This document provides an analysis of the poem "Live Burial" by Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. It begins with background on Soyinka and defines key terms like poetry and claustrophobia. The analysis then examines how the poem conveys the suffocating effects of confinement through its description of a small, imprisoning cell and references to mythological underworld. It discusses images of characters like "The lizard" and "The ghoul" that observe the imprisoned narrator. In conclusion, it notes that Soyinka wrote this poem while in prison himself to shed light on the difficult realities of life for activists through powerful language.

1. 'Live Burial' - Survival in the face
of Adversity or Oppression
Presented by : Emisha Ravani
Department of English,
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar
University

2. Sem 4 (M.A.)
Roll no. 07
Enrollment no.: 4069206420210031
Paper code : 22413
Paper no. & paper name : Paper 206:The African Literature
Submitted to : Smt S.B. Gardi, Department of English,
MKBU
emisharavani3459@gmail.com

3. Table of content :
What is Poetry?
Who is Wole Soyinka?
What is Claustrophobia?
Analysis of the poem ‘Live Burial’
Conclusion
Work Cited

4. What is Poetry?
Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative
awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to
create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound,
and rhythm.(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
African fiction in English focuses on the tension between
traditional and western modes of living and seeks to place the
Africans’ struggle against Western domination and
exploitation in the correct perspective.(MAMBROL)

5. It is evident that African literary figures are deeply
concerned with their own experiences of suffering. This
theme is frequently explored in the literature of the
continent, with writers using their work to give voice to
the struggles and injustices faced by themselves and their
communities. Through powerful imagery and evocative
language, African writers seek to convey the depth of
human emotion and the complexity of the African
experience, creating works that are both moving and
thought-provoking. Overall, the literature of Africa serves
as a testament to the strength, resilience, and creativity of
its people, even in the face of adversity.

6. Wole Soyinka
The Nobel Prize for Literature in
1986
Idanre, and Other Poems (1967) and
Poems from Prison (1969;
republished as A Shuttle in the Crypt,
1972), published together as Early
Poems (1998); Mandela’s Earth and
Other Poems (1988); and Samarkand
and Other Markets I Have Known
(2002).(Miłosz)

7. Yeh et al. found that,
Claustrophobia is a specific phobia where one fears
closed spaces (claustro means closed). Examples of
closed spaces are engine rooms, small or locked
rooms, cellars, tunnels, elevators, MRI machines,
subway trains, crowded places, etc.

8. This is expressed in the lines describing the poet’s cell room:
Sixteen paces
By twenty-three.
They hold
Siege against humanity
And Truth
Employing time to drill through his sanity (lines 1-5)
The confinement of a healthy man to a space as limited as "sixteen by twenty-
three paces" over an extended period of time would undoubtedly leave him
feeling suffocated and restless. In fact, the poet's pacing within the cell is not an
attempt to measure its dimensions, but rather an effort to alleviate the
claustrophobic sensations that arise from the room's confinement. The restricted
movement and confinement within the small space give rise to a sense of
entrapment, which is expressed through the poet's frenzied movements.

9. The room = Prison
The poet = Truth
The poet depicts the smallness of his cell room which imprisons “Truth”.
Seal him live
In that same necropolis.
May his ghost mistress
Point the classic
Route to Outsiders' Stygian Mysteries.(Soyinka)
The word "Stygian," in addition to its meaning of "gloomy and dark, infernal and
hellish" (Interlex), also specifically references the river of Styx, which in Greek
mythology surrounds the underworld of Hades and isolates the dead souls from the
living. Soyinka lives as a dead soul, isolated by imprisonment from the world of the
living.

10. Guara'l The lizard:
Every minute scrapes
A concrete mixer throat.
The cola slime
Flies to blotch the walls in patterned grime
The ghoul:
Flushed from hanging, sniffles
Snuff, to clear his head of
Sins -- the law
Declared -- that morning's gallows load were dead of.
The voyeur:
Times his sly patrol
For the hour upon the throne
I think he thrills
To hear the Muse's constipated groan (Soyinka)
Images of a guard,
"The lizard", "The ghoul", and "The voyeur"

11. To Conclude, We can say that Wole Soyinka has
written this poem when he was in prison and wrote on
the toilet paper as a prisoner. Though the poetic sense
and it’s strong use of words prove us how the nobel
prize winner poet can pen down the life when life itself
is hardest. As an activist he has thrown the light on
many aspect by his writing which are not easily visible
to the common people.

12. ElimimianLanguage, Style and Meaning in Wole Soyinka’s Poetry, Isaac I. “Language, Style and Meaning in Wole
Soyinka’s Poetry.” LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, vol. 10, no. 1, 2013, pp. 96-107. UAS,
file:///C:/Users/emisha%20ravani/Downloads/92173-Article%20Text-233968-1-10-20130812.pdf. Accessed 10
March 2023.
Jeyifo, Biodun. Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics, and Postcolonialism. Cambridge University Press, 2004. Accessed 10 March
2023.
MAMBROL, NASRULLAH. “Phases of African Postcolonial Literature – Literary Theory and Criticism.” Literary Theory
and Criticism, 10 April 2016, https://literariness.org/2016/04/10/phases-of-african-postcolonial-literature/. Accessed
10 March 2023.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary. “Definition of Poetry by Merriam-Webster’. 2019, Definition Database, https://www.merriam-
webster.com/.
Work Cited :

13. Miłosz, Czesław. “Wole Soyinka | Biography, Plays, Books, & Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 February 2023,
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wole-Soyinka. Accessed 10 March 2023.
Soyinka, Wole. A Shuttle in the Crypt. Hill and Wang, 1972.
Vadakkan, C., and W. Siddiqui. "Claustrophobia." StatPearls, updated 27 Nov. 2022, StatPearls Publishing, 2022,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542327/.
Yeh, Shih-Ching et al. “Effects of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality on Induced Anxiety.” IEEE transactions on
neural systems and rehabilitation engineering : a publication of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology
Society vol. 26,7 (2018): 1345-1352. doi:10.1109/TNSRE.2018.2844083

14. Thank you