Conflict between Traditional and Modern.

1. Perspective of Traditional and Modern Culture
BY RAJDIP GOHEL
SEM:- 4
PAPER 14:- THE AFRICAN LITERATURE

2. Swamp Dwellers
Swamp Dwellers play written by Wole Soyinka and Published in 1958.
The main conflict is between the old and new way of life in Nigerian society.
There are two character in the play, Igwezu and Awuchike that presented the idea of old and new way
of life.
The reflection of family bond in this play.

3. Tradition
Swamp Dwellers reflects the joint family structure.
Igwezu presented the traditional culture.
Nationhood in tradition thought. They think that their rituals, and festival.
Nigerian ethnic groups, the education of children is a community responsibility.

4. Modern
The utilization of universal technology becomes an indispensable element toward progress and
achievement.
Awuchike presented the modern culture.
Modern people are motivated to the goals, values, ethical codes, and belief in progress.
“It seems somehow pleasing to see the primitive and the modern side by side, it stimulates the
mind. An old piece of furniture in a modern house may serve as window, opening up a
perspective from one age into another, an outlook from our own enclosed little moment onto
the broad landscape of history.”

5. Example of Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo was a clan leader as traditional way of life they live.
Coming back to the village after 7 years, Okonkwo finds changes in culture after coming white
people, they develop education and hospitality.
Okonkwo think to fight against white people, but clan people think in rather modern way.
Colonization as a medium of modernity.

6. Conclusion
There is no superior and inferior thing presented in tradition and modern, but you have to
develop nation and yourself with the modern era.
What are the new things come in the world or in country you have to shape yours self in that
change. And you can not hold your culture in lifetime. You have to think like Awuchike.

7. Work cited
ALHASANI, NADIA M. “Tradition vs. Modernity: The Quest for a Cultural Identity.” Traditional
Dwellings and Settlements Review, vol. 7, no. 2, 1996, pp. 35–41. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/41757196. Accessed 23 Feb. 2020.