The document provides a summary of Wole Soyinka's play "The Swamp Dweller". It includes: 1) Background on Soyinka and an overview of the play, which relates the story of a poor family living in Nigeria's Niger Delta region. 2) A description of the main characters including Makuri, Alu, Igwezu, Awuchike, and others. It explores the contrast between life in the village versus the city. 3) An analysis of themes in the play like the conflict between traditional and modern ways of life, and the harsh realities and loss of identity that can come with life in the city. 4) Quotes and discussions of dialogue that illustrate

1. Name: Maru Janak J
Roll No:20
Paper:14 (African Literature)
Email: marujanak17@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of
English M.K.Bhavnagar University,
Bhavnagar.
The Brief Overview in The Swamp Dweller

2.  Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian
playwright, poet, author,
teacher and political activist
who received the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1986.
Introduction
 Soyinka has published
hundreds of works, including
drama, novels, essays and
poetry, and colleges all over
the world seek him out as a
visiting professor.

3.  Swamp is an area of low-lying, uncultivated ground where water
is collected.
 Swamp is an area of low-lying well or seasonally flooded land,
often having tress and dense shrubs or thickets.
The Meaning of Swamp

4. The Swamp Dweller Characters
Alu
Makuri
Igwezu
The Beggar
Awuchike
Desala
Kadiye

5. The play is comparatively short of all of Soyinka’s plays. It relates a
story of a poor family residing in Niger Delta region. When the play
opens we find Makuri and Alu awaiting for their beloved younger
son Igwezu. They fear that their younger song Igwezu should not go
missing like their elder son Awuchick, who had gone to the city some
ten years ago. Both the brothers had left the village to seek their
fortune in the city.
The Swamp Dweller

6. The Swamp Dweller
It is a play of mood and atmosphere, constructed so as to provide the
audience with liberal opportunity to make comparisons and reach
judgment. Soyinka makes his points through implied contrasts and
comparisons.
In the
play,
There is
contrast
between
father
and
son
mother-
in –law
and
daughter-
in- law
the
Beggar
and
host
twin
brothe
rs

7.  The Swamp Dwellers takes a look at the Nigerian society,
progressively moving towards the path of retrogression,
degeneration, corruption and moral decadence. This is a clear
manifestation of the Nigerian society as a class society with all the
contradictions and problems inherent in such society.
 Igwezu went into city to earn more in life but he can’t accept
the reality of life which is in city. There is starvation for shelter
in city, so cold sophisticated life than village so we can say that
Igwezu and Awuchike both are suffering because of their
acceptance or to much exaggeration of their life. There is
Constance struggle or conflict between the old and new ways of
life in Africa.

8. There is the dialogue that old and children are living in village. It
means that young are living in city. It means that young are living in
city.
Makuri: It’s lie all the young man go into the big town to try their
hand at making money only some of them remember their Falk
and send word once in a while.
Makrui: The city is a large place. You could live there all your life
and never meet half the people in it.
Second dialogue shows the reality which lies in city life. In city
there is not any feeling in between human being. Even they don’t
know each other if they are living near. And this is the harsh
reality of city life. You will lose yourself in city.

9. Traditional
Cultural, social,
conventional
Nonwestern
attitude,
Joint Family
Village struggles to
connect myth and
actuality
Modernity
take in various
elements of the so-
called South African
tradition or any
tradition
A change in society
Is it all about accepting
western ideas, culture
and forgetting the
tradition of one’s own
Realism in Two Ways

10. In his conversation with Igwezu, the Kadiye asks Igwezu, the
Kadiye asks Igwezu repeatedly about how much money he did
make in the town.
The Kadiye thinks that had made enough money to buy the
whole village.
Tradition
Alu
Igwezu
Makuri
Modernity Awuchike
Desala

11. Critical thinking
Makuri in his words:
“Makuri: Dead men don’t go to the city.
They go to hell.”
He says so because he wants to so the Alu’s anxiety over
Awuchike’s disappearance. Makuri defends his son’s position by
saying:
“Makuri: … Awuchike got sick of this
place and went into the city.”

12. The found Love bond in Alu and Makuri. The famous essayist
Francis Bacon in his, Of Parents and Children emphasizes the
importance of choosing children’s profession by their parents not
by themselves.
Bacon says: Let parents choose be times the vocations and
courses they mean their children should take. But we observe in
the play that parents hardly have their control over the sons.
Moreover, they are found in the midst of calamities made by
nature two some extent and mostly by their twin issues.

13. Wole Soyinka not only writes about the Nigerian background in a
sociological sense, but about human beings, who happen to exist in
this particular time and place. He uses his background to add
originality to his art. In Soyinka’s plays one makes contact with the
Nigerian Society in a meaningful manner from the inside, by means
of symbols and images.
The Ibadan Magazine records: “The play does not end on a positive
note by showing the villagers casting off their superstitions and
marching off to construct dykes and increase the amount of land
available for farming.”
Conclusion