The True Theme of "Death and the King's Horseman"


     As I read Death and the King’s Horseman, I wondered what Soyinka really wanted the main theme of the book to be since it was not race relations as stated by Soyinka himself.  While race relations were a huge part of the book, I think Soyinka wanted the main theme to be that death can be viewed differently by different cultures, groups, and people.  There are two views of death in this book.  The first being the white people that fear death so much and avoid it at all costs.  The second being the views of the Nigerians who take pride in offering up a person’s life to save the rest of the village.  There is actually some irony in the fear white people have about death, and Soyinka covers it when he discusses the wars raging on in Europe.  Basically, the white people that are so afraid of death are the ones that inflict pain and start wars that lead to the death of populations much larger than any village in Nigeria.  While the two views on death are very different, I did notice that the Nigerian view can be seen in circumstances pertaining to white people sometimes.  For example, in the book the captain blows the ship and himself up in order to save countless other lives.  The two views of death seem to be what drives the plot and create the conflicts, but death is not a topic only limited to Europeans and Nigerians. That is why I think Soyinka was saying the main topic is not race relations but rather a more broad, global topic of mortality and views on death.      

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