Dance of The Forest

 I am Kishan Jadav and I am a student of MK Bhavnagar university, department of English. In this blog I am going to discuss Dance of The Forest by Wole Soyinka.

Dance of The Forest:

Written and first performed in 1960 as part of the national celebrations of Nigeria’s independence from Britain, A Dance of the Forests features a unique combination of classically European dramatic elements and traditional Yoruba masquerade traditions which make the play resistant to both staging and traditional Western criticism. Since 1960, few attempts have been made to perform the play, due to its complexity and ambiguity. A Dance of the Forests presents an allegorical criticism of the political condition of postcolonial Africa and of the recurring political patterns in Nigeria. The play, considered iconoclastic upon its debut, criticizes Nigerian history in order to satirize the political elite of the newly independent Nigerian government and resists nationalistic notions of a historical or future Golden Age in Nigerian history. The playwright, Wole Soyinka, also resisted the popular African literary and philosophical movement of Negritude, a movement he criticized for overly glorifying Africa’s pre-colonial past. Soyinka was the first sub-Saharan African author to be awarded a Nobel Prize (1986) and is recognized today as one of the most respected Nigerian authors. In addition to his work as a playwright, Soyinka has been active in Nigerian politics for several decades, including advocating for Nigeria’s independence, and he was imprisoned in solitary confinement for two years during the Nigerian civil war (1967-70), after a military coup following increased political tensions as the federal government took control of indigenous Yoruba land. After his release, Soyinka continued to publish poetry, drama and political criticism prolifically and today remains an outspoken political activist.

Themes of the Play 

These are the major themes of the play "A Dance of the Forest",

Atonement

Corrupted Power

Wounds Trauma

The Past 

Nature 

Birth

Ritual

1] Atonement :- 

We can see atonement is one of the themes of the play. In the play Aroni takes back the dead man & woman on the earth. She wants that the people who did wrong with this dead man & woman will realise their mistake and do atonement for it. We come to know about the deeds of characters. Where Aroni opens the life of all characters who are in the jungle. 

Adenebi was a historian in his past life. He gives advice to king Mata Kharibu for punishment to the warrior who refuses to fight for the king. Because the king took the other's wife and the soldier was not ready to fight for the king's wife.

Demoke was a poet in his past life. He was also responsible for the death of the warrior.

Agbonako was a future teller in the past. He said to the king that, "stars are not in favour" and the king decided to give punishment to the warrior because the king didn't want to lose his kingship & Madam Tortoise. 

Rola (Madam Tortoise) was the wife of Mata Kharibu and she offered herself to the warrior (dead man) who refused to fight for the king. And then she suggested strict punishment to this soldier. 

This is how the deeds of all characters are unfolded. And Aroni wants that they can realise their mistake and they feel sorry for the warrior and the warrior may get justice.

2] Corrupted Power :- 

This is another important theme of the play. As we have seen Mata Kharibu uses power for his personal sake. Madam Tortoise also uses power to exploit her beauty and her power over men in order to stir up discord. Who doesn't follow their order they punish them without thinking anything. And people like Adenebi and Demoke provoke kings and make their space near to the king. Here we can see that people who are in power can do anything. And this is not in the stories only. We find corruption everywhere. And if anybody could oppose them they gave them punishment as Mata Kharibu gave to the warrior. Whoever is powerful, they always exploit powerlessness. 

3] Wounds Trauma :-

People sometimes suffer from their traumatic pasts. As all characters who are roaming in the forest have their traumatic experiences. Obaneji knows all these things and he wants that they all can accept their deeds and atonement for it. In the forest Obaneji also asks all about their past and what they have done. Demoke told his story and Rola and Obaneji helped him to move on. The other example is of the dead man & woman who had a terrible end of their life. Their wounds were not filled but they faced a lot of trouble and trauma because they opposed the king. 

4] The Past :-

The narrative technique of the play is very complicated. The whole story was told in a single day, but the story goes back to the past and then comes to the present. All characters have their past. Most of them have a bad past and their past haunts and hurts them. We come to know about multiple identities of the characters. As we have seen, all characters made mistakes in the past and also in the present. So the main intention of the writer is to learn from the last and not repeat those mistakes. 

5] Nature :- 

The play takes place in the forest. It's talking about all things that are connected with mortals. We see the involvement of various spirits like river, tree, stone, palm and mountain who are going to take part in the ceremony that Aroni arranged in the plot. All spirits talk about the activities that humans are doing and damaging nature. These are all things showing us the connection of nature and the human world. 

6] Birth :- 

This is a very important theme to study in the play. Aroni brings back a dead man & woman in mortal's world. The dead woman was pregnant when she died so she returns with the baby in her belly. And in this mortal's world she gave birth to a half-child. Who was born dead. The baby was influenced by the incidents that the dead man & woman had faced. 

7] Ritual :- 

The whole play is centered around this ritual. Aroni wants to celebrate this ritual with mortals and immortals where the ritual includes the ceremony for self discovery. Where Aroni wants to question about dead man & woman and about the bad deeds of mortals. Another ritual that gets performed is the Dance of Welcome, in which the spirits of the forest perform and deliver monologues. Then the Dance of the Half-Child determines with whom the unborn child will go. Often, rituals, dances, and formal representations stand in for literal events. 

But in the end the dead man & woman didn't get justice and the wish of Aroni remained incomplete. The play is very interesting and complex. But overall the play wants to teach us that we should always learn from the past, don't use power on those who are powerless and learn to move on from the past events.

Thank you.