Ecocriticism in Wole Soyinka's 'A Dance of the Forest'

1. Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Date: 2 April 2024
Sem 4। Batch 2022-24
African Literature
Presentation on
Ecocritical Perspectives in
Soyinka's "A Dance of the
Forests"
Presented by Bhavyata Kukadiya

2. Ecocritical Perspectives in
Soyinka's "A Dance of the
Forests"

3. Name: Bhavyata Kukadiya
Roll No: 4 Enrollment No: 4069206420220018
Sem: 4
Paper Name: The African Literature
Paper Number: 206 Code : 22413
Topic: Ecocritical Perspectives in Soyinka's "A Dance of the Forests"
Submitted to:Smt S.B Gardi ,Department of English, M.K.B.U.
E- mail: bhavyatakukadiya@gmail.com

4. Table of contents
About Writer
About Play
Ecocritical Concern in
The Play
References
Conclusion
02
03
05
06
What is Ecocriticism
01
04
07
Soyinka’s Ecological
Vision

5. Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka (Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka) (born
13 July 1934 ) is the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, a
renowned Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist.
Here are some important lines/points you can include on your
presentation slides about Wole Soyinka:
He was the first black African to be awarded the Nobel Prize
in Literature in 1986 "for fashioning the drama of existence with
poetic overtones".
He is a multi-talented writer known for plays, novels, poetry
and essays written in English.
Major works include the plays "A Dance of the Forests", "Death
and the King's Horseman", and his autobiographical novel .
He was an active voice against successive Nigerian military
dictatorships and political tyranny across Africa through his
writings.
He has taught at many prestigious universities worldwide
including Cornell, Emory, Harvard, Yale and was Professor of
Comparative Literature at Obafemi Awolowo University in
Nigeria. In 2017, he received the prestigious Europe Theatre
Prize for promoting cultural understanding between peoples.

6. About the Play
The play was written in 1960 and performed during Nigeria's independence
celebrations, exploring the nation's transition to self-rule.
It critiques the blind glorification of Africa's pre-colonial past and warns against
repeating historical mistakes in the new postcolonial era.
The plot involves a ritual summoning dead ancestors from Nigeria's past, who reveal
the present generation's flaws and moral shortcomings.
Central themes include the relationship between tradition and modernity, forging a new
national identity, and the challenges of nation-building.
Soyinka blends poetry, mythology, realism, and fantasy, using Yoruba folklore, rituals,
and linguistic elements in a non-linear narrative structure.
A pioneering work of modern African drama, it challenged elite narratives about an
idyllic pre-colonial African utopia and established Soyinka's uncompromising literary
voice.
The play stresses Nigerians' duty to rid society of evils, cautioning that if not vigilant,
history will repeat itself with disastrous consequences.
It explores African identity, cultural roots, and the conflict between tradition and the
forces of westernization brought by colonial rule.(Melamu)

7. How does the play "A Dance of the Forests"
by Wole Soyinka highlight issues of
environmental damage and exploitation?

8. What is Ecocriticism ?
“Ecocriticism” was a term coined in the late 1970s by
combining “criticism” with a shortened form of “ecology”—the
science that investigates the interrelations of all forms of
plant and animal life with each other and with their physical
habitats. “Ecocriticism” (or by alternative names,
environmental criticism and green studies) designates the
critical writings that explore the relations between literature
and the biological and physical environment, conducted with
an acute awareness of the damage being wrought on that
environment by human activities. (Abrams)

9. Soyinka’s Ecological Vision
The play shows how humans carelessly harm nature for their own selfish reasons. For a celebration, trees in a
sacred forest are cut down to carve a totem pole and build a road. This angers the forest god Eshuoro. To cover up
his son's wrongdoing, a man named Councillor orders a polluting vehicle to drive through the forest, filling the air
with toxic fumes. Eshuoro is furious at the great destruction of the forest just for human pride and glorification.
Though humans deserve punishment for abusing nature this way, the kind Forest Father deity holds it back. The
play criticizes how modern human activities like deforestation and pollution are violently harming the sacred natural
world that old traditions deeply respected
During the forest ceremony, nature spirits appear and express anger over human actions harming the
environment. The Palm Tree Spirit is upset about excessive palm wine consumption, which harms trees. The
Precious Stones Spirit mourns human greed, leading to violence against indigenous tribes for valuable minerals.
Colonizers saw indigenous people as inferior, using violence to take their lands for mining. These spirits highlight
issues of overconsumption, greed, and violence against those protecting nature.
The Spirit wails: “Aah! Blight this eye that threaded Rocks with light, earth with golden lodes Traitor to the guardian
tribe,turn Turn to lead!”
(Thompson)

10. Don Scheese in his article “Some Principles of Ecocriticism” points out: Ecocriticism is most appropriately
applied to a work in which the landscape itself is a dominant character, when a significant interaction
occurs between author and place, character(s) and place. Landscape by definition includes the non-human
elements of place– the rocks, soil, trees, plants, rivers, animals, air– as well as human perceptions and
modifications.
Scheese and Soyinka both see the natural world as including divine and spiritual aspects, which people
can perceive. In "A Dance of the Forests," characters like Forest Head, Ogun, and different spirits
represent these ideas.
The play shows spirits representing different aspects of the African environment voicing concerns about
human exploitation of natural resources.
One key example is the Spirit of the Palm predicting that the life-giving palm wine will turn to blood due to
humanity's evil actions:
"White skeins wove me, I, Spirit of the Palm
Now course I red. I who suckle blackened hearts, know
Heads will fall down Crimson in their red!"
(Panda)

11. The sources of life have been turned into the sources of death through human interventions is exquisitely
expressed in the chorus of the Waters:
“Let no woman think to bake Her cornmeal wrapped in leaves With water gathered of the rain He’ll think
his eye deceives Who treads the ripples where I run In shallows. The stones shall seem As kernels, his
the presser’s feet Standing in the rich, and red, and cloying stream.”
Several spirits lament the future environmental destruction caused by human greed:
- Spirit of Rivers mourns its tears turning to blood
- Spirit of Sun warns of bloodshed, with its own "entrails" turning red
- Spirit of Precious Stones criticizes mindless mining/excavation and plundering of resources
- Spirit of Pachyderms cries about extinction due to human avarice for ivory
These desperate voices symbolize Soyinka's prophetic fears that Nigerians will continue repeating
ancestral wrongs against the environment.
The underlying message is that the future holds no hope unless there is a fundamental shift in human
attitudes valuing the natural world.Soyinka expresses deep anxiety that environmental exploitation,
contamination and ecological imbalance will persist without a paradigm change in humanity's relationship
with nature.

12. Environmental issues addressed in the play
Xue and Bate suggest that the future is bleak for mankind. It is this
bleak future that Wole Soyinka dramatises in A Dance of the Forests
especially in the section where the three human characters are masked
and in a state of possession they speak for the future in the voices of
different spirits. As Eldred Jones (1973) intimates, the spirits together
symbolise the total environment of Africa - all its resources and all its
potentialities .

13. Wole Soyinka's play "A Dance of the Forests" gives a strong message about the
environment through symbols and voices of nature spirits. It criticizes how humans are
carelessly harming the natural world by overusing its resources, being greedy, and not
respecting old traditions that valued nature. The play warns that if humans don't
completely change their uncaring attitudes towards the environment, then destruction
of the land, air, water and animals will only continue to get worse in the future.
Soyinka's work is an important call for people to develop better environmental
practices, find sustainable ways to live, and make sure we treat the sacred natural
world with justice and respect. It was one of the first major African writings to highlight
environmental issues, showing Soyinka's bold voice speaking up for protecting the
bond between humans and the ecological systems that sustain all life.
Conclusion

14. Thanks!

15. References
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 11th edCengage Learning,
2014.
Fai, Gilbert Tarka. “Global Journal of Human Social Science.” Global Journals, September 2010, https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Volume10/12-
Theatre-and-Environmental-Protection-An-Ecocritical-Study-of-the-Selected-Plays-of-Wole-Soyinka.pdf. Accessed 2 April 2024.
Jones, Eldred. The Writing of Wole Soyinka. London: Heinemann, 1973.
Melamu, Moteane John. "Demoke's Totem: The Role of the Artist in Soyinka's A Dance of the Forests." Journal of Cultural Studies 3.1 (2001):
259.
Panda, Asit. “Middle Flight_Cover_2020.” Sukumar Sengupta Mahavidyalaya, 28 April 2023, https://ssmahavidyalaya.org.in/wp-
content/uploads/2023/04/MIDLE-FLIGHT-2020.pdf#page=199. Accessed 2 April 2024.
Scheese, Don. "Some principles of ecocriticism." Defining Ecocritical
Theory and (1994).
Soyinka, Wole. A Dance of the Forests. Nigeria, Oxford University Press, 1971.
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Mon. 1 Apr 2024.
<https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1986/summary/>
Thompson, Praveena. “Soyinka's Ecological Vision in A Dance of the Forests.” Research Publish Journals, April - June 2019,
https://www.researchpublish.com/upload/book/Soyinka%E2%80%99s%20Ecological%20Vision-7355.pdf. Accessed 1 April 2024.