Death and the King's Horseman Themes

Death and the King's Horseman focuses on a ritual suicide, so it shouldn't come as a shock that death plays a big role. Soyinka himself has argued that spiritual struggles—including Elesin's atte...

For the Yoruba characters in Death and the King's Horseman, being willing and able to confront death—particularly when it's your duty to do so, as in Elesin's case—is kind of a big badge of hon...

Fear and courage are big issues for Elesin and his community in Death and the King's Horseman. As the late king's horseman, Elesin is duty-bound to carry out a ritual suicide, and there's a lot of...

Even though Soyinka tries to warn people away from a pure clash of cultures reading of Death and the King's Horseman with his preface, it's hard not to focus on the confrontations between the Briti...

Death and the King's Horseman isn't just about a clash of cultures—it's also about a clash of religions. Yoruba spirituality and Elesin's attempts to confront mortality and the afterlife are very...

In addition to being preoccupied with the twin notions of foreignness and otherness, Death and the King's Horseman makes a ton of references to race and prejudice. The clashes between the British a...

Compared to some of the other issues at play in Death and the King's Horseman, gender doesn't seem like a major one at first. However, once you dig in, you definitely find a lot of blink-and-you-mi...

The British in Death and the King's Horseman definitely think the Yoruba have cornered the market on primitive behavior, but characters like Olunde beg to differ: In their view, the British exhibit...