The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka

First published: 1963

First produced: 1959, in Ibadan, Nigeria

Type of plot: Comedy

Time of work: The 1950’s

Locale: Ilujinle, a village in western Nigeria

Principal Characters:

• Sidi, the village belle
• Lakunle, a schoolteacher
• Baroka, the “Bale” of Ilujinle
• Sadiku, his head wife
• The Favorite, another of his wives
• A Wrestler
• A Surveyor

The Play

The Lion and the Jewel takes place in Ilujinle, a small African village facing rapid change. As the play begins, it is morning, and the audience sees a marketplace, dominated by an immense odan tree. To the left of the stage is part of the village school, within which the students chant the “Arithmetic Times.” Sidi enters the stage; she is a beautiful, slim girl with plaited hair—the true village belle. Balancing a pail on her head and wearing a broad cloth, Sidi attracts the attention of Lakunle, the young schoolteacher, who looks out the school windows to admire her beauty.

Lakunle, dressed in an old-style, threadbare, unironed English suit, scolds Sidi for carrying the pail on her head, telling her that the weight of the pail will hurt her spine and shorten her neck. He wants her to be a “modern” woman. Sidi, however, quickly reminds him of the times he has sworn that her looks do not affect his love for her. There is a comic exchange of charge and countercharge between the two, revealing Lakunle’s uncomfortable attitude about Sidi’s showing parts of her body: “How often must I tell you, Sidi, that a grown-up girl must cover up her. . . . Her shoulders.”

This first scene also introduces Baroka, the Bale (the village chief): Sixty-two years old, wiry, goateed, he is also attracted by Sidi. The Bale, the opposite of Lakunle, is an artful, traditional man who resists the building of roads and railways, trying to keep his society insulated from “progress.” The dialogue between these two men constitutes the crux of the play: the conservative, clear view of life represented by the Bale versus the progressive sloganeering of Lakunle. Beneath this sociopolitical theme is the other struggle—the war for Sidi’s love.

The second scene of the play, “Noon,” introduces Sadiku, for forty-one years the chief wife in the Bale’s harem. Sadiku, acting as ambassador for the “Lion,” the Bale, announces to Sidi that the Bale wants her for his latest wife; it has, after all, been five months since he last took a wife. In a comic exchange, Sidi, Sadiku, and Lakunle argue about whom shall have Sidi. Lakunle, in a rage more pretended than true, denounces the Bale: “What! The greedy dog! Insatiate camel of a foolish, doting race; Is he at his tricks again?”

Sidi reminds him that she can speak for herself, bolstered by her “fame” that has been spread throughout the region by the magazine pictures taken by a photographer. Sadiku, no novice at wooing wives for the Lion, appeals to Sidi by telling her that even the Lion has to die sometime, and Sidi will then have the honor of being the senior wife of a new Bale. Sidi, however, is not easily won. She slyly asks: “Baroka not request my hand. The stranger brought his book of images. Why did the Lion not bestow his gift before my face was lauded to the world?” Lakunle, always ready to insult the Bale, interjects: “I don’t know what the women see in him. His eyes are small and always red with wine.”

Lakunle contrasts his “dew-moistened” face with the Lion’s “leather piece.” Here and throughout the play, Lakunle’s words result in his defeat. Soyinka’s subtle use of linguistic register consistently highlights Lakunle’s role of poorly prepared reformer. Lakunle espouses progress, success, civilization, and fame, but never supports his empty generalities.

The third and final scene, “Night,” opens, much the same as the first scene, in the village center. The contest for Sidi’s love continues with the Lion reminding everyone of his virility and touting his manliness. His attempts are again unsuccessful. In a conversation with Sadiku, the crafty Lion conceives a new ruse: He announces that his manhood is gone. The Bale’s feigned impotence releases Sadiku’s suppressed feelings, and she invites Sidi to celebrate the women’s victory over the dominating male. Unfortunately for Sadiku and Sidi, the old Lion still has life in him.

Sidi cannot resist going to the Bale’s house to tempt him; instead, the cunning Bale tempts her—to experience life instead of reading about it in books. Soon, Sidi reappears at the village center and reveals the Bale’s deceit: “It was a trick.” Lakunle’s bombastic outrage is not convincing; neither is his speech about his ideal, platonic love for Sidi, which the audience now knows is a self-deception. Lakunle laments his loss of Sidi, who agrees to marry the Bale. As the play ends, however, Lakunle seems to be recovering: He is last seen chasing a young dancing girl.

Dramatic Devices

The Lion and the Jewel describes the happenings of one day in the village. In the first scene, “Morning,” the dramatist concentrates on the expectations of all three principal characters, the Bale, Lakunle, and Sidi, who are brought together by chance. The stage displays the new—the students chanting the “Arithmetic Times”—and the old: Sidi carrying the pail of water, the traditional work of Nigerian women. Lakunle’s twenty-three-inch-bottom trousers attest his modern “civilized” tendencies. His chauvinistic remark to Sidi, “as a woman, you have a smaller brain than mine,” immediately reveals his conceit to the audience.

Wole Soyinka introduces a metaphor for the modern world in the (unseen) person of the photographer who takes pictures of Sidi; the photographer is presented as a mirror for Lakunle. Four girls begin a chant, dancing around Lakunle; they are then joined by drummers. The girls construct a mime representing the four wheels of a motor car, in another parody of the civilized world. This subtle scene, without dialogue, reveals the true nature of Lakunle as he pinches the “tires,” the girls’ bottoms. The scene comes to an abrupt halt when the Bale enters and playfully accuses Lakunle of stealing the village maidenhead. As the girls chase Lakunle away, the scene ends with the Bale admiring Sidi’s pictures in the magazine.

The second scene, “Noon,” the longest in the play, introduces Sadiku, the Bale’s head wife. She and Sidi now command the stage, and Sadiku begins her wooing of Sidi for the Bale. Another metaphor for progress appears onstage. The surveyor and his workers, who want to build a railroad, are bought off by the Bale, to Lakunle’s disgust. The scene shifts to the Bale’s house, where, attended by his harem, he conceives his plan to fool and subsequently win Sidi. The scene ends with the Bale’s announcement of his loss of virility.

The last scene, “Night,” begins with Sidi and Sadiku celebrating the Bale’s loss of his manliness. Sidi enters his house, and the Bale begins his seduction in earnest. His outrageous sexual imagery goes unnoticed by Sidi, but not by the audience. The mummers enter and perform a dance of virility: the Bale’s story.

The winning of Sidi by the Bale is logical and right. His concern is for life; Lakunle’s is for rhetoric. Lakunle plans to “civilize” her by marrying her, without considering Sidi’s own feelings and desires. The expectations of reformer Lakunle are stifled in the face of the Bale’s cunning and expertise. Lakunle’s own follies result in his loss of Sidi. The audience’s last glimpse of him, however, portends a man losing his delusions and returning to his true self—a typical human being, fascinated by the physical attractions of the opposite sex.

Critical Context

The Lion and the Jewel, although an early play by Wole Soyinka, is perhaps his most widely known and performed drama. It was first produced along with The Swamp Dwellers (pr. 1958, pb. 1963); both plays are concerned with a society in flux and treat the issue with humor. The Lion and the Jewel differs in tone in that it conveys a sense of physical danger that is not apparent in the former. The Lion and the Jewel contains most of the dramatic themes and literary devices that Soyinka enlarges upon in later plays. Although it is lighthearted and contains music, dance, and mime, it also has a serious underlying theme—the possible dangers inherent in the clash between the old and the new.

Soyinka’s continued concern with the theme of the battle between a traditional and an emerging society appears in later plays such as A Dance of the Forests (pr. 1960, pb. 1963) and The Trials of Brother Jero (pr. 1960, pb. 1963): The former views history as a cyclical movement; the latter unfolds a satire of undiscovered identities. Similar dramatic conventions appear in Death and the King’s Horseman (pb. 1975, pr. 1976), in which traditional customs are challenged, and the age-old idea of self-sacrifice is shown to be no mere mechanical ritual. The protagonist, Elesin, is confronted with the same danger of change that confronts the Bale. When Elesin’s son, Olunde, assumes the traditional responsibility that Elesin avoids, he embodies Soyinka’s hope for the regeneration of a healthy community.

The canon of Soyinka’s work—in drama, poetry, essay, and the novel—was justly acknowledged with his receiving of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. Soyinka’s dramas have a strong social impact; through his use of humor, satire, irony, and realism, he has created African drama that addresses universal concerns.

Sources for Further Study

Bossier, Gregory. “Writers and Their Work: Wole Soyinka.” Dramatist 2 (January/February, 2000): 9.

Coger, Greta M. K. Index of Subjects, Proverbs, and Themes in the Writings of Wole Soyinka. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Gibbs, James. Wole Soyinka. New York: Grove Press, 1986.

Gibbs, James, ed. Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka. London: Heinemann, 1981.

Jones, Eldred Durosimi. The Writing of Wole Soyinka. 3d ed. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1988.

Soyinka, Wole. Myth, Literature, and the African World. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Wright, Derek. Wole Soyinka: A Life, Work, and Criticism. Indianapolis: Macmillan, 1992.