Lion & the Jewel

POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE

(POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE)
Rameen

The Lion and the Jewel in Pakistani Context

Overview
The Lion And the Jewel by Wole Soyinka depicts the picture of different types of main conflicts
that are present in Post colonial African Villages in today’s world. Like conflicts between
traditional culture and modernism, conflicts between generations due to age gaps, conflicts
between individuals due to different perspectives, conflicts between old and modern etc. It
mainly describes the conflicts of traditional values, giving us the strong picture that African
cultural values are more concrete and intellectual acts and the European notins are fake and
foolish. The story is set in Yoruba, a village with stronger traditional values of Africa. The story
revolves around two main characters: The Lion of Ilujinle Baroka, and a modern school teacher
Lakunle. Both are willing to marry The Jewel of The village: Sidi, she is a beauty of the village,
young and cunning in nature. Baroka is a traditionalist, powerful old man with four wives. On
the other hand Baroka is a modernist, Christianized Schoolteacher who wants to change
traditional village into westernized modern village. Sidi is simple a beautiful Village belle. She
was first moved from Lakunle’s kind and caring westernized gestures but later on she felt the
reality of Baroka’s powerful position in village and also inclined towards him as he is a strict
follower of traditions and customs and seems more mature. Sidi said this to Lakunle: Do you
see what strength he has given me? This gives us the idea of her mind that how she is falling
for Baroka although he is a sixty years old man. But he is giving her respect, which is Bride Price
for women in African culture. If someone is paying high bride price, it means he is giving more
value and respect to the woman. And this depicts that Baroka is even better suitable for an
African woman like Sidi than a European civilized and modernized product: Lakunle. He had
some individualistic goals which he wanted to attain during his stay in the traditional village,
and he also pressed his own individualistic goals over Sidi, treating her in westernized manner.
But he unfortunately was rejected as he was unaware of the fact that how to provide pleasure
to an African woman, Baroka was aware of this fact that for African traditional women , their
values and respect all comes by the marriage, bride price and also by childbearing. Fortunately
or unfortunately, Baroka wins the Jewel because he is aware of their traditional values. Lakunle
failed to get the jewel because Sidi was well aware of the fact that Baroka is a man of tradition
and she was also inclined towards her African traditions.
In Pakistani context, Baroka, The Lion of a traditional village, after seeing
magazine pictures of a beautiful young Sidi, sends his wife to Sidi for his proposal. Sadiku, wife
of Baroka after some hesitation did the same because she cannot deny her husband’s order as
he is a rich and famous man with the furious and angry personality. Sadiku decided to do that
because of the danger of Baroka. Although there is no concept of Bride price here in Pakistan
but the concept of commodity especially in villages is still here in Pakistan. This is why Sadiku
felt pressurized and meets Sidi. She tries to convince Sidi, but Sidi first hesitates as there is huge
age gap between Sidi and Baroka but Sidi somehow managed to convince her for marriage and
tells Sidi that Baroka wants to meet her for the first time. On other hand Lakunle, young school
teacher, who is deeply in love with Sidi but is not rich, famous and powerful unlike Baroka. So
that is why Sidi rejected Lakunle as he lacks so much in comparison to Baroka. Sidi is quite
cunning lady, who wants attention and money so much that she uses her beauty for this
purpose. And went to meet Baroka. Baroka treats her with full respect and ensures her that he
will not touch her before marriage. He said that he wants to marry her as early as possible. And
he shows her his whole castle type home and gives her gestures that he loves her more than
anything. Sidi after listening to his deep conversation falls for him and starts trusting him as her
own family member even before their marriage. And he asks her to eat dinner with him and
then they will decide the date of their marriage. Sidi is feeling like a princess because of
Baroka’s caring and kind nature for her. Broka takes her to a huge dining room for dinner and
they were alone on their. Sidi is so moved as the dining hall is such a piece of heaven, it is so
attractive. Sidi made her mind that she will marry him as soon as possible and will become the
lady of this beautiful castle. Dining table is full of dishes, side dishes and desserts. And table was
full of candles and roses. It is not less than heaven for Sidi who is a middle class girl. Baroka to
Sidi : Eat well my dear. And they starts dinner. After some time Sidi starts feeling dizzy and
then she collapsed because of the drug, Baroka added in Sidi’s dinner. Baroka did that on
purpose so that he can spend the night with the beautiful lady of the village. And Baroka used
her for the night and fulfill his desires of pleasure with a virgin young girl. Sidi after this feels
regretful and begged Baroka to marry her but he simply refuses by saying this: I am the great
Lion of this village, I never thought to marry a girl who is shamelessly allowing photographers
to take her pictures for public’s entertainment. I can’t even think such a woman as my wife.
Sidi was shocked to hear all this from Baroka, she was shaking with regret that how is a man
who was treating her like a queen changed in no time. It shows how Barbaric Baroka is, that he
used her just for his pleasure and now he don’t want to marry her. He wasted her life, he
tricked her in a very smooth manner, got her trust and raped her. Now Sidi is regretfull,
feeling helpless and she cannot do anything about what already had happened.

On the other hand, Sadiku trying to stop Lakunle from going to Baroka’s home. Lakunle knows
Baroka very well and is against him. Lakunle is very anxious for Sidi that Baroka can even kill her
for his own reputation. Lakunle was shouting at Sadiku for her act. In the same time Sidi came
back, Lakunle ran to her and asked her so many questions related to her stay at Baroka’s home,
but Sidi was in shock and she did not utter a word. Sadiku got that something is wrong and ran
to her home, so that Lakunle could not harm her in any way. Lakunle asked Sidi and she opened
up to Lakunle after some time. She told him everything and said that she cannot live any
longer now because no one is going to accept her as she is raped and is not respected for
people anymore. Lakunle changed her mind and successfully stops her from suicide. He told
her that he still loves her and will marry her. Sidi was so ashamed that she rejected such a
gentleman for that Barbaric Baroka who is bad than a wild lion. She told Lakunle that she is
feeling sorry towards Lakunle. Lakunle than asks her to follow him, they goes to a mosque
secretly for Nikah in the darkness of night. Sidi was so much surprised that she thought of
Lakunle as barbaric and Baroka as a gentleman but that was not true at all. Lakunle says that he
is feeling satisfied now that she is all his and no one can harm her now. He promised her that he
will take revenge from Baroka for her sake. Lakunle and Sidi goes to Baroka’s home late at night
for this purpose. Baroka greets them as he did not do anything bad or immoral. He was not
even ashamed at all. Lakunle in anger, gives threats to Baroka that he will take revenge on him.
Baroka orders his guards to shoot Sidi infront of Lakunle. And there is nothing Lakunle can do to
save his wife as he has no weapons and he is not even rich and famous like Baroka. He cant
even move as guards holds him back and he is just crying and shouting for help. And after
shooting Sidi, Baroka ordered to shoot Lakunle as well. Baroka did so as he wanted to maintain
his reputation clean and clear infront of the villagers. And he don’t want Sidi and Lakunle to
make villagers’ mind against Baroka, it would be bad for his famous position and reputation.
And in this way Baroka managed to get pleasure from an innocent virgin girl and did two
murders in a night in the walls of his home, in a way that no one can point him out for these
two sins.

We can see in start that Sidi showed Hypocrisy by this, that a young and Westernized
gentleman Lakunle is in love with her and want to marry her, she was moved by his
westernized modern behavior but as soon as she got the proposal from Baroka, she forgot
about Lakunle because of her greed for power, and her materialistic nature she rejected him
and accepted Baroka’s proposal. And in the same way we can see Hypocrisy in Baroka’s
character that how he was treating Sidi before Sidi’s rape, and says that he wants to marry her
but that was not true. He just wanted to fulfill his desires by using Sidi, the most beautiful girl
of village, he knew that he has the power, so he can do whatever he wants and no one will
asks him.

Hybridity: we can also see Hybridity in Lakunle’s character, who is living in Eastern culture but
was so much obsessed with West and followed modernization, he wanted to change Sidi
accordingly and he hates Baroka, as Baroka was a tradition follower. Baroka is an extreme
Barbaric character, who just for his lust and desires, Firstly destroyed a beautiful virgin young
girl’s life by raping her and then eventually killed her and her Husband, so that no one could
take action against his sin. And as he is on powerful position, no one actually could questions
him. We can also see that women are mere objects for Baroka, as he pressured his wife Sadiku
for proposal and wants her to ask about proposal from Sidi. And secondly, Baroka used Sidi by
marriage trick. So we can see the point of Commodity, that he treated women like they are not
living beings and played with their emotions and even with lives.