Song of a Goat (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo
- First Published: 1961
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Tragedy
- Time of Work: 1960
- Setting: Deinogbo, Delta Province, Nigeria
- Genres: Drama, Mythological literature, Tragedy, Folk drama
- Subjects: 1950’s, Africa or Africans, Tradition, Suicide, Religion, Adultery, Folklore, Nigeria or Nigerians
- Locales: Deinogbo, Nigeria, Delta Province, Nigeria
Characters Discussed
Zifa (ZEE-fah), the protagonist, a fisherman and ship’s pilot who is a proud man unable to accept his impotence. He blames his inability to father a child on his wife, Ebiere, and on everyone else. He consults experts, but to no avail. When his younger brother, Tonyá, replaces him as surrogate father, Zifa, in a rage, ritually slaughters a goat, which foreshadows Tonyá’s suicide and Zifa’s act of atonement—his own suicide.
Tonyá (TOH-nyah), Zifa’s younger brother. He attempts to take Zifa’s place in fathering a child, a tradition...
[The entire page is 512 words long]
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