Postcolonial Perspective Of Death And The King’s Horseman

From Nigerian author Wole Soyinka’ drama Death and the King’s Horsemane, thisthese applies the method of historical investigation and close reading to carding the kingburied the historical evolution of the culture, and to further explore exotic western culturehas influence on the local culture, local intellectuals during the colonial period.This article is divided into six parts, and preface mainly introduces Soyinka’sresearch situation home and abroad, putting forward to the necessity of cultural study ofthis drama Death and the King’s Horseman and comb the play plot briefly.First section introduces the Yoruba king’s origin of buried with the dead culture,using people sacrifice custom around the world as the evidence, and further discusses theformation of the cultural factors of Yoruba buried with the dead culture, from thegeographical environment, religious traditions, the concept of death, Soul concept, chiefof a tribe worship and ancestor worship, etc.The second section, prove the advantages and disadvantages of buried with the deadculture as individual, respectively on perspective of the residents ethnic, the human natureand the era of development, with the conservation of nature, conducive to unity.The third section, focus on combing the progress and the harm brought by theforeign culture during postcolonial time, and emphatically explores that the essence iscolonial invasion and colonial rob behind culture input.The fourth section, it is known that Soyinka is a both traditional culture backgroundinside and "European" Africans deeply influenced by western culture from familyenvironment and social environment of life, whose complicated and special identitydetermines the cultural position, which Soyinka repels and protects the traditional cultureof buried with the dead culture.Conclusion part is the summary of full article. Either in the drama Death and theKing’s Horseman, or the author Soyinka, both support and oppose the traditional cultureof the king buried with the dead, traditional custom, traditional customs, and the foreignculture under the western colonial. However from the perspective of analysis, theauthorand the works are more inclined to defend national independence and freedom,oppose foreign culture with Colonial color.In this paper, we consider that the king of the person offering custom is, indeed, superstition and brutal, but for which if the colonial government deprive the culture of anation, the freedom of a nation, so it is more brutal than tradition itself, culturalcommunication is essential, but it must be a two-way,equal process.