Wole Soyinka
unwelcome dead who have returned to ask questions of the living; the
personages of history and the past whom we encounter in the flashback
to the Court of Mata Kharibu; the spirits and non-human beings of the
forest; and gods and deities like Ogun and Eshuoro.This is too literal-
ist a reading of the symbolic intent of Soyinka’s characterization in the
play. Beside, it is a reading that is also too heuristically idealist: “being”
is seen as an “essence,” ahistorical, preexistent, trans-historical. If we,
however, choose to see “being” differently, that is, in its “materiality,”
its rootedness in actual processes within nature and society, we see that
inA Dance, structurally, there are only two levels of representation – the
spheres of humanity and divinity, or as spatially presented in the play,
the Forest and the Town. The action of the play is structured around this
polarity of human and divine, Forest and Village in ways that are deci-
sive for a materialist interpretation of this extremely complex dramatic
work.
It is clear that the “divine,” supernatural world of the deities and the
forest dominate the human world of the town. Not only does most of the
action take place in the forest, but the “forest” also symbolically stands
for nature and this makes the humans (including the Dead) supplicants
to it. This makes them beholden to the forest in many ways. This rela-
tionship, manifest everywhere in the play, is most clearly shown in the
following dialogue:
: (Stops suddenly. Goes to where Demoke, etc. stand huddled
together. Sniffs them, turns to the Interpreter). But who are these?
: They are the lesser criminals, pursuing the destructive path of
survival. Weak pitiable criminals, hiding their cowardice in sudden acts of
bluster. And you obscenities... (Waves his hands towards the triplets, who
shriek and dance in delight) you perversions are born when they acquire
power over one another and their instincts are fulfilled a thousandfold, a
hundred thousandfold. But wait, there is still the third triplet to come. You
have as always decided your own fates. Today is no different from your
lives. I merely sit and watch.
(CP,)
Forest Head’s last sentence in this dialogue is not to be understood in
its surface meaning, forheis responsible for this most decisive aspect
of the humans’ affairs – their attempt at historical self-understanding.
He and his attending deity Aroni, the lame one, precipitate the humans’
act of cathartic self-renewal, for the humans merely demanded illustrious
ancestors. Indeed the godhead represented by Forest Head is presented as
absolute consciousness corresponding to the totalized Orisanla paradigm