Summary of the play The Strong Breed by Wole Soyinka

 

                                                   The Strong Breed

The play, The Strong Breed was written by Wole Soyinka, it’s a tragic play based on the tradition of Egungun, a Yoruba festival tradition in Nigeria.  Egungun is a tradition in which a scapegoat of the village carries out the evil of the community and is exiled from the civilization.  The play ends with an individual sacrifice for the sake of the communal benefit.  It was published when traditional Yoruba life was dominated by religion.

Characters of the play:

§  Eman, a stranger,

§  Sunma, Jaguna’s daughter

§  Ifada, an idiot

§  A girl

§  Jaguna, the village leader

§  Oroge, Jaguna’s main attendant

§  Attendant Stalwarts (the villagers)

§  Old man, Eman’s father

§  Omae, Eman’s wife

§  Tutor

§  Priest

Summary of the play:

v The Strong Breed is the self-sacrificial story of Eman.  Eman is a teacher who came to that village.

v At the outset of the play, Sunma tries to convince Eman to leave the village before the new year’s festival begins at night.

v Being Jaguna’s daughter, she knows that it is strangers who are normally used as carriers to cleanse the village from its sins.

v Sunma hates her village as she believes that it is quite evil, she does not agree with its cultural practices and rituals.

v She works for Eman in his hut which he uses as a staffroom and clinic

v Ifada, a crippled and homeless boy often finds space in Eman’s hut

v The play is marked with flashbacks between Eman’s past and the present.

v Later we understand that Eman holds the lineage of strong breeds that are used as carriers.

v Eman’s father was once playing the hereditary role as the ‘carrier’ of his village.

v He ride a dwarf boat, representing the sins of the community.  It was only seldom that such dwarf boats returned safe, bringing the surviving carrier back.

v Eman refused to take over the hereditary role from his father.

v So he left the village for twelve years and travelled many places.

v But his father’s words reverberate in his ears: “Ours is a strong breed my son…I hoped you would follow me… stay longer and you will answer the urge of your blood”.

v The old man’s words mean that Eman will certainly fulfil his duty among a community.

v The metaphor used by the old man also reveals that Eman cannot escape his destiny as a carrier.

v In one way or another, his final end is to be a carrier.

v Soyinka focuses on this aspect of the destiny of the individual who is doomed to meet it.

v With a new location and another time, Eman turns to be a carrier again.

v Omae who was his childhood sweetheart had waited for Eman to come back all those years.

v Eman had left the village soon after his circumcision and told Omae to wait for him.

v Later he marries her.  Omae died during child birth as all the females in the lines of the strong breed do.

v Eman left his village again.  In the new village, he is a teacher and a healer, but still he is a stranger.

v Eman tries to rehabilitate Ifada in his place that later turns out to be the cause of his own sacrifice.

v Ifada is a stranger and the villagers attempt to use him as the carrier but Eman chooses to take his place instead.

v There is also a sick girl in the scene who carries around an effigy that she is going to sacrifice during the festival so that she can be cured.

v Eman flees from the village elders as he is going to be sacrificed and has to be chased around the village for most part of the night.

v The sacrifice has to be carried out before midnight for it to effectively cleanse the villagers before the NewYear begins

v Finally, the elders decide to set a trap for Eman.

v They know that he is thirsty and will head for the river, they dig a hole and cover it with twigs.

v Eman goes to the river and falls in to the trap, ultimately fulfilling his destiny as a carrier even though he is in a strange land.

v Wole Soyinka has justified the metaphysical link between the world of the living, and of the dead, and that of the unborn particularly found in the Yoruba cosmogony.

v Also Soyinka delves deep into his Yoruba culture and denounces the absurdity of some traditional practices.  Such as the ritual of human sacrifice.