Bathvar Virajee

1. Beckettian dramatic Features in The Swamp
Dwellers.
Prepared by - Bathavar Virajee
Course: - M.A. English
Semester: -4
Enrolment no: - PG15101001
Submitted to: - Smt. S.B.Gardi Dept. of
English MKBU
Email id: - bathvarvirji@gmail.com
Paper no 14 : - The African Literature.

2. Index
• Introduction »
• Beckettian dramatic Features »
• Conclusion »

3. Introduction
• The Swamp Dwellers:
• The Swamp Dwellers is play
written by Wole Soyinka.
• Traditional and modern play.
• Written in 1957.
• Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian
playwright and poet.
• He was awarded the 1986
Nobel prise in literature.
»

4. Beckettian dramatic Features
• Waiting without hope. »
• Absurdity.
• Hopelessness in characters »
• Absence of god.
• Characters going into their individual word. »
• Characters presented without much history. »
• Disillusionment »
• Meaninglessness of life
»

5. Waiting without hope.
• Alu and Makuri
Waiting for Awuchike
Makuri has lost his hopes from Awuchike
• Awuchike is not appear in the play
• So its Waiting without hope.
Absurdity.
• Alu : “can you see him”
• Makuri: “see who?” »

6. Absence of god
• There is absence of god in the play.
• But we find that character of Kadiye is priest of
Serpent religion.
• Alu and Makuri have faith in that..
Hopelessness in characters.
• Alu and Makruri are waiting for Awuchike
• But there is no hope.
• All chararacters are having hopelessness
»

7. Characters going into their individual word
• All characters have their individual world in
the play.
• Beggar
• Igwazu
• Alu and Makuri
• Kadiye
»

8. Meaninglessness of life.
• Struggling between tradition and modernity.
• Question of survival
• Disillusionment
• Face off with reality of life and endless
waiting.
• Alu and Makuri
• Igwezu’s escapism
• Beggar’s philosophy
»

9. Characters presented without much history.
• There is not any information about any character.
• Examples: 1. The Birthday party
Harold Pinter
2. Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett.
»

10. Conclusion:
• There are many Beckettian features in the play
“The Swamp Dwellers” by Soyinka. Igwezu is
presented as a Beckettian hero. So we can
considered the play Swamp dwellers as absurd play
with existential crises.

11. Bibliography
• Soyinka, Wole. "The Swamp Dwellers." Soyinka,
Wole. The Swamp Dwellers. 1958.
• Zala,Heenaba. Slideshare. <https://www.slideshare.n
et/heenabazala3/the-swamp-dweller>

12. Thank you