Death and the King's Horseman is a play by Wole Soyinka based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria during British colonial rule: the ritual suicide of the horseman of an important chief was prevented by the intervention of the colonial authorities. In addition to the British intervention, Soyinka calls the horseman's own conviction toward suicide into question, posing a problem that throws off the community's balance.
Read more about Death And The King's Horseman: Plot, Yoruba Perception of The World Around Them, Themes and Motifs, Performances, Reviews
Famous quotes containing the words death and, death, king and/or horseman:
“We like the chase better than the quarry.... And those who philosophize on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“To these, whom Death again did wed,
This grave’s the second Marriage-bed.”
—Richard Crashaw (1613?–1649)
““Write that down,” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“The horseman on the pale horse is Pestilence. He follows the wars.”
—Ardel Wray, and Mark Robson. Explaining why he is taking pains to protect his troops from plague (1945)