Death and the King's Horseman | Roles of Women

In the following essay the author discusses the roles of women in Death and the King’s Horseman.

Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman tells the story of a man who fails to fulfill a responsibility. When Elesin, the king’s chief horseman, does not complete his ritual suicide so that he can accompany his dead king to the world of the ancestors, he breaks a thread of continuity that has for generations connected the worlds of the unborn, the living, and the dead. The connecting thread in this case is based on patriarchy: the kingship passes down from father to son, and so does the position of king’s horseman. Olunde, as eldest son, knows as soon as he receives...

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