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Name:
Mehta Kavita Dineshbhai.
Course: M.A English
Semester: 4
Batch: 2016 – 2018
Roll No: 10
Enrollment No: 2069108420170020
Submitted to: SMT S.B Gardi.
Department of English, MKBhav Uni
Email id: kavitamehta164@gmail.com
Paper no: 14
The African Literature.
Topic: The Absurd in “The Swamp Dweller”.
Introduction:
The Swamp Dweller is a play that was
written by Wole Soyinka and was published in 1958. Wole Soyinka is a writer
from Nigeria, and he was the first African to be honored with a Nobel Prize,
winning the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature. Soyinka was politically active
during Nigeria’s struggle for independence, even getting arrested later during
the Nigerian Civil War.
In this play The Swamp
Dwellers,
the main conflict is between the old and the new way of life in the Nigerian
society and Africa in general. In Southern Nigeria, the individual was tightly
bound to his society, and with the introduction of more modern ideas, this
relationship was not quite as cohesive as it used to be. In addition, the power
of nature was also a difficult factor to deal with when trying to survive and
build a life and preserve the culture. There are three main categories of
characters: parents, corrupt priests and their followers, and individuals who
are always moving and changing.
The Swamp Dwellers charts a
deceptively simple plot moving, unlike the Euro-American Absurdism, in a linear
manner towards a logical end. Presented in a minimalist style, the play
features the remote. Nigerian swamps where an aged couple, Makuri, "an old
man of about sixty," and his "equally aged wife," Alu, are
waiting for the homecoming of their twin sons, Awuchike and Igwezu. The former,
who never appears on stage, sought the city for wealth and luxury, and the
latter went out to locate him. There is also the character of the Kadiye who
represents the religious authority for the swamp dwellers. The play deals with
issues of different levels. On the surface, it is about the typical life of a
poor family in the African society. Deeper, it is about the collision of old
and new values, the confrontation between the urban and the rural, and the
modern and the ancient ways of life. In an absurd. Haris Abdulwahab Noureiddin
fashion, Soyinka suggests that man lives in a vicious circle where the mire,
suggestive of danger, traces him wherever he turns. In the same vein, the play
is about fatalism. Reminiscent of Maurya's children in John Millington Synge's
Riders to the Sea, Makuri and Alu's children break away from them heading for
the city after survival. Helpless in front of destiny and traditions, the old
parents have to be content and must, like Maurya, surrender to their fate. In
so-doing, the play "condemns African superstition and glorification of the
past," denying, unlike the Euro-American Absurdism, man's passive
acceptance of the entrapping circumstances and establishing instead the active
quest for salvation.
The absurdity of the villagers' life is
enacted through a surfeit of technical elements which, in their totality,
communicate and animate the feelings of loss, desolation and barrenness. As in
Becket's Waiting where the intensity of the action and the singularity of
effect is conveyed through a condensation of action and characters, The Swamp
runs in one scene over the span of one day. Apart from the attendants to the
Kadiye, there are only five characters who make appearance on stage: Makuri and
his wife Alu, the old inhabitants of the hut; their son Igwezu, the major
character in the play; the blind Beggar, a foil for Igwezu; and the Kadiye, the
holy man, the priest of the Serpent of the Swamps and satirically the symbol of
corruption. The isolation and remoteness of the location is suggested through
the unnamed inanimate setting, "a village in the swamps," and through
the sounds of "frogs, rain and other swamp noises". The visual
presence of the mire surrounding the place from all directions connotes
confinement. The general atmosphere is one of apprehension and fear. Harry
Garuba explains that the condensation of action and characters.
The entrapment of those
villagers is further imparted through the details of the stage setting.
Reminiscent of the country road and a tree setting in Waiting which is
evocative of the state of isolation and decay, the setting in The Swamp
Dwellers, using Harold Hobson's words in his review of Waiting, "has
nothing at all to seduce the senses". It is "a hut on stilts, built
on one of the scattered semi-firm islands in the swamps...The walls are marsh
stakes". That state of abject poverty is enforced by the simple little
furniture which includes "a barber's swivel chair, a very ancient
one," a barber's tools, and a mat on which Alu sits "unraveling the
patterns in dyed 'adire' clothes." That barrenness is intensified by the
presence of the decaying Makuri and Alu whose internalized pain is audibly and
visually suggested through her constant yelling at the bites of the flies. The stage
directions indicate, "Alu appears to suffer more than the normal
viciousness of the swamp flies. She has a flick by her side which she uses
frequently, yelling whenever a bite has caught her unawares." Makuri, on
the other hand, creates the mood of waiting; he "stands by the window,
looking out" . In a suggestion of confusion as in many absurdist dramas, the
action in the Swamp runs at dusk while "a gentle wash of rain" is
heard outside.
As in Waiting where a
general atmosphere of futile waiting for the unknown, as well as the
unidentified, is accompanied with a desolate hope indicated by Estragon's first
utterance "nothing to be done", in The Swamp Dwellers a similar
atmosphere of foreboding and expectation is conveyed through Alu's question,
"Can you see him?" to be replied by Makuri's disappointing answer,
"See who?". Beckett's characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for
Godot upon whom/which they put all hopes. The boredom of their waiting is
enacted through their pointless, illogical repetitious actions and words. Godot
never comes and the characters end up contemplating suicide. Soyinka's aged
characters, Makuri and Alu, having lost all hope in the homecoming of Awuchike,
wait for the return of their more loyal son Igwezu who is to come back through
the treacherous swamps and the malicious slough:
Alu: [puts aside her work and
rises.] I'm going after him. I don’t want to lose him too. I don’t want him
missing his foothold and vanishing without a cry, without a chance for anyone
to save him…
[Alu crosses to doorpost and looks
out.]
Alu: I am going
to shout his name until he hears me. I had another son before the mire drew him
into the depths. I don't want Igwezu going the same way.
The futility and
boredom of that waiting is suggested through Makuri and Alu's continuous verbal sword fights about Awuchike possible death accounting for his long absence:
Alu: If you
felt for him like a true father, you'd know he was dead. But you haven’t any
feelings at all. Anyone would think they weren't your flesh and blood.
Makuri: Well, I
have only your own word for that.
Alu: Ugh! You
always did have a dirty tongue.
Makuri [slyly.]: The land is big and wide, Alu, and you were
often out by yourself, digging for crabs. And there were all those shifty-eyed
traders who came to hunt for crocodile skins. . . Are you sure they didn't take
your own skin with them . . . you old crocodile!
Against this background of absurdity,
all characters become aware of the "existential impasse with which they
have to contend". Unlike Beckett's passive characters whose denunciation
of divine salvation leads to thoughts of despair and death, Soyinka's are torn between
sticking to traditions which dictate blind obedience to the African religious
heritage and the choice of giving up on that tradition as illustrated in
people's individual and collaborative efforts towards relocation. Since they
prefer to be "marionettes" in the hands of a blind fate, Makuri and
Alu are severely satirized by Soyinka. In one of the exchanges about Awuchike possible
place of residence, Makuri expresses vehement apprehension of the religious
authority as one example of past heritages incarnated in the character of the
Kadiye and that of the Serpent of the swamps:
Alu: ... Nobody has ever seen him. Nobody has ever heard of him, and
yet you say to me...
Makuri
[despairingly.]: No one. No one that
could swear ... Ah, what a woman you are for deceiving yourself.
Alu: No one knows. Only the serpent can tell. Only the serpent of
the swamps, the Snake that lurks beneath the slough.
Makuri: The serpent be...! Bah! You'll make me voice a sacrilege before I
can stop my tongue.
The absurdity that Soyinka
dramatizes through Igwezu's episode is specifically related to the irony of
fate. Committed people, socially and religiously, are entrapped while malicious
ones are rewarded. Igwezu's dependence on supernatural assistance proves
unsuccessful that he questions the authenticity of the gods he worships. An
obedient and faithful child to parents and traditions, Igwezu performs all the
necessary rites required by his deity to ensure a good harvest and a happy life
with his pretty wife. The impotence of his deity strikes him as he fails to
make any progress in his life in the city. Worse still, his twin, Awuchike,
against all the traditional values of the swamps, seduces his pretty wife.
The character of the
Kadiye, the symbol of corruption in the name of religion, presents yet another
deeper level of absurdity prompted by the feeling of arbitrariness and the
belief in superstition. While all the swamp dwellers live in poverty and lead a
tough life, the Kadiye, the holy man and the priest of the swamps, lives in
affluence. Satirically, his on-stage appearance is accompanied with rituals of
reverence and arrogance. Far
from being as passive as his parents, and breaking away from the nihilism of
the Euro-American Absurdism, Igwezu revolts against his absurd existence which
makes of him a "victim of arbitrary authority".
Soyinka creates the
character of the blind Beggar whose apparent dramaturgical function is to give
another example of man's active search for saving himself and the community. In
Soyinka's pagan logic, the character of the blind Beggar, a Muslim, shows the inadequacy
of other religious beliefs in saving their followers. Reflecting Soyinka's
anti-Islamic position, the beggar is presented as both 'blind' and a 'beggar,'
"the afflicted of the gods", as Makuri describes him. Facing more absurd and
gruesome circumstances than those of Igwezu - his blindness and the destruction
of his crops by droughts and locusts-, the Beggar decides to give up his faith
-his blindness, so to speak- and seek the south after self-salvation through
finding a land to reclaim. Identifying with the role of the Messiah, the Beggar
becomes the "symbol of expiation and enlightenment" he, as a 'bondsman,'
incites Igwezu into awareness of the Kadiye's deceptive nature. Through his
support, Igwezu takes his first step towards redemption.
It is chaos, arbitrariness
and claimed absences of providence leading to misery and despair that Wole
Soyinka foregrounds in The Swamp Dwellers. Instead of using the avant-gardist
techniques to express that malaise, Soyinka adopts the technique of sharp
satire incarnated in his stage setting, his character portrayal, and the use of
quiet but cynical language which underscores an undercurrent stream of anxiety
and anger. Constructive in his dramaturgy, unlike the Euro-American absurdists,
Soyinka advances the argument that salvation is attainable not necessarily
through any supernatural power, but definitely through individual endeavor and
the benevolence of other persons, that is through interpersonal, collective
efforts.
In the face of adversity,
Igwezu, supported by the blind Beggar, moves south to escape the barrenness of the
swamps and to start anew. In Soyinka's reasoning, as it can be deduced from the
play, since man's dependence on supernatural beings has been proven
ineffective, man should work to rescue himself. He is either to yield passively
to his desolate existence or to seek actively redemption and salvation.
Work cited.
Noureiddin, Haris Abdulwahab. The Absurd in Wole
Soyinka's The Swamp Dwellers.
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