clearly a hypocritical character - This is exemplified in his refusal to pay Sidi’s bride price while claiming that Sidi is
meant to be his equal, not a subordinate or an inferior in the affair of marriage. By this, he advocates for gender equality. It is
however surprising that this same Lakunle would say women have smaller brains than men, implying that women are inferior to
men – a brazen contradiction of his previous stance about gender equality.
• Lakunle also believes that African values are barbaric, outdated, archaic and degrading but this doesn’t stop him from joining the
traditional dance initiated by Sadiku and others when a lady dances with him provocatively.
• Lakunle is arrogant and proud, who thinks he is above everyone else because of his foretaste of the European civilization but
who in actual fact, lacks the wisdom and understanding to employ both Western values and African values and put the end result
into a good use.
• Sidi’s appraisal of Lakunle in comparison with Baroka establishes that Lakunle is weak, lacks in physical strength and wit, and,
passes for what Sidi calls “book-nourished shrimp”
• He is easily swayed by new ideas, lacking core values and principles. He follows modernity only when it suits him (bride price)
•His perversion of the long established custom of bride price brings Baroka into the
frame of suitors seeking Sidi’s hand in marriage.
•The dialogue between Sidi and Lakunle before the arrival of the glossy magazines
shows that Sidi is willing to marry Lakunle on the condition that he pays her bride
price. Lakunle’s refusal to oblige to her request stretches the plot
•Lakunle, in spite of his excesses, is the voice of education in the village. His
influence is seen in every part of the play.
•He convinces Sidi with ideals informed by his education. He makes Baroka adopt a
milder approach towards education. His influence also finds its way into Baroka’s
palace where he educates the palace workers and attendants of their intrinsic right to
have a day off. Hence, when Sidi goes to Baroka’s palace, the place is almost empty,
save for the presence of Baroka and the wrestler; the workers are on their day off.
•Lakunle can be aptly put as an alienated African with black body but a white soul.
•He tries to ape or imitate the white man, this is observed from the manner in which a
dresses- the ill fitting suite, tennis shoes. His ideologies and ideas of modernity are
borrowed from the European world
•Through Lakunle, Soyinka emphasis on nations to undergo a process of
decolonization
 Sidi
•Sidi is the “jewel” referred to in the play’s title. She is young and beautiful, and is known as “the village belle.”
•Sidi represents an aspect of tradition in the play. She first appears carrying a pail of water on her head, a
traditional women’s task. She also dresses traditionally. These attributes, though normal to Sidi, are signs of a
primitive past to Lakunle.
•Sidi has turned down Lakunle’s marriage offer, and refuses to marry him because he in turn refuses to pay her
bride-price. The bride-price is another custom that Sidi upholds, linking her to the traditions of their village,
Ilujinle.
•Sidi is also viewed as vain. Her picture is taken by a foreigner and published in a magazine, placing her far above
even the village chieftain, Bale Baroka. Her vanity is ultimately her undoing. She is tricked by the Bale into
sleeping with him. In the end, and though she had earlier promised to never marry him, she leaves at the end of
the play to marry the Bale, thus highlighting a perhaps necessary balance between the rashness of youth and the
knowledge of age.
•Sidi represents the dilemma of Nigeria and most post colonial nations, the choice between the traditional past or
the promise of a modern future.
•Sidi’s choice to marry Baroka, emphasis the importance she gives to her culture and traditions, it also highlights
her belief in traditional gender roles, where she sees Lakunle as less of man compared to Baroka.
 Nigerian Theatre- Yoruba Tradition
•The Yoruba people are a West African ethnic group who mainly inhabit
parts of Nigeria- Soyika himself belongs to the Yoruba tribe
•The Lion and the Jewel was the first major play to draw on traditional
Yoruba poetry, music, and dance to tell a Nigerian story in English. The
play enabled Nigerian drama to become part of world theatre.
•The production is a comedy set in the small remote village of Ilujinle.
•The characters are exaggerated: Lakunle is arrogant and talks too much,
and Baroka is cunning, but they are ultimately likable.
•The time frame of the drama is morning, noon and night.
•Yoruba traditions include the bride price, polygamy and the reference to
the traditional Gods;
Ogun- the God of oaths and justice
Sango- the God of thunder
The structure of the play- it is a comedy, tragedy and a literary satire. Soyinka uses humour and exaggeration to
ridicule the Nigerian society that fails to form an identity of its own, instead settles for the flawed and archaic, pre-
colonial tradition society.
The is a poetic/musical drama, which incorporates music, dance and mimes. These are traditional components of
Nigerian theatre, Soyinka borrows much of these components from the Yoruba religion
Soyinka represents gender as a defining factor to the traditional Nigerian society. Women were denied both social
and economic power, her duties were defined by the male representative
Sadiku’s two dances mocking and ridiculing Baroka’s loss of manhood is her only voice throughout the play. The
lack of agency and voice, women are reduced to resort to art to express their grief.
The society presented in the play is one that is rooted in gender hierarchies.