The Strong Breed
The Strong Breed ,a play was based on the Yourba festival of the new year and the ritual of the sacrificing a `carrier` of the previous year`s evil.soyinka used in his plays traditional African forms of expression.The play refer to the folk tradition by which one person becomes the carrier of community evil and symbolically purifies the village in an annual ritual. Soyinka critically analyse of Nigerian culture through this play.
All dramatic action revolves around Eman`s decision .Through a series of flash backs , the play becomes complex structure. The title of the play `The Strong Breed` itself indicating symbolically bearing the evil of his village.Eman decides to take on the role of sacrifical victim,substituting himself for the idiot boy,Ifrada.
Omae is the traditional and faithful wife who gives her life bearing Eman`s child. sunma is the only character in this play who fight against the traditional carrier rituals.Sunma presented as selfish at the beginning of this play,at the same time she is willing to challenge her father`s view.she questioned the need of socities to sacrifies ones.
Eman had left his village for twelve years in search of a new destiny but had to go back because he believes his father`s words ; they were born to be carriers and he could not flee from his destiny. Though he is a well educated man, he could not break such meaningless traditions .Suma, not a well educated girl, despises her village as she feels that it is quite evil , she does not agree with its cultural practices . But she lacks the moral strength of Eman therefore doesn`t bring much change to the village . so she couldn`t understand why Eman does not want to leave the village.
Villagers considered spiritual health is important than human life. contradiction between will and destiny leads to the tragedy .Most of the Greek drama`s ends with such type of tragedy .At some extent we feel that , Wole Soyinka follows the Greek style of writing.
Wole Soyinka was brought up as a christian . We can identify some Christian images in this play .The death of Eman , has some resemblance with the crucifixion of Christ. According to the New Testament of Bible , Christ was sacrificed his life for saving humanity .Like Christ, Eman in this play sacrificed his life in order to save the village . Finally Eman , like Christ ,dies due to the faults of others.
The play is marked with flashbacks between Eman`s past and present where he sees images of his father and his dead wife Omae.The Strong Breed was much more emotional than traditional play.
A fairly well written blog post. Some of these ideas can be useful in your final paper as well, particularly the discussion of women characters in Soyinka's play. You can discuss whether Soyinka presents a feminist or non-feminist point of view in the play.
ReplyDeleteGood blog except for some places with mild grammatical errors...
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for this helpful review. I would like to raise a point about the themes of "The Strong Breed", as one might also considers it having thematic aspects of post colonial literature. In addition, Eman is colonised by villagers who are represented as selfish people who'd do anything that is profitable to them alone. Eman, moreover, tries to help his people by sacrificing himself, a theme found in my post colonial literature where the protagonist ends up prioritising others over himself. We can also look at the play as a post colonial drama from a different perspective, as can also consider the villagers themselves colonised by the African rituals; they cannot escape their myths and have become colonisers.
ReplyDeleteHope you find my opinion senseful :)
Here's play ended this much
ReplyDeleteThank you very much. It is a great to read this work.
ReplyDeletePlease I need to ask this what's the influence of classical tragedy on wole soyinka 'the strong breed'
ReplyDeleteVry helpful review thanku for this
ReplyDeleteVery helpful, so if one could ask what is the significance of the title the strong breed in the play?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the meaning of The Strong Breed
ReplyDeleteCan you show fate in strong breed? Please
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