A Dance of the Forests Analysis

Wole Soyinka
A Dance of the Forests is one of Wole Soyinka's best-known plays and was
commissioned as part of a larger celebration of Nigerian independence. It was a polarizing play
that made many Nigerians angry at the time of its production, specifically because of its
indictment of political corruption in the country.
After having gone to university in England, Soyinka returned to Nigeria to write this play in
1959, submerging himself in Yoruba folklore as a way of reconnecting with his homeland. The
play is about a group of mortals who invoke the spirits of the dead, hoping that these wiser spirits
will help to guide them, but disappointed to discover that the spirits are just as petty and flawed
as they are.

The play has been interpreted by many as a cautionary tale for the Nigerian people on the
occasion of their newfound independence, to remind them to be critical and seeking, and warning
against becoming complacent. It also provides a metaphor for not sentimentalizing pre-colonial
Africa too much and remaining vigilant. When Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1986, A Dance of the Forests was named as one of his crowning achievements, and he was
named "one of the finest poetical playwrights that have written in English.”

A Dance of the Forests presents a complex interplay between gods, mortals, and the
dead in which the ideal goal is the experience of self-discovery within the context of
West African spiritualism. The living have invited two glorious forefathers to take part in
a feast and celebration—the “Gathering of the Tribes.” The god Aroni, however,
explains in the prologue that he received the permission of the Forest Head to select
instead “two [obscure] spirits of the restless dead”: the Dead Man and the Dead
Woman, a captain and his wife from the army of the ancient Emperor Mata Kharibu.
These two were selected because in a previous life they had been violently abused by
four of the living. The four mortals are Rola, an incorrigible whore nicknamed Madame
Tortoise, who was then a queen; Demoke, now a carver and then a poet; Adenebi, now
council Orator and then Court Historian; and Agboreko, Elder of Sealed Lips, a
soothsayer in both existences. They have been selected because of past debauchery,
which Aroni hopes can be expiated through revelation. Aroni further explains in the
prologue that the Forest Head, disguised as a human, Obaneji, invites the four mortals
into the forest to participate in a welcome dance for the Dead Man and the Dead
Woman, who Aroni takes under his wing after the living ostracize them. The dance is
interrupted by the wayward spirit Eshuoro.

Eshuoro seeks vengeance for the death of Oremole, a devotee of Oro and apprentice to
the carver Demoke, who killed Oremole by pulling him off the top of the araba tree that
they were carving together. Ogun, the patron god of carvers, defends Demoke. Ogun
(the god of iron, war, and craftsmanship of the Yoruba, Soyinka’s own society) and Oro
(the Yoruba god of punishment and death) represent antithetical forces that
continuously interact until their hypothetical synthesis, through which the mortals would
attain self-understanding.

As the play itself begins, the dead pair, encrusted in centuries of grime, are observed
from a distance by Obaneji as they are rejected in turn by mortals Demoke, Rola, and
Adenebi, who refuse to hear their case. While the mortals play charades with their
inglorious backgrounds, the Dead Woman observes that the living are greatly influenced
by the past accumulation of the dead: “The world is big but the dead are bigger. We’ve
been dying since the beginning.” She implies that the living are in no position to be
choosy about which of their past lives they confront first.

The ceremony for the self-discovery of the four mortals consists of three parts: first, the
reliving of the ancient prototype of their present crimes; second, the questioning of the
dead couple; and third, the welcoming dance for the dead couple. As a preliminary step,
the four mortals are compelled to reveal their secrets. In Demoke’s passionate account
of his killing of his apprentice Oremole, he associates the negative aspect of creation
with a feeling more appropriate to the positive aspect. The blood that flows from
Oremole acts as a medium through which the spiritual energies of the forest are
manifested (an event often resulting in the possession of a human witness). The tapping
of these demon forces may account for Demoke’s supernatural burst of creative energy
just after the murder—an example of the ever-present spirits interacting with mortal life.

In part 2, the scene retrogresses about eight centuries to the ancient court of Emperor
Mata Kharibu. Rola, Demoke, and Adenebi are portrayed as Madame Tortoise (the
queen), the Court Poet, and the Historian respectively—all of whom enact paradigms of
their current crimes. Madame Tortoise, for example, fights boredom by seducing her
subjects and then sending them to retrieve her canary from the palace’s dangerously
steep roof. After a risqué bantering session with the Poet, the piqued Madame Tortoise
dispatches him to fetch her canary. The Poet instead sends his pupil, who falls and
breaks his arm. At this point a chained warrior (the Dead Man) is brought before Mata
Kharibu on charges of treason. The captain had fought against a fellow chief and
abducted his queen, Madame Tortoise, for Mata Kharibu, but he now refuses to risk his
men in another frivolous battle to obtain her dowry. The Court Physician tries to reason
with the captain, who adamantly refuses to obey.

Adenebi, the Historian, asserts that the carnage of history is normal, that the warrior’s
pacifism is sick or traitorous. Adenebi’s historical evaluation suffers from the restricted
awareness that the four mortals share, a state of awareness that the Forest Head tries
to expand. Of the four, only the Soothsayer attempts to spare the captain from being
enslaved and to restrain Mata Kharibu from plunging into another senseless war: “I see
much blood Mata Kharibu. On both sides of the plough.” Fretful, Kharibu asks the
Soothsayer if the captain is a “freak” who can multiply; the answer is “no.” However, the
Dead Man has returned and participates in the welcoming dance of revelation. He is not
“perfectly dead.”

Before the questioning of the dead pair begins, the spirit Eshuoro demands vengeance
against Demoke and hurls invectives at the Warrior. Aroni, however, says, “It is enough
that they discover their own regeneration.” The dead pair are asked to give an account
of themselves and explain the reason for their return. The Dead Woman is pregnant—a
universal mother figure seeking fulfillment.

After the dead couple are welcomed, the Dance of Welcome is performed by the spirits
of the Forest (represented by Demoke, Rola, and Adenebi, wearing masks) who, while
momentarily entranced, chorus the future. The dead pair listen in suspense to see
whether the future will be more auspicious than the past or present. The Forest Head
orders Aroni to relieve the Dead Woman “of her burden (the Half-Child) and let the
tongue of the unborn, stilled for generations, be loosened.” The multiple spirits of the
Forest envision a future of more suffering and hopelessness; it becomes apparent that
the Interpreter of the spirits is collaborating with Eshuoro by conjuring up portents of
disaster to demonstrate the futility of self-knowledge.

At this point Demoke comes to himself and, in the “Dance of the Half-Child,” tries to
rescue the Half-Child from the fate of being continually “born dead.” The significance of
Demoke’s intervention is not that it liberates the Half-Child—this is beyond him—but
that he has taken the first tangible step toward his own redemption. In the dumbshow at
the end of the play, the “Dance of the Unwilling Sacrifice,” Demoke’s totem is
silhouetted as the town people dance around it. Eshuoro finally consummates his
involvement by forcing Demoke to climb the araba tree with a basket over his head, a
burden representing the blindness of his guilt. Eshuoro then sets fire to Demoke’s tree
of transition, from which he falls into the arms of Ogun, the patron god of carvers. Thus
Demoke’s rebirth is symbolized not with words, but with dance and music. The impulse
toward transcendence originates not from the Forest Dwellers, but from within each
mortal, from their inner gods that the Forest personifies.

A Dance of the Forests, commissioned for the celebration of Nigeria’s independence in

1960, makes use of all the devices traditionally found in Yoruba ritual performances:
music, dance, masquerade, possession, and poetry. Critics have described this play as
plotless, but Soyinka is concerned less with narrative than with folkloricism, or a folkloric
dramaturgy based on ritual significance. Although Soyinka warned Nigerians not to
neglect the problems of the present by living in nostalgia for Africa’s glorious past, he is
nevertheless distinguished from his fellow poets inasmuch as he continues to work
within a traditional system. His plays are considered “difficult” or literary as opposed to
popular. The Yoruba cosmology of the play is embodied in Ifa, the traditional religion. In
exploring the fact of creation and existence from within this traditional framework,
Soyinka works not merely with symbols but also with the essence of Yoruba culture.

Although offered to a nation to celebrate its independence, the irony of A Dance of the
Forests is that the victim of its satire is Nigeria itself. Completely devoid of nostalgia,
Soyinka boldly deromanticizes his characters by focusing on delusion, death, and
betrayal. The great gathering of the tribes corresponds to the birth of a nation, but the
heady excitement of the present, bolstered by a glorious heritage, is satirically
complemented by a glimpse of the disquieting truths of the human condition
accumulated throughout the ages. Soyinka’s characters are forced to confront the grim
realities lurking behind their dreams. For Soyinka, then, Africa has an inglorious past;
his technique is to expose this reality through the metaphysical elements of Yoruba
cosmology. Expecting to worship their historic magnificence, the African audience
instead looks back across time to a whore as queen, a barbaric king, and a subjugated
people.

Noted for its Janus-like viewpoint, A Dance of the Forests uses Africa’s past to cast
blame on the present and future. The Dead Man and Mata Kharibu were involved in the
slave trade, implying that Africa too readily accepted its chains, whether imposed by
foreigners or brothers. The living characters’ rejection of the past, moreover, constitutes
a deplorable treatment of guests that violates the rules of conduct held in high esteem
by African societies. Men treated each other badly in the past, and they continue to do
so in the present. Events in Nigeria since 1960 (including a bloody civil war) have
proven Soyinka’s prescience in predicting the need for rational self-criticism. Soyinka’s
satiric vision resembles that of Jonathan Swift. He has also been compared to Joseph
Conrad in his representation of horror and to William Wordsworth in his lament on
man’s inhumanity to man.

A Dance of the Forests Character List

Dead Man
The Dead Man was a soldier in a former life who was castrated for his unwillingness to go to
war against a neighboring tribe. He took issue with the motives for going to war and so refused
to participate. He was sold to a slave-dealer and eventually killed. During the time of the play, he
has been brought back to life by Aroni to settle the unfinished business of his ill-fated death.
Dead Woman
The Dead Woman was pregnant with the Dead Man's child when she attempted to plead for her
husband's life in the court of Mata Kharibu. Her plea was rejected and she and her husband were
killed.
Forest Head
Forest Head is a god who attempts to have the four characters who tortured the Dead Man and
Dead Woman in a past life remember their sins and atone for them.
Rola
Rola is a prostitute, who was once Madame Tortoise in a past life, and queen to Mata Kharibu.
She was known for driving men to madness and is the reason the Dead Man/Soldier was
castrated and his wife killed.
Demoke
Demoke is a carver who was once a poet in a past life. While carving an araba tree he pushed his
apprentice, Oremole, from the tree to his death. The Forest Head wants him to see the sin he has
committed and atone for it.
Adenebi
Adenebi was a court historian for Mata Kharibu who accepts a bribe from a slave trader to sell
the Soldier as a slave, even wrongfully stating that the ship he will travel in is not tortuous.
Agboreko
Agboreko is the Elder of Sealed Lips. In a former life, he was a soothsayer in the court of Mata
Kharibu and predicted that the stars did not favor a victory for the king if he chose to go to war.
Eshuoro
Eshuoro is a wayward spirit who is seeking vengeance for the death of Oremole. He seeks
Demoke as Oremole's murderer and is vengeful and spiteful throughout the play.

A Dance of the Forests Themes

Atonement
Atonement is a major theme of the play. The Dead Man and Dead Woman are brought
back to the land of the living so that the four mortals who mistreated them in the past will
recognize their former sins and atone. While the mortals spend a great deal of the play unaware
of this, they eventually realize that the purpose of the Dead Man and Dead Woman's visitation
is to teach them a lesson, and by the end, they go through a kind of conversion, understanding
that they have sinned before.
Corrupted Power
Corrupted power is another major theme in the play, particularly as it represented in the
characters of Mata Kharibu and Madame Tortoise. As we are taken back to the palace of the
king, we see that Madame Tortoise exploits her beauty and her power over men in order to stir
up discord. Mata Kharibu is also corrupted by his immense power, as demonstrated by the fact
that he is demanding that his soldiers fight against their better judgment, and the fact that he
mercilessly punishes free thinking. Wole Soyinka tells a story that reveals to the reader that
all power is corruptible, and that just because people are given authority does not mean that they
are good or ethical people.
Wounds & Trauma
The play depicts the ways that people carry around trauma and wounds from the past, that
everyone has some sensitive part of their biography that haunts and hurts them. The Forest
Head knows this and attempts to bring these wounds to light in hopes that those who have been
hurt in the past can move on.
The Past
The play does not follow an exactly linear structure, in spite of the fact that it all takes place in
the course of a day. As we learn rather quickly, the narrative concerns the sins of the past, and
each mortal character has multiple identities, representing both who they are in the present as
well as who they once were in the past. The present is layered onto the past as if to suggest that
nothing from our history is ever fully gone, that we descend from patterns and events that
precede us and continue to affect us in the present. The plot of the play concerns the ways that
human beings must overcome their pasts and learn from them.
Nature
The play takes place in a forest, and throughout, various elements of the natural world come to
life to take part in the reckoning that is taking place with the mortals. The Forest Head is a spirit
who presides over the forest, and during the welcoming of the Dead Man and Dead Woman,
various spirits of different natural elements are called upon to speak their piece. These include
Spirit of the Rivers, Spirit of the Palms, Spirits of the Volcanos, and others. All of these elements
of nature are personified through verse, showing us the connection between the human and the
natural world.
Birth
One of the unresolved features of the Dead Woman is the fact that she was killed while pregnant
with a child. She returns to the world of the living still with a pregnant belly, and during the
welcome ritual, the fetus appears as a Half-Child, who is caught between being influenced by the
spirit world and remaining with his mother. The Half-Child is a tragic figure, as he was never
given the relief of life, and when he is given a chance to speak he says, "I who yet await a
mother/Feel this dread/Feel this dread,/I who flee from womb/To branded womb cry it now/I'll
be born dead/I'll be born dead." The figure of the child is a tragic one, standing in as the ultimate
symbol for the wrongs done to the Dead Man and Dead Woman, and the unresolvedness of their
plight.
Ritual
Another major theme, as well as a formal element of the play, is ritual and tradition. Throughout,
we see the characters going through traditional motions in order to understand more about their
circumstances. These rituals include the ceremony for the self-discovery of the mortals, in which
the mortals must relive their crimes, the Dead Man and Dead Woman must be questioned, and
the mortals revealing their secret wrongs.

Another ritual that gets performed is the Dance of Welcome, in which the spirits of the forest
perform and deliver monologues. Then the Dance of the Half-Child determines with whom the
unborn child will go. Often, rituals, dances, and formal representations stand in for literal events.
Indeed, the entire play can be seen as a stringing together of the different formalized rituals that
make up the narrative.
A Dance of the Forests Symbols, Allegory and Motifs
Smoking out the forest (Symbol)
The Old Man sends for a truck to smoke out the forest with the petrol fumes, all in order to find
his son. This event is symbolic of the ways that humans are willing to disrupt and destroy nature
in order to get what they want.
Coin purse (Symbol)
In the court of Mata Kharibu, the Slave-Dealer hands the Historian a coin purse in exchange for
his agreement that his ship is a worthy vessel. The coin purse is a symbol of how bribery and
corruption work in the court of Mata Kharibu. People are willing to get paid off in order to turn a
blind eye to injustice, and the coin purse symbolizes their greed and the fact that they can be
bought.
Out of the Soil (Symbol)
Dead Man and Dead Woman come up out of the soil in the opening of the play, which
symbolizes their journey from the subterranean world of the dead to the world of the living. It
represents that they are not alive, but it also represents that they have unfinished business, and
that they come with issues that have been buried and that they are literally and figuratively
bringing to light.
Music and Ritual (Motif)
Throughout the play, music and ritual are used as theatrical devices to illuminate elements of the
narrative and render the story in different ways. Music, ritual, poetry, and possession root the
play in Yoruba traditions from which Wole Soyinka was taking his inspiration, and they also
serve to abstract the events, so that the spiritual, emotional, and ethical truths of the story are
further illuminated. For instance, there are certain parts of the story that are so outside the realm
of literal reality, such as the presence of the Dead Woman's Half-Child in the narrative, that ritual
serves to make sense of events and images that a reader might have a hard time understanding
otherwise.
The Play as an Allegory for Nigerian Politics
While many celebrated the play when it was first performed in 1960 to celebrate Nigerian
independence, its critics believed that it was attacking Nigerian politics and interpreted it as a
warning for the future. Many of the play's critics were members of Nigeria's elite who saw the
play as exposing post-colonial Nigerian politics as corrupt. The play has been interpreted as an
allegory for the ways in which Nigerians were tasked with casting away the structures of
colonialism and beginning anew, trying to find better political modes. While Soyinka's
depictions of mortals and spirits alike as fallible can be read as an indictment of Nigerian
politicians in the post-colonial moment in which it was written, it can also be interpreted as
offering a more idealistic vision of what might be in the future, the possibilities and potentials for
a country on the brink of crafting a new identity.