Comparative Analysis in Drama
Senior 6 · Literature in English
Comparative Analysis in Drama
5 lessons
Lesson 2 of 5
Comparing African Plays: The Lion and the Jewel and Betrayal in the City
25 min
Let's begin
In 1959, a year before Nigeria's independence, students at Ibadan first staged a comedy by a young Yoruba writer, Wole Soyinka. In 1976, thirteen years after Kenya's independence, the Kenyan playwright Francis Imbuga published a play about a fictional African country where independence has gone sour. One play laughs at a village quarrel over a beautiful girl; the other shows students shot and teachers jailed. Yet both ask the same question: who really holds power in a changing Africa, and how do they keep it? Both plays are still in copyright, so this lesson gives summaries and analysis in Ganzaa's own words; read the plays themselves for quotations.
The Lion and the Jewel (Wole Soyinka, first performed 1959)
The play is set in the Yoruba village of Ilujinle and divided into three parts: Morning, Noon and Night. Sidi, the village beauty, has become proud since a photographer from Lagos printed her pictures in a magazine. Lakunle, the young schoolteacher, wants to marry her, but he scorns village customs and refuses to pay the bride price, which he calls backward. Baroka, the elderly Bale (chief) of the village, who has many wives, also wants Sidi. Through his senior wife, Sadiku, Baroka lets it be known that he has lost his manhood. Sidi goes to his palace to mock him, and Baroka outwits and seduces her. At the end she rejects Lakunle and prepares to marry Baroka. Along the way, mimes and dances act out earlier events, such as the photographer's visit, and we learn that Baroka once bribed a surveyor so that a planned railway would not pass through his village.
Betrayal in the City (Francis Imbuga, 1976)
The play is set in Kafira, an imaginary African state ruled by a dictator known only as Boss. It opens with an elderly couple, Doga and Nina, mourning their son Adika, a university student shot by the security forces during a protest; government men interfere even with the family's mourning ritual. Mosese, a university lecturer who spoke out about Adika's death, is jailed on false charges. Adika's brother Jusper, driven half-mad by grief, writes a play. When the government wants a performance to entertain a visiting head of state, the play is rehearsed in prison, and its performance in front of Boss becomes the means by which the oppressed confront his regime. Around Boss, corrupt officials such as his cousin Mulili flatter, scheme and inform on one another, while a prison warder, Jere, slowly changes sides.
Definition
- postcolonial literature: writing from formerly colonised countries that explores colonialism's effects and the problems of independence.
- tradition versus modernity: a conflict between inherited customs and new, often Western, ways of life.
- political satire: drama that ridicules the abuse of power, often through exaggerated or absurd characters.
- play within a play: a performance staged by characters inside a play, often to reveal a truth (as in Hamlet).
- mime: acting without words, using movement and gesture; in African drama it is often combined with dance and drumming.
Parallel roles
Comparing point by point
| Point | The Lion and the Jewel | Betrayal in the City |
|---|---|---|
| Genre and tone | Comedy: witty, ironic, light, with songs and dances | Political satire mixed with tragedy: dark, angry, with comic scenes among the officials |
| Setting | A Yoruba village on the edge of modern change | An imaginary modern state, its city, prison and seat of government |
| Central conflict | Tradition (Baroka) against a shallow modernity (Lakunle), with Sidi as the prize | Citizens against a corrupt regime that has betrayed the hopes of independence |
| How power works | Through cunning, custom and charm; Baroka never uses force | Through fear, violence, informers and flattery |
| Use of performance | Mime and dance replay past events and celebrate village life | A play within the play turns theatre into a weapon against the powerful |
| Ending | Tradition seems to win: Sidi chooses Baroka. But is she a winner or a prize? | The oppressed strike back through art; the cost has been heavy |
The deepest similarity is that both plays expose the gap between appearance and reality. Baroka seems old and defeated, yet is the cleverest person in the village; Lakunle sounds progressive, yet understands little of the modern world he praises. In Kafira, Boss's regime speaks of national pride and order, yet rules by murder and lies. The deepest difference is in their attitude to power. Soyinka finds Baroka's cunning half admirable and laughs at it; Imbuga finds Boss's power monstrous and shows its victims. The seventeen years between the plays are visible in their mood: the hopeful, playful questions of the independence era have given way to the bitterness of what Imbuga's title calls a betrayal.
Worked example
A model comparative paragraph (point: the man of words)
Each play contains an educated man who believes in change, but the two are treated in opposite ways. Soyinka makes his schoolteacher, Lakunle, a figure of fun: he talks constantly about progress and civilisation, yet his ideas are borrowed and half-understood, and his refusal to pay the bride price looks less like principle than meanness. When Sidi rejects him, the audience laughs rather than grieves. Imbuga's lecturer, Mosese, by contrast, speaks plainly about the killing of a student and loses his freedom for it; his suffering is what gives the play its moral weight. Whereas Soyinka satirises the man who talks about change without understanding his own people, Imbuga honours the man who tells the truth whatever it costs. The difference reflects the two moments: in 1959 the danger seemed to be empty imitation of the West; by 1976 it was the silencing of those who criticised the new rulers.
Tip
For set books in copyright, learn short key phrases rather than long passages. In the exam you may quote a few words from memory; examiners reward accurate, brief quotation woven into your sentence far more than long, half-remembered speeches.
Warning
- Don't treat Baroka simply as the villain or Lakunle as the hero. Soyinka's irony cuts both ways.
- Kafira is imaginary. Don't identify it with one real country; Imbuga wanted it to stand for many.
- Comparison is not two summaries. Every paragraph must hold both plays and a connective such as "whereas" or "by contrast".
Wole Soyinka interviewed by the Louisiana Channel of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, about writing and reality. Listen for what he says about the writer's duty towards power.
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Practice
- Summarise each play in no more than three sentences.
- How does Baroka win Sidi? What does this show about him?
- What is the play within the play in Betrayal in the City, and why is it important?
- Compare the settings of the two plays and explain how each setting suits the play's concerns.
- "Both plays show that those who hold power are cleverer than those who challenge it." Discuss.
- Write the opening paragraph of an essay comparing the role of women (Sidi and Sadiku; Nina and Regina) in the two plays.
Show answersHide answers
- Answers will vary; check that the main conflict and the ending are included.
- He spreads, through Sadiku, the story that he has lost his manhood, so that Sidi comes to mock him; then he charms and seduces her. It shows his cunning, patience and understanding of people, especially of Sidi's vanity.
- Jusper's play, rehearsed in prison and performed before Boss and a visiting head of state. Theatre becomes the means by which the oppressed confront the regime: art as resistance.
- Ilujinle, a village touched by but resisting modern change, suits a comedy of tradition and modernity. Kafira's city, prison and government offices suit a play about state power and its abuse.
- Answers will vary. Baroka is cleverer than Lakunle; but in Imbuga the powerful are often foolish and are defeated by their victims' courage and art.
- Answers will vary. Reward a clear thesis and comparison.
Sources and credits
- Summaries and analysis of The Lion and the Jewel (Wole Soyinka) and Betrayal in the City (Francis Imbuga), both in copyright: written by Ganzaa; no text from the plays is reproduced.
- Image: Wole Soyinka in 2018, Frankie Fouganthin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Video: Writer Wole Soyinka: Using Reality Against Reality, Louisiana Channel, embedded from YouTube.
- Diagram, tables, model paragraph and practice written by Ganzaa.
- This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.