“Theme of the Swamp Dwellers (1958)” Wole Soyinka

Assignment Topic:“Theme of the Swamp Dwellers (1958)” Wole Soyinka

Paper Name: The African Literature

 No: 27

Paper No: 14

Batch Year: 2013-2015

Enrolment No: PG13101036

Email Id: Sejal.vaghela43@gmail.com

Submitted to: Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction:

“The Swamp Dwellers” play written by WoleSoyinka. 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 characterspresented in The Swamp Dwellers happen to exist in a particular place and time, but the universally significantthemes 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 forhumanity. On the other hand, out of all these broadly discussed themes some examples of powerful family bondcan 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-twentiethcentury. 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’sattempt 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 andMakuri.We see the hints of verbal bicker between the two old marriedAluand Makuri. Alu seems more impatient than Makuri, and she is constantly nagging in the households. Aluhas 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. Even the play starts with her question mingled with eagerness fortheir son:

“Alu: Can you see him?”

Her implying comment on Makuri’s attitude towards their expatriate son apparently shows bitter Relations with her husband. On the other hand, Makuri’s instant response deepens tensions among the readers and the audience.

“Alu: If you had any good at all in you, you‟d go and look for him.

Makuri: And catch my death of cramp? … what‟s preventing you from going?”

A minute reading discovers how strong relations they maintain with each other. Makuri even addresses his wife a fraud. She also has serious complaints against Makuri of making her “a liar”.

“Makuri: The older you get, the more of a fraud you become.

Alu: Yoy‟re always trying to make me a liar.

Makuri: I don‟t have to make you one.”

Alu speaks ill of Makuri and it is revealed when she addresses him as “Frog-face”. The hint of their son’s death lies in their conversation. Alu humorously says that Makuri is dead person as he is not looking for their son. When Alu angrily slaps herself on the arm to prevent the fly from biting it Makuri insinuates of her old age and decaying health.

Makuri and Alu express their deep concern for their son, Awuchike. They have a continuous argument over his disappearance from home. No one knows about his existence. But a true mother in Alu is in action. She thinks her son is no more, but she is constantly pressing an earnest request to Makuri to find out Awuchike. Makuri’s assumption is that Awuchike has gone to the city for a better life. Awuchike’s absence in the village and home creates tensions among the swamp dwellers. On the other hand, his parents, out of tension and anxiety, engage themselves in constant oral fighting. Their argumentative conversation develops the story.

Here we can see Love between Awuchike andDesala. From Alu’s clue in her dialogue with Makuri, we get an indication of love between Desala and Awuchike. One might discern faults in Desala‟s anticipation from her would-be husband of thriving urban life, and convict Desala, Awuchike’s wife, of breaking the tie between Awuchike and his parents as well as of the family.

Desala might have love for an urban life but her love for Awuchike is exposed when she wants to get him more intimately not in the swamp but in the city, as if they would make a loving and prosperous world together there. On the contrary, Awuchike is also a highly ambitious young man. He is fed up with the swamp life and hardship. Therefore, he has gone to the city for fortune. His love for Desala and dream for living together in private away from his root is more active than his fortune-seeking. The money he earns, he earns only for comforts and to win Desala‟s love. He loves Desala. That is why he loves to make money. One might blame Awuchike for his motivated attempt to leave his own parents in the swamp; to break the conventional family bond; to ignore culture and tradition; and to avoid rural life. But it should be noted that he breaks afamily tie only to tie another one, the younger one.

His family tie with Desala is so strong that he even leaves his Instances of powerful family bond in Soyinka’s The Swamp Dwellers. Parents, and ignores the socio-cultural practices to win the love of Desala, he shows honesty to his love and beloved by shifting himself from the swamp to the urban. In a dialogue Alu reveals the secret:

“Alu: … she (Desala) made him (Awuchike) promise to take her there (the city) before she would wed him.”

The anxieties in Alu and Makuri for their son show their love for extended family with sons and Daughters-in-law. In the very opening line Alu yearns for her son Awuchike who has left for an urban life with more comforts and money.

“Alu: Can you see him?”

In this question, Alu’s expectation for her lost son is vividly exposed. Makuri is also worried about Awuchike’s existence in the city. He speaks of the young with a shifting attitude: Makuri: … They are no sooner born than they want to get out of the village as if it carried a plague. But Makuri’s fatherly affection is focused when we see him speaking of Awuchike’s life and death. Alu was constantly insisting on Makuri’s no-attempt peculiarity but he refused to perform any funeral rituals forAwuchike. Because he loves his son, he loves his tradition, he loves his family; and he loves to pacify Alu’sanxiety over Awuchike’s life. He assumes that Awuchike is still alive despite Alu thinks otherwise. Makuri in his words:

“Makuri: Dead men don’t go to the city. They go to hell.”

He says so because he wants to soothe Alu’s anxiety over Awuchike’s disappearance. Makuri defends his son’s position by saying:

“Makuri: … Awuchike got sick of this place and went into the city.”

Here we can found Love bond in Alu and Makuri. The famous essayist Francis Bacon in his, Of Parents and Children emphasizes the importance of choosing children’s profession by their parents not by themselves. Bacon says;Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take. But we observe in the play that parents hardly have their control over the sons. Moreover, they are found in the midst of calamities made by nature twosome extent and mostly by their twin issues.

 They have failed to hold the bridle of the young. But they possessunbridled affection for the twins. On the other hand, Makuri and Alu are engaged in nonstop tiff on trivialmatters. But the instances of such trivial matters cumulatively express a great concern for their twins. They are alienated in the swamp where even their sons do not feel interested to live and accompany them. Makuricontinues his loving words to Alu while expressing his distress caused by their son’s ambitious immigration to the urban:

“Makuri: … if they knew. If only they could see me take you out into the mangrove,and I so strong that I could make you gripe and swear and sink your teeth into my cheeks.”

What a lovely expression of love it is! His love for Alu makes him more nostalgic, and more affiliated with family bond even in the transitional Afircan society. We get more instances of love and bond between Aluand Makuri in the following dialogues:

“Alu: You were always one for boasting.”

“Makuri: And you with your eyes shut so tight that I thought the skin would tear itself. Your eyes always shut, so that up till this day you cannot tell what I looked like when the spirit took me, and I waxed as hot as the devil himself.”

“Alu: Be quiet.”

“Makuri: You never feared the swamp then. You could walk across it day and night and go to sleep in the middle of it…. Alu, do you remember our wedding night?”

These dialogues between the old married convey love affair that was strong and powerful even in the swamp and in hardship. Their past is reminded because their sons‟ eccentricity to leave the swamp and to live in the urban, and because there is now a big gulf created between them and their twins. They were anxious about the twin sons and their old tradition, culture, society, and family tier. Throughout the play we come across their love for tradition, culture, and family tie.

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.

Conclusion:

Wole Soyinka mostly rely on ritual and traditional sources for writing the play but this does not make his play traditional, rather this trend of writing play goes beyond the border  and gets universal recognition in perspective of humanity. The playwright uses the raw materials of myths and certain formal properties to furnish the play producing something new and sometimes entirely unexpected. Although the play sometimes exposes banal elements of human affairs, it gradually unravels the dramatist’s inner side and the universal complexities humans face across the globe. The banal elements which have stitched the play ultimately portray love for trends and tradition love for stability of human beings and love of family, the extended family. The dialogues exchanged in the play demonstrate strong family bond and love yearned by the chief characters.

    The Swamp Dwellers makes use of contrast, parallelism, humor and irony in a suitable manner. Soyinka focuses the plight of the swamp dwellers in the play realistically. The swamp dwellers are at the mercy of furious nature unless they compromise tradition with modernity, embrace modern technology they wouldn’t have a bright future.