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CHAPTER III

The Interpreters: Groping in the Light

Wole Soyinka is a versatile genius with many facets. He is a distinguished

playwright and famous poet by the time he published his first novel, The Interpreters

in 1965. Soyinka leaves an indelible stamp as a writer of plays and composer of poetry

on his first novel. An erudite scholar of the first order that he is, well conversant with

all the techniques of writing, ancient and modern, he seems to experiment with his first

novel in adopting the latest techniques in writing fiction such as ‘the stream of

consciousness’ as expounded by James Joyce in his famous but subtle novel, Ulysses

and the technique of ‘existentialism’ as chiefly expounded by that distinguished French

writer Jean Paul Sartre. Soyinka deliberately disregards all the conventions

meticulously followed by the novelists in general. Although we cannot give any

particular label to the technique that Soyinka exhibits in his first novel The

Interpreters, there is abstruse method in the construction of the novel. A good number

of critics have expressed in unequivocal terms that this novel is a difficult one for the

reader to understand.

Wole Soyinka, his full name being Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka attained

literary eminence very early in life. He has established himself as a well-known

playwright and as a reputed poet. He started being interviewed as a man of letters by

some well-known critics. Once Nkosi interviewed Soyinka in 1963 and asked him

whether he intended to write any book of a different genre namely fiction -- pat came
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the answer from Soyinka that he was writing one and that would be published the next

year. And the book referred to here was none other than The Interpreters published in

1965. Asked as to its theme, Soyinka said, ‘cannibalism.’ As such, the novel was not

from the pen of a novice but from one who had been by then a renowned writer.

Commenting on this novel, The Interpreters, Neil McEwan observes that

among the novels in English during the 1960s, The Interpreters is one of the liveliest

novels in English that made their appearance in 1960s; he admits that it is full of bright

satire and good sense and good humour. Soyinka was bubbling with buoyant spirits just

at the threshold of his youth. The idealism which is an inevitable characteristic of that

period of the exciting life, the young author holds a faithful mirror of reality of the

postcolonial Nigeria, with a blend of virulent satire and humour.

We generally notice two kinds of novels of the first order: one is that which

presents life exploring a myriad-splendoured panorama of its hues and shades unfolding

its essential meaning, ever holding the reader in thrall to the end, leading him through

the labyrinthine network of human life, it’s tragic moments and comic moods --

unfolding the strange vistas of the zigzag passage of human life and finally leaving the

reader wiser than ever before. This type of novel deals with archetypal characters and

renders time and space for its canvas so that it survives, inspiring generations of

readers. Catholicity of vision and universality of appeal are the hallmarks of this novel.

Balzac’s La Comedie Humaine, Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy’s

Anna Karenina, to mention a few, belong to this category. The second kind of novel

deals with life here and now, focusing chiefly on events that are inevitable and dynamic

in their nature; with life that seems to be pressing itself into being, despite the
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apparently hostile forces, social, political and economic-- tearing itself into sudden

existence as a force from nowhere. Sudden it seems to be, but its growth and

development, being imperceptibly quiet in movement, makes itself felt, as it were,

suddenly. A careful and critical analysis of the facts of the situation makes it clear that

the phenomenal outcome of it is as natural as the Sun rising in the East. It deals with

the historical events some time fortuitously shaping things afresh and giving a definite

direction and shape to the amorphous future that forms the destiny of a state or a race.

Soyinka’s first novel, The Interpreters belongs to the second type. These

writers can see the shape of things to come. Turgenev’s On the Eve and Maxim

Gorky’s Mother may be cited as novels belonging to this type. These novels may be

described as the novels of the moment and the place. Their dramatic significance of the

events in the novel is of certain consequence.

Nigeria is none the better for her freedom from the erstwhile White Masters; the

ghost of the immediate past starts haunting the free-born Nigeria. Politically, socially

and economically, things are out of joint and out of shape. The new rulers of Nigeria

are unruly and dictatorial. They have their own way—the way of the tyrants. The whole

of the state is weltering in a sea of corruption. Corruption is the mother of all evils.

Corruption is ubiquitous in the postcolonial Nigeria. In no time, it assumes the

disproportionate dimensions of the Augeans stables, full of stink and filth! To cleanse it

is a Herculean task.

Freedom, in its real sense, must be free from all stain: first of all it must be free

from corruption. There is no panacea to cure it; it is by necessity a slow process; but it
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must be a steady process, requiring the patience of Prometheus, the Christ of the

primitive world. To create a new one out of the ashes of the old, corrupt regime, out of

a political and social chaos, Nigeria now needs must have administrators with hands

clean and with a great sense of commitment to public welfare.

Soyinka, in the first place, deeply desires to discover the nature of the disease

that the body politic of Nigeria has been suffering from. That, of course, is not that he

does not know the nature of that terrible disease, since it has been an established fact

known to one and all from top to bottom that this disease is known by the name of

‘corruption’ which has a carcinogenic effect on the social system. It is ubiquitous and it

eats away into the very vitals of the system. Unless remedial measures are taken

forthwith, there will be no hope of its survival left. As an efficient doctor diagnoses the

ailment of the patient before attempting to prescribe curative medicine, Soyinka would

lay his finger on the right spot of the patient’s disease; he would know the exact nature

of the disease. And The Interpreters is his answers.

The novel The Interpreters holds a kind of inquest to discover the causes of its

(Nigeria’s) moral death. It is obvious that the sole disease from which it is so acutely

suffering from is found to be ‘corruption’ that corrodes the whole body from head to

foot. It is a novel with a grave purpose and the writer, is a man with a deep sense of

commitment, and sets out on his task.

The leitmotif of this novel, beyond all shade of doubt, is the total eradication of

corruption, root and branch. And yet there are other minor themes too. For instance,

there has been a conflict between the old way of looking at things and the new way of
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looking at them. Eldred D. Jones in The Writing of Wole Soyinka makes a pertinent

observation that the view point of the old society comes in conflict with the modern

view point.

There is nothing unnatural about it; life is a continuous stream of consciousness

with no gaps anywhere whatsoever nor is there any stagnation of it at any stage.

Stagnation of consciousness, in other words, is stagnation of thought which comes to

stay for a brief time -- it is during this spell of time, it is generally said that progress

ceases to be. A writer comes with his writings replete with explosive and explorative

ideas unfamiliar to the reading public; then, what is called a conflict is born. When the

majority of men gradually get used to thinking after the writer’s innovative mode of

thinking, we call it modernity.

All that we have to take a serious view (or note) about a writer of this type is to

find if there is any hiatus between what he professes or preaches and what he practices.

Neil McEwan observes that Eustance Palmer is uneasy about the language and the

structure of the novel. There is a continual (Soyinka has a deep propensity for satire

through comic situations) sparkle of comedy. And this comic spirit doesn’t in anyway

render the solemn leitmotif of the novel diluted or enervated. Different moods of

various shades of anger, sadness or gloom are brought into play as the situations

demand -- but the undercurrent of comic spirit coupled with an unmistakable vein of

satire, is ever present there. Soyinka’s comic sense is not without some sting of satire

and it is this that enlivens the comic sense in his writings.

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Soyinka, as a man of deep understanding of human behaviour, has never been

malicious of human nature; pure comedy is entirely devoid of malice or spite. Soyinka

is sympathetic towards human foibles. But where hypocrisy is concerned, he becomes

all fire and fury until it is chased out of existence. He can hardly put up with those

‘holier-than-thou’ attitudes. Soyinka can hardly tolerate, like Dr. Samuel Johnson, cant.

The greedy men and the hypocrites are his inevitable targets for; they are the very

cancer of human society.

The piercing wit of Voltaire and the boisterous comic spirit of Rabelais are the

natural propensities of Soyinka, of course, sans the coarse ribaldry of the latter’s. He is

ever ready to seize an opportunity of flinging a twitting remark into the face of the

English! The British tribe, perhaps, there is a suppressive suggestion that the British are

no better than the Africans whom they refer to as ‘tribes’.

A pungent comment on the plastic apple -- Soyinka slyly suggests that

everything about the English is just artificial! (like the plastic apple). Nor does Soyinka

let the English language alone! Their seemingly polite phrases such as “I’m so sorry,”

“thank you so much” etc. are uttered in the right context without meaning them. So

mechanical have they become as a part of their regular speech, they carry no more

emotional significance than mere polite sounds.

Soyinka exposes the raw ugly truths even through a casual conversation. “A

degree doesn’t make one a graduate.” He makes a dig at the plight of the educational

systems where a degree bears no testimony to the knowledge the degree holder is

expected to possess. Soyinka makes a pertinent observation through this significant

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comment made by Prof. Oguazor the standards in our educational system have declined

steeply in general and in Nigeria in particular.

Soyinka draws caricatures of characters. A caricature has been defined by G.K.

Chesterton as “to draw a pig more like a pig than the Maker has made it.” A caricature

is a cartoon drawn in words. Hugh Walpole observes that life is a comedy to those who

think and life is a tragedy to those who feel.

Soyinka expresses his sense of disillusionment in the The Interpreters. There is

sardonic satire running as an undercurrent throughout the novel. Satire in any of its

forms signifies that the writer’s vision of things is different from and far better than the

situations that prevail at the time; he disagrees with the present pseudo-order of things

universally taken for granted as the right way that things should be! The author uses

sardonic satire to bring home the truth not realised by them.

Soyinka’s life is a prolonged poetic metaphor. He is the indefatigable Greek

hero fighting for the recapturing and recovering of the Helen of Nigeria from the

captivity of the aggressive Trojans, namely, the British colonists. This heroic adventure

being successfully over, he arrives like Odysseus, at Ithaca, his legitimate haven of rest

and peace.

Soyinka’s life had been a rough sailing forth as a writer and political activist. In

a sense, there is no demarcation between these two roles. They have overlapped so

intimately that the Soyinka, the committed writer and Soyinka, the zealous political

activist, have merged into one. No African, barring the legendary figure of Nelson

Mandela, has ever been more decidedly the first of the heroic figure than Soyinka. Ever
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since the publication of The Interpreters in 1965, there has been a fierce polemical

controversy regarding it. Although a few critics have bestowed the highest praise on it,

a chorus of denunciatory criticism has started appearing in the press.

Kolawole Ogungbesan continuous to observe, in the same essay: “when

Soyinka’s first novel, The Interpreters was published in 1965, practically all the earlier

reviews were favourable and some were down right adulatory. But critical opinion

quickly settled against the novel and although it is still some times mentioned, it is

hardly read, even in the universities.”

Soyinka as a novelist deserves to be taken seriously because of

his high intellectual position among African writers. A

speculative thinker, his persistent call to African writers to

demonstrate that they have a vision shows that he sees the

literary artist as a redeemer. He believes that the writer possesses

an inner light unavailable to the mass of his people, and that it is

his duty to guide his society towards a beautiful future. (7-8)

Michael Echeruo, as referred to by Kolawole Ogungbesan in the same essay has

said that it was because Soyinka did not respond to the climate of opinion around him.

It has not disturbed anybody as far as I know.

Gerald Moore, another critic of refute on Soyinka, attributes the difficulty of the

novel to Soyinka’s inexperience as a novelist.

One more factor that is responsible for Soyinka’s novels being complex and

unintelligible to an average reader is, as Emmanuel Ngara observes that Soyinka’s

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dramatic language in the novels is deliberately used and is aimed at evoking “a sense of

horror… of pity in the reader, pity for suffering humanity.” (110)

Mary. T David, in her book “Wole Soyinka: A Quest for Renewal” observes

The Interpreters -- is one of the most complex pieces of fiction written in Africa. The

Interpreters follows a narrative technique that is the despair of reader’s uninitiated into

modern fiction, particularly the innovations made by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and

William Faulkner. The disjunction of time and the technique of the flashbacks and plots

unfolding within the consciousness of characters…”

M. Rajeswar, in his critical monograph on Wole Soyinka’s novels, observes that

they make a difficult reading for an average reader on account of broken chronology

and multiple flashbacks that Soyinka uses in them.

The following statement opens with the pertinent observation which Dr. Samuel

Johnson made by way of a warning: “that book is vain which the reader throws away.”

The author, Kolawole Ogungbesan obviously refers to Soyinka who as a

novelist “best exemplifies the truth and moral of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s warning.” The

author has evidently in mind Soyinka’s first novel The Interpreters. The novel on many

counts is abstruse, obscure and baffling to any average reader. Even most critics find it

queer and out of the way either in the mode of its narrative or in its structure and plot;

its theme is vague, rather amorphous. In 1963 Soyinka was interviewed by Nkosi and

the latter asked Soyinka as to what might be the theme of the novel, Soyinka had

observed “…cannibalism comes pretty much to the fore.” (eds. Duerden and Cosmo

Pieterse 1972)
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M. Rajeswar, in his monograph entitled “The Intellectual and Society on the

Novels of Wole Soyinka” observes “in this novel, The Interpreters, as well as his

second novel Season of Anomy, Soyinka has chosen to examine the predicament of the

intellectuals in a corrupt society and their contribution to social change.”

In him are combined the indomitable will of a Nelson Mandela and the

invincible spirit of that Burmese lady, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Consistently, insistently and persistently, Soyinka has flung the most virulent

criticism squarely into the face of the government that was shamelessly guilty of crime

against the innocent public, the people of Nigeria. He has become a veritable bête noire

of the Nigerian government. He was a constant thorn in the bed of the government. The

essence of Soyinka’s writings seems to be his apologia for his passionately avowed

statement that ‘human justice and social equality,’ is the very crown and glory of

human achievement. He seems to have been baptised into the new religion of Human

Rights at the hands of social justice.

Besides these, there is one more factor which is responsible for a modern

reader’s inability to understand and appreciate the novel, The Interpreters. It is because

Soyinka makes a very free use of the African myth, the ritual sacrifices and the

folktales that traditionally come down from parent to child; Soyinka takes it for granted

that the reader is well acquainted with these aspects of the tradition.

We observe how the critical climate of opinion that changes from generation to

generation as fashions in different spheres of human activity does change. The novel in

question was at first greeted by a chorus of denunciatory statements but in course of

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time the same novel has been well received and critics of eminence start bestowing high

praise on it.

Critics like Eldred D. Jones, Gerald Moore, Michael Echeruo and Anjali Gera

Roy with their critical, scholastic efforts have rendered this novel a less difficult

reading and made it understandable to the common reader. The last mentioned writer,

Anjali Gera Roy enumerates certain factors that are responsible for making this novel

difficult. She observes that the Western critics study this novel from the norms

conventionally established by the noted writers of the past; for instance, Aspects of the

novel by E.M. Forster has profoundly influenced the modern novelists.

One critic by name William Valentine Redmond under the title Soyinka’s The

Interpreters “as an example of Black African Literature” observes in the course of his

critical paper on The Interpreters, an American critic hailed The Interpreters with the

statement that it was the work of a new James Joyce. That is strong praise, but

undoubtedly, the novel has in common with the writings of Joyce, a surface of realism

and an underlying profundity of epiphany and symbolism.

E.M. Forster, in his famous book, Aspects of the Novel gives certain hints and

suggests how a novel should be written; according to him, there must be a story in the

first place and it must have a plot and there must be characters; and then there must be

dialogues. A novel must have a beginning, middle and an end. And E.M. Forster, as far

as characters are concerned, makes a clear distinction, namely, the round character and

the flat character. A round character is generally dynamic and, as such, it develops from
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stage to stage and finally it is almost different from the character of the beginning but a

flat character shows no such development; it remains the same throughout till the end.

Soyinka’s characters in his very first novel The Interpreters are more symbolic

than full-fledged ones. Each character is a vehicle of ideas expressed through images

much larger and more significant than the ordinary ones. The Interpreters is indeed, a

novel of ideas that expose ‘the hollowness’ of the rulers and the bureaucrats who are

the real enemies of the people. These ideas of Soyinka carry in them the sting of

virulent satire which includes pungent irony directed against the betrayers of public

faith and security. Steeped neck deep in corruption, they strove hard for their self-

aggrandizement to the total neglect of public welfare. While Nigeria is the chief

metaphor of a cesspool of corruption and immoral activities of every description,

Soyinka makes his characters comment pertinently on American and European

civilization and the shallowness of their lives.

According to the author, the theme of the novel is apostasy. Soyinka very

intelligently introduces a group of five young men who are educated abroad and have

returned to their native state of Nigeria. Their chief concern is to study their native state

with a view to understanding Nigeria politically, socially, economically and morally.

They apply their latest knowledge acquired abroad to comprehend the tradition-bound

and morally debased Nigeria. The title The Interpreters, observes the author, is ironical

since in trying to understand the rotten state of affairs in Nigeria, they are confused. For

instance, Egbo is being tossed between being a bureaucrat at present and his wish to

have become the chieftain of the Creeky Kingdom. It is idle now to think of the
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Lordship of the Creeky Kingdom and this reveals that Egbo is not dedicated to his

present profession. In a sense, it is a concealed act of apostasy on his part.

Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters introduces five youthful characters who

returned to their native state of Nigeria after having studied abroad, each embracing his

own specialised subject. Each young man of this group will have to study the Nigerian

society in the light of each one’s new experience he has got from his stay abroad.

One of the five Interpreters, Egbo is chosen by the writer as his mouth piece.

Egbo’s temporary conflict between his wish to be the inheritor of the Creeky Kingdom

and to be the civil official, nags and teases his mind from time to time; his legitimate

right to rule over his community and lead a life of princely luxury and flesh pots of

Egypt and a dull, drab and dreary routine existence in the midst of “dull, grey file

cabinet faces.” Soyinka here indulges in irony at its height when he uses the phrase, “at

the office where the old routines protect him.” It speaks eloquently of the impregnable

fort of protection and security that these corrupt officials enjoy .Whenever there is the

faintest chance, Wole Soyinka turns it into scathing darts, aiming at them.

The tempo of the novel is chiefly preserved by its intellectual flavour; but the

incidents which are incoherent here and there enfeebles the structure of the novel; but a

novel of this sort whose cardinal motive is to project all the infirmities of the

bureaucratic system which rigidly controls society, chiefly through the modus operandi

of the social machinery. Corruption is the nucleus or breeding-centre of all social evils.

Soyinka seems to have been carried away only by this leitmotif, while subordinating

other artistic and aesthetic considerations. As a young prospective writer of note, he is

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obviously propelled by a vision of a reasonably good, healthy society of congenial

atmosphere where social justice can grow quite naturally. His head is being brewed up

with ideas of seminal nature that would repay and reform society of which he is a

member. Moreover, his firm conviction is that every serious minded writer must

contribute his mite to social awareness, especially of political nature.

Soyinka gives expression to his plethora of ideas in a fluent language focusing

on the vital thoughts that he is persistently obsessed with. Soyinka lays stress on the

content rather than on other aspects of the novel, such as form, plot and even the story.

Reformative and renewal in zeal, the author is guilty of these flaws of a very venial

nature.

Egbo is the mouth piece of Soyinka; the author attributes dual nature to Egbo.

He is both temporal and transcendental. He belongs as much to the unborn as much as

to the living now. A kind of mystical aura is oven around his person; he is presented as

one possessing superhuman traits and yet he is a prey to passions and is incapable of

timely decision. Soyinka treats the character of Egbo as one that is “dearer to him than

the ruddy drops that visit his sad heart”. When critics describe Egbo as a sentimentalist

and as a prey to passion, Soyinka comes out forthwith in stoutly defending Egbo

against the charge of being a sensualist. In one of his private letters Gerald Moore

observes that Soyinka had commented as follows; “I think you are wrong to bring a

suggestion of sexual possession to Egbo’s experience… I distinguish between the

mystical and the sexual in religious experience, though I do recognize where the two

merge.” (Gerald Moore 79) So, it is quite clear from his comment that Egbo’s initiation

into sexual experience is nothing short of a solemn religious ritual.

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Soyinka firmly believes that Egbo’s initial sexual experience, though obviously

physical, it transcends the physical experience to assume one kind of spiritual

experience:

He shook off sleep and took off his cloths… Egbo was left alone

among the rocks, and the closing forest, naked in the coming

dark… So now, for the first time since his childhood ascent into

the god’s domain, Egbo knew and acknowledged fear, stood stark

before his new intrusion. For this was no human habitation, and

what was he but a hardly ripened fruit of the species, lately

celebrated the freeing of man…. (126)

The most important character of the group of five intellectuals is Egbo. Soyinka

makes Egbo his mouth piece. It is well known to the reader by now that of all the

deities in the Yoruba Pantheon that Ogun is the most important one. Ugochukwu

Ejinkeonye, in his critical essay entitled, “Wole Soyinka, An Enigma at 70” in the

course of this critical essay, he quotes Prof Eldred D Jones as having observed as

follows: “Prof Sola Adeyeye told us in a recent interview that Soyinka calls himself

Ogun’s son. From this we can understand what paramount importance that Soyinka

gives unto him. Egbo has been endowed with some of the prominent traits of the chief

Yoruba deity, Ogun.

The character of Egbo is introduced with a conflict in his mind -- it is a conflict

of a choice between two alternatives: either to become the chieftain of the Creeky

Kingdom of which he is the legitimate inheritor or to become the lord of this domain is
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to follow the traditional line; the son succeeding the father; the other alternative is to

become a bureaucrat in a foreign office. After a temporary spell of indecision, he

chooses to be a bureaucrat. Egbo, one of the five interpreters, educated abroad like the

rest of them, and returns to his home-state of Nigeria and his people prevail on him that

he should take over the reins of rulership and ameliorate the conditions in his Kingdom;

but Egbo declines the appeal made by the Osa Descendants’ Union’ and prefers to be a

bureaucrat. Yet his wish to be the prelate of his Creeky realm lingers somewhere in the

recess of his mind. But now it is a thing of the distant past and willy-nilly, he must

compromise with the present. He externalises his choice between the chieftainship of

the Creeks and a position in the bureaucracy in an alien office. He compares the choice

between these two alternatives: with choosing a beautiful old lady or a young lady who

is pregnant woman; in either case the choice is unpleasant and, therefore, undesirable.

In spite of some of these foibles in Egbo’s character, Soyinka prefers him to be the

leading character and endows him with certain exceptional traits -- traits that Ogun, one

of the chief deities in the Yoruba pantheon, possesses. From this we understand that

Soyinka elevates him over the other four intellectuals. He passes through a mystic

experience that is his experience of being initiated into the act of sex with Simi. This

incident is significant and this has been interpreted by different critics in different ways.

For instance Estace Palmer, referring to this incident says that Egbo is a sensualist.

Soyinka represents Egbo as one that possesses a latent numinous quality and this

has been made explicit by the author when he describes one of the most significant

experiences in his life, namely, his encounter with Simi whom Soyinka describes in a

highly lyrical manner, presenting her more like a vision just above the human and
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below the angelic; and his subsequent initiation into the act of sex with her and some

nameless fear that palpitates within him and its gradual disappearance and the

consequent touch of transformation. Here Soyinka stresses that transformation of

character in Egbo when he compares him to the contrite Mariner (The Ancient Mariner)

from whose neck the dead Albatross suddenly dropped as a symbol of the spiritual

rebirth of the mariner. Soyinka attributes some of the salutary traits of Ogun, his

favourite god, to Egbo and making the latter pass through a kind of transcendental

mystic experience after he has been initiated into an act of sex. It is most appropriate to

quote at length a passage from the novel: “fear vanished wholly dropped like a dead

bird in the vanished creek below. Egbo was sound asleep the rest of the way” (55).

Unbidden, an image comes to the mind -- of the ancient mariner, of the dropping of the

Albatross into the water and disappearing from view, of sleep coming like a benison

and regeneration thereafter. Egbo’s concept of time is that it is an unbroken continuity

but later on he questions himself that if the past is one uninterrupted continuity, why the

dead should not be forgotten if they are not strong enough to be ever-present in our

being. (9) Egbo, as has been already noted, possesses certain salient traits of Ogun; but

Egbo hardly rises to our expectations since he wastes away his energy in trifling,

meaningless acts. Ogun, according to Soyinka, is both creative and destructive but

Egbo lamentably fails to make a proper balance between the two extremes, namely,

creativity and destruction. Kola admits that he is very much indebted to Egbo since the

latter has been his inspiration for painting the pantheon. And in his opinion, Egbo

represents two aspects of Ogun, namely, fiery and rebellious aspects. The author

represents Egbo as an embodiment of artistic sensibility. Kola sees in Egbo the wild
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and violent traits of Ogun and, therefore, he paints Egbo as “a damned blood thirsty

maniac from some maximum security zoo.”

Of these five interpreters, no two of them are alike. Each one follows an

occupation that is different from others’. And as regards their characters, Soyinka

distinguishes one from the other by attributing certain special traits to each. Besides

this, Soyinka attributes one or two traits of the Yoruba gods to these characters whereby

they are sharply individualised. Sagoe, one of the five interpreters is a journalist by

profession. He acts as the editor of the paper The Independent View Point. He is the

vox populi. He has a knack of gathering news, which often includes, his own views

based on his visions and hallucinations. As a journalist, he is anything but objective and

impartial. Naturally, truth becomes the first liability under his editorship. Soyinka,

perhaps, satirises the tribe of journalists who distort truth and present only a deflected,

fractured facts to the public. Such journalism reflects the personal and prejudiced views

rather than mirror the public opinion. Inquisitive, as a journalist should be, he manages

to collect information, comes in contact with Tom, Dick and Harry and all is grist that

comes to his mill. These yellow journalists attract the reading public through the

publication of news that is more sensational than sensible. Sagoe is no exception to the

common weakness that is shared by his comrades, namely, indecision. He is well

addicted to boozing and Dehinwa, the career girl, who becomes the very source of his

strength.

Soyinka depicts the character of Sagoe as one that possesses a puckish spirit that

takes delight in doing things of mischievous nature. This is a very distinctive feature of

his character. He is a Journalist by profession; he is perhaps the most disillusioned of

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them all. The first big irony in his life is that as a journalist his first job is to expose all

acts of corruption but when he joins his profession of journalism, he has been

demanded some money by way of bribe by the chief of the Board, Sir Derinola. Sagoe

is modelled after Esu who is a very important trickster god in Yoruba Mythology. He is

important next to the other God Ogun. He is synonymous with confusion and disorder

wherever they are. Like Esu, he is notorious for his satiric wit. Sagoe is an unfailing

source of disturbance as he had been at Dehinwa’s household and at the private party of

the Oguazors. Sagoe is ill-known for his perverse intelligence that prompts him to hold

taboos to ridicule as Esu is notorious for such things. At the function of professor

Oguazors, Sagoe alone has the puckish guts to throw away the plastic fruit. One does

not fail to notice that Soyinka has given passages of satiric intent to Sagoe only.

Soyinka has very artistically individualised each of the five interpreters by

briefly dwelling on the essential peculiar traits of each character. Kola, one of the five

interpreters, is very prominent in his own way. He realises that knowledge is one form

of power, which coupled with the steadfast will, can transform the objects to one’s

heart’s desire. Power manifests itself in multiple forms in several media. Media is of no

importance, once power is obtained. Knowledge, according to Kola, is power and this

power is capable of transforming objects. This is a spiritual process of alchemy. In

other words, change, as we would have it, is possible, but there is an immaculate

process. It creates something new out of the rotten old substance. Sometimes out of

nothingness but the process must be stainless pure. It must be immaculate and in the

final analysis, it is selfless sacrifice. This is Soyinka’s philosophy of life. The writer

with a deep sense of commitment having the promethean will to suffer, can achieve his
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lofty objective. The writer with a dauntless spirit, the best example is Soyinka himself,

can achieve miracles. This is the very burthen of his writings - prose, poetry or drama.

He wages a relentless crusade against the ubiquitous corruption, the mother of all evils,

in all its ugly forms, only to establish social justice and protect the rights of man. On

many an occasion, has Soyinka given the clarion-call to all the writers of Africa:

It is about time that the African writer stopped being a mere

chronicler and understood also that part of his essential purpose

is to write with a very definite vision . . . he must at least begin

by exposing the future in a clear and truthful exposition of the

present. (ed. Per Wastberg 1968)

Kola’s concept of art is noble, nay, sublime. An artist in his exalted opinion is

like a burning candle which, while giving light and delight to others, is willing to

perish. In other words, a true artist must make a sacrifice and depersonalise himself to

create that cherished art and thus art remains, pure and immaculate, while the artist is

lost in the art.

Kola, at one stage says to Monica: “I am not really an artist. I never set out to be

one. But I understand the nature of art and so I make an excellent teacher of art”. (20).

These words of Kola reveal his sense of humility which is the badge of a true

gentleman and a selfless artist.

Kola, the painter and artist, constructs a bridge between the world of man and

the world of gods. As an interpreter, he explicates that there is god in man and man

manifests in him the traits of the gods. Thus Kola brings both men and gods together
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through the medium of the pantheon. Soyinka’s deepest conviction is that the gods are

supreme and efficacious in functioning as agents in the regular mundane activities of

mankind. Kola, no doubt, is the revivalist of the hierarchy of the native mythological

deities.

Kola, the artist, paints the pantheon of Yoruba gods and it represents all the

mythological deities there. The real significance of the pantheon has often been

questioned by critics; but Soyinka’s intention in making Kola thoroughly preoccupied

with this pantheon, is to revive their traditional deities and thereby to mark or achieve

cultural identity. The reader of this novel The Interpreters becomes thoroughly

convinced that Soyinka has a deep religious sense which he manifests through his

earnest attempts at reviving them and as a concrete proof of this fact, we may observe

that his literary works poetry, drama and fiction, abound in constant allusions to

mythological gods such as Ogun. There is no other significance of the pantheon than

Soyinka’s deep sense of reverence for those gods of his mythology.

The Pantheon, as painted by Kola, the master artist, represents the community of

gods in Yoruba mythology. Soyinka makes the best use of the pantheon as a symbol of

‘the dome of continuity of time.’ He believes that the past continues into the present

and the present passes into the future; thus, time is represented as an unbroken chain.

The Yoruba myth represents gods and men, earth and heaven, as being complimentary

to one another. Thus the concept of the Yoruba myth stresses that they are inseparable

from one another. In this concept, any separation of one from the other leads to

suffering of both and hence the importance of the link between the two:
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Kola said, ‘It requires only the bridge, or the ladder between

heaven and earth. A rope or a chain. The link, that is all. After

fifteen months, all that is left is the link… (225)

Kola’s pantheon explains another very important fact. Soyinka’s ‘interpreters’

are modelled on some of the gods in the pantheon, for instance, Egbo is modelled on

Ogun. Thus, the gods in the pantheon and these interpreters are structurally brought

together. The opening of Kola’s painting the pantheon with the sacrifice of a ram and

the ritual sprinkling of blood implies the regenerative principle; and the avowed

purpose of these interpreters, equipped with knowledge acquired from civilized alien

countries, is to renew or reform through a recreation of the Nigerian society, now in the

abysmal depths of corruption of every description. Thus the pantheon serves as a larger

metaphor for the reformative undertaking of these interpreters. .

According to Kola, the theme of the pantheon is oneness or unity of time and

space, of past, present and future. Soyinka seems to think that the present disintegration

of Nigeria, politically, socially, and morally, is due to the people of the state of Nigeria,

gradually drifting away from their traditions which, in the past, kept them in perfect

unity and harmony; there is an unmistakable touch of suggestion that the present

chaotic disorder in the lives of the Nigerians is that they come under the influence of

the European way of living, being thoughtlessly attracted by the veneer of the western

civilization, since their simplicity of life rooted in the agrarian mode of living which is

incompatible with the ostentatiously materialistic way of life of Europe.

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“To make such distinctions,” says Kola, “disrupts the dome of

continuity, which is what life is.” (9)

We have already observed that Soyinka makes an oblique suggestion that

severance in any form from the Yoruba myth of the pantheon of gods would result in

some kind of social disruption or disorder.

The five ‘interpreters’ are like the five perceptions of the human body; while

each perception independently being important, they -- the perceptions -- harmoniously

combined to produce a total integrated image; in the same manner these five

interpreters, each working independently, combine to understand the postcolonial

Nigeria as one entity and interpret it as an object of their common study.

Sekoni’s untimely departure as sudden as his experience is short on this side of

the grave, and it only symbolises that the electrifying genius, capable of performing

miracles of scientific invention, that it is too early for the newly emancipated world of

Nigeria; it has to wait, see and experience her own growth and all-round even

development passing through the travails of suffering, preceding any act of birth or

creation. At best, we can interpret it optimistically that Nigeria can hopefully anticipate

a genius like Sekoni in her future. Sekoni may be seen as the alluring vision that

Nigeria unfolds for the generations of men to come. His genius, albeit as brief as

lightening, is his own tribute:

Sekoni, qualified engineer, had looked over the railings every

day of his sea voyage home. And the sea sprays built him bridges

and hospitals and large trailing furrow became a deafening

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waterfall defying human will until he gathered it between his

fingers, made the water run in the lower channels of his palm,

directing it against primeval giants on the forest banks. And he

closed his palms again, cradling the surge of power. Once he sat

on a tall water spout high above the tallest trees and beyond low

clouds. Across his sight in endless mammoth rolls, columns of

rock, petrifications of divine droppings from eternity. If the

mountain won’t come, if the mountain won’t come, then let us to

the mountain now, in the name of Mohammed! So he opened his

palm to the gurgle of power from the charging prisoner, shafts of

power nudged the monolith along the fissures, little gasps of

organic ecstasy and paths were opened, and the brooding

matriarchs surrendered all their strength, lay in neat geometric

patterns at his feet. (26)

Kola, the artist, who paints the pantheon, hierarchy of the deities in Yoruba

mythology, feels jealous of Sekoni from whose burning brain and adroit hands a

sculpture of a “wrestler”; was created but unfortunately, Sekoni has met with a

premature death in a car accident, before his real greatness has been known to the

world. Sekoni, by profession, is an electrical engineer. He possesses some of the

characteristics of the Yoruba god of thunder and lightning. Soyinka draws his character

with certain prominent traits already possessed by the gods in the Yoruba Mythology.

Actually these traits of the gods when attributed to his character render each one of

them individualistic and, therefore, readers, not familiar with Yoruba Mythology, might
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find it a bit difficult in understanding the significance of these individuals. This method

of characterisation in Soyinka saves him from elaborating the character in detail,

because the African audience, well familiar with the chief attributes of the gods, can

thoroughly understand a character in its essential traits. This method of characterisation

might sometimes lead to obscurity on the part of the reader.

The next character in the group of the five intellectuals is Bandele. He is an

academician by profession. He is held by the rest of them in love and esteem. But he

(Bandele) is satisfied with the wisdom that his experience with them has brought him.

He wears his mask of infinite patience like the god of Orki; he is silent and without

anger he pronounces his judgement. Soyinka follows the practice of classifying his

characters through their professional status -- the academician Oguazor, the lawyer

Lasunwon, the bureaucrat Egbo, the politician Chief Winsala, the journalist Sagoe and

the artist Kola. Bandele’s character is most admirably delineated as a man of profound

wisdom gained from tradition and personal experience; he is least perturbed even in the

midst of circumstances that would easily ruffle the spirit of a man. He shows the

greatest concern for those who are with him. For instance, when these characters (in

The Interpreters) are introduced to us in a way-side pub where they sit over a glass of

beer while it is raining outside, Egbo is annoyed to see a drop of rain from the roof

falling into his glass of beer. When they are about to come out, Bandele brings in a

chair that is being drenched outside. This act of his might appear very causal and

escape the notice of anyone there but this very seemingly insignificant act on his part

brings out one important trait of his character, namely, that he realises the importance

of that object at that movement and in that place. This shows that Bandele is very
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meticulous about everything however insignificant it might appear. Bandele continually

warns and advises his friends that they should not shirt from their duties or actions; in a

sense he acts as the conscience of that band of young interpreters.

Soyinka takes every minute portraying the character of Bandele. The author

presents Bandele as one possessing all saintly qualities and as winning the respect of

one and all that come his way. He is taciturn. His energy lies in his thoughtful silence.

He is not a man of action but the very cause of action in others. His cryptic answers to

Egbo’s queries and doubts sum up Bandele’s ripe wisdom. His sage answer when Egbo

angrily demands him as to what avails himself of all these experiences is that he will

gain knowledge of the new generation of interpreters.

Soyinka, then, goes on to explain the significance of the deity in the pantheon,

namely, Obatala or Orisa-nla, the God of creation and of serene arts -- the embodiment

of the aesthetics of the saint.

Within his crescent is stored those virtues of social and

individual accommodation: patience, suffering, peaceableness, all

the imperatives of harmony in the universe, the essence of

quietude and forbearance, in short, the aesthetics of the saint.

(26)

A critical reader notices certain glimpses of transcendental traits in Bandele’s

personality. “He was looking at them with pity, only his pity was more terrible than his

hardness, inexorable.” One can guess that there is a glint of austerity in his looks,
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expressive of righteous indignation at the not so venial errors of the lesser kind of

human species.

In delineating the character of Bandele, Soyinka has been very sympathetic and

he does all this with a latent feeling of respect and reverence. Bandele, unlike others

around him, never puts on airs but he is not what he appears to be; a stranger might

mistake him from his outward appearance that he is a man without pity. But “Bandele

was a total stranger, and becoming increasingly inscrutable. It was as if he had neither

pity nor indulgence, and yet the opposite was true.” (244).Thus Bandele has been a

puzzle - an enigma to the outsiders.

Soyinka has actually created six characters whom he dubs as The Interpreters.

But critics of this novel, The Interpreters seem to have recognised only five of them,

relegating the sixth character Lasunwon, the lawyer, to the realm of oblivion; and he

has been completely neglected by the critics. The lawyer pales into insignificance

before the other interpreters, is never made to raise his voice; for, as soon as he would

express his doubt or is about to make a point, the rest of them would stifle his voice. He

is finally satisfied with his own observation that these poor lawyers cannot compete.

Fortunately for him, he finds a silver lining in the cloud of his otherwise charmless life

with the entry of the career girl, Dehinwa, into his life.

Soyinka, who happens to have been on the teaching staff of the University of

Ife, has the opportunity to study the character of his colleagues at close quarters; he

observes that most of them are a set of demoralised, debased and degraded toadies. And

he represents professor Oguazor as the very personification of these despicable traits.

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Besides these interpreters who make the composite hero of the book, Soyinka

creates a gallery of very interesting characters and each in his own way serves the

avowed purpose of the author by contributing their (significant) mite. Soyinka has not

spared even the professors of university from his scathing criticism. He nicknamed the

professors ‘carcass’. It is, indeed, a piece of biting satire. The professor in question is

Oguazor and he is referred to as ‘carcass’- an animal dead body and not as a corpse -- a

human dead body. The professor is represented as an embodiment of all that is mean

and servile. Soyinka’s contempt for the Professor Oguazor, a representative of that

despicable tribe, escalates into a kind of anathema of curses, his volcanic outbursts of

contempt, Soyinka here mercilessly exposes the moral hollowness the so called

professors of university who are supposed to be moral giants that should guide society

on the path of rectitude. The author earnestly laments the anomie of moral standards. In

his opinion, universities are being reduced to a waste land of spiritual vacuum.

Professors in high educational institutions are supposed to protect and uphold the

cherished human values; but they behave like pimps, prostituting the purity of high

academic atmosphere. A carcass decomposes left to itself and desecrates the whole

surroundings with its intolerable stench. This professor is a veritable symbol of all that

is contemptible in human nature. Nigeria, the postcolonial independent country is like a

patient suffering from a variety of ailments and an efficient physician-surgeon is

needed badly to diagnose these diseases and prescribe the most efficacious remedies.

And Soyinka now plays the role of that efficient physician-surgeon.

Professor Oguazor is an eaves-dropper. Eaves-droppers are generally tale-

bearers and these characters are also known to be boot-lickers and apple-shiners or
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bread-butterers. They are not ashamed to be sycophants. These people do not have any

moral back bone. Such is the depraved behaviour of these university professors!

The righteous indignation of Soyinka assumes the infernal heat of scathing

satire. Soyinka uses the ‘plastic apple’ as an eloquent symbol of European artificial

civilization. He is merciless in exposing the ‘hollow’ man in professor Oguazor when

he lays bare the sins of his private life. He has an illegitimate daughter concealed from

public knowledge; and that illegitimate daughter of his has been secretly growing up in

a board school.

Professor Oguazor betrays his holier-than-thou attitude when he ironically

dismisses the student involved in an adulterous act which resulted in a young maiden

becoming pregnant. The irony of it is that professor Oguazor conveniently relegates the

ugliest immoral act of being a father of an illegitimate child to the realm of oblivion.

Sir Derinola, the chairman of the newspaper board members, is depicted by

Soyinka as one of the meanest of mankind who stoops to any level just to pick a

farthing from the ground with his tongue. He is so meanly greedy of money that he

goes too far off countries under the pretext of some urgent call of business; it is just to

get his travelling allowance and other fringe-benefits and, thereby, to amass ill-gotten

pelf. He is notorious for this and there is none to check his illegal activities since he is

their superior boss. He and chief Winsala, the judge, are the very personification of

corruption in all its multifarious forms. They do not hesitate even to demand bribe from

Sagoe who is the editor of the journal, “The Independent View Point”. This is one of
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many instances to show that corruption, as a national vice, has reached the very nadir of

its stage. And Soyinka spares no one who is in a high public office.

The following passage reveals the subtle and surreptitious movements of this servile

creature namely the Chairman, Sir Derinola:

Beside the young palm shoot in a halved petrol drum stood Sir

Derinola. And Sagoe was never never to forget the look upon his

face. Beside the fright and his affronted dignity was marked the

anguish of indecision. . . . Now he saw Sagoe move forward and

tried to shrink back behind the palm. They gazed into each other,

all subterfuge pointless. It was Sagoe who took his eyes away.

(92)

The chief Winsala, a member of the Board of the journalists, by and large,

appears to be an out-dated elderly man who impresses or tries to impress his colleagues

with the weight of his traditional wisdom. His efforts to appear grave at such moments

make him look more ridiculous. He seems at such times as one that suffers from a sense

of disequilibrium. Soyinka, like a master painter, creates his characters with the careless

ease of a consummate artist. It is the general overall effect that the novel produces does

matter.

Chief Winsala is an example of a man in a high public office who is guilty of

the crime of venality. But Soyinka flings all the conventional norms of writing fiction

to the winds. Moreover, Soyinka has firm belief in the primitive myth as a force that

exercises itself on the behaviour of the humans. Although he studied in England and
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read much of European literature absorbing this spirit of their culture, Soyinka remains

an African having profound belief in the primitive myth. As such, Soyinka interprets

his characters in the light of the primitive African myth. Soyinka makes a very rich use

of African myth, especially Yoruba myth, not as a means of embarrassment and not

even as nostalgic racial memory but to serve as something functional; he uses it to

interpret human character so that the African audience or the body of readers can easily

identify and understand the significance of the character, since the myth is a part and

parcel of their cultural making. Here it may be observed that most readers are

unfamiliar with the African myth. Soyinka interprets myth as something that ‘was’ and

that ‘is’ and that ‘will be; this concept has been well expressed in Sekoni’s telling

phrase ‘the dome of continuity’ and Kola tries to build a bridge over the gulf that

separates the present from the future or the ‘here’ and the ‘hereafter.’ The application of

the primitive myth to interpret the present conditions in Nigeria is very significant and

if the reader does not bear this vital fact in mind, he will either misread the authors

meaning or miss the significance implied there.

This is one of the many reasons why the reading public regard this novel The

Interpreters as a difficult one. Of these five interpreters, Sekoni a devote Muslim,

being highly intuitive, wishes to grasp the meaning of Kola’s pantheon. These

interpreters often are lost in their own speculations characterised by their individual

propensities; for instance Egbo believes that the past has its impact on the present and

likewise the present will wield its influence on the future. Egbo, the chief spokesman of

Soyinka, expresses one of the chief concepts of Soyinka, namely, the unbroken

continuity of time. Soyinka optimistically believes that the progression of the march of
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mankind goes from destruction – transition -- construction or recreation. He sees

Nigeria at present in a state of ‘corruption’ on every front and strongly believes that

through the concerted efforts of all the intellectuals, Nigeria will emerge as a powerful,

energetic free state in all its health.

According to Arthur Ravenscroft The Interpreters is a novel of disillusion

expressed through sardonic satire. He calls the novel a therapeutic novel since the

author dwells on the sickness of the Nigeria that appears in the form of corruption of

Brobdingnagian proportion and its moral bankruptcy. This novel has been described by

critics as a poet’s novel since the language employed by the writer is laden with poetic

imagery and imaginative style; for instance, the following passage serves to illustrate

this truth:

The rains of May become in July slit arteries of the sacrificial

bull, a million bleeding punctures of the sky-bull hidden in

convulsive cloud humps, black, overfed for this one event,

nourished on horizon tops of choice grasing, distant beyond

giraffe reach… the blood of earth-dwellers mingles with

blanched streams of the mocking bull, and flows into currents

eternally below earth. The dome cracked above Sekoni’s short-

sighted head one messy night. (155)

The same author observes rather slyly concealing his dislike at Soyinka’s

dwelling too much on the sickly Nigeria with a deep sense of anger and contempt. One
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feels that Soyinka luxuriates in denigrating the corrupt Nigeria. One expects the

author’s righteous indignation in place of denigration.

The accepted norms of characterisation in Soyinka’s novels do not count much.

Each character is a set individual with certain fixed qualities. In E.M. Forster’s sense,

they are flat in the sense these characters are governed by one idea and they go round

and round within the circumscribed area. They remain the same throughout with no

dynamic change in them. Soyinka has come in for sharp criticism for his characters

being flat throughout. But Soyinka’s characterisation which has been alleged to be one-

dimensional characters can be defended in two ways; firstly, Soyinka follows the

traditional masks where the mask expresses fixed characters throughout. According to

the western critics, Soyinka’s characters fall into the type of the ‘flat’ one. Secondly,

Soyinka’s primary objective in this novel The Interpreters is to expose the moral

degeneration and corruption in contemporary Nigerian society. The emphasis being on

this particular aspect does not highlight the complex aspects in their characters. The

individuality of the characters is accentuated by the professional careers each one

follows; and, moreover, Soyinka in order to bring out the prominent traits in these

characters individualises each character by employing certain epithets. Soyinka strikes

at the marrow of the character rather than describe in detail, analysing their prominent

characteristics, stressing their psychological propensities. This practice, of course, is

unconventional. A critical reader hardly fails to perceive some unmistakable touch of

unconventionality about Soyinka’s way of doing things that means Soyinka’s way of

presenting things. He goes astray from the beaten track of convention. He avoids

elaborate psychological details, touching only on the half-hidden and half-revealed

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traits of his character. They are consistent throughout even when the circumstances take

their unpredictable trajectory of change in their moods. In the art of western fiction

there is none of the types of ‘masks’ as we find them in Yoruba tradition in great

abundance. Each character with a distinctive mask is a representative of a basic

personality type which the traditional people in Africa find no difficulty in

understanding the basic traits of a particular character. So it is wrong to adopt western

norms of characterisation to Soyinka’s characters. Moreover, each character in Yoruba

tradition is described by certain fixed epithets throughout which bring out the

essentially salient features of that character. For instance, the epithets ‘gentle’ and

‘patient,’ ‘grave’ and ‘mild’ describe Bandele throughout just as the epithets ‘the fiery,

hot-headed, scowled and glowered’ are used to describe Egbo.

Although there is a synthesis of multicultural myths, for instance, the classical

myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in Season of Anomy and the Yoruba gods like Ogun and

the Christian myth of Lazarus, it must be noted that Soyinka’s chief source of mythic

inspiration is Yoruba myth. Soyinka admittedly chooses Ogun as his chief deity in the

Yoruba pantheon and he attributes some of his qualities to Egbo in The Interpreters.

In human nature, we perceive a duality of characters -- the divine and the

satanic. And, therefore, we compare humans either to the divine or to the diabolic,

according as the one or the other element dominates the characters. The pre-colonial

blacks are now determined to win their freedom from the British and other colonists,

have fought tooth and nail against the colonial forces and combated with almost the

spirit of those notorious “sons of freedom” of the British Colombia. We know that

classical allusions not only conjure up certain specific qualities or traits of a certain
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deity but they invest the human character to which the allusion is made, enlarges and

vivifies the characters and elevates or debases the human characters, as the case may

be. So, if a reader who is ignorant of the Yoruba mythology, cannot grasp the full

significance of the character that is alluded to some Yoruba deity.

An average reader, who is not initiated into modern poetry like T.S. Eliot’s The

Waste Land, which is steeped in classical and European allusions, will find the work

only Greek and Latin, without an annotated edition. The Waste Land will remain a

Waste Land of no significant meaning. Critics of The Waste Land when it first

appeared in 1922, interpreted it according to the level of their understanding and no two

critics agreed in their interpretation of that epoch-making poem. Its meaning was made

clear only when T.S. Eliot on the sound advice of his mentor and Guru, Ezra Pound,

explicated that abstruse and recondite poem.

No Soyinka critic has ever extolled him so high for the uniquely amazing traits

as a versatile writer and in the same breath the author denounces Soyinka in no less

derogatory terms for his queer and whimsical flights of imaginative style of language to

express his thoughts in an outlandish garb: in conferring a very high praise in a tone of

genuine earnestness, Lindfors observes “...unequivocally high regard Wole Soyinka as

one of the greatest writers Africa produced - intense creative energy bristles beneath

every page he writes. A high voltage literary dynamo, he possesses magnificent power

to shock, stimulate, agitate, ignite, activate, enlighten and all the while entertain his

audience…”
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Lindfors changes his tone from one of high praise, into undisguised innuendoes

which seem to be without the least suggestion of spite or malice. He observes “just as

we are beginning to trust the man and take him seriously, he toys with us, sprouting

nonsense instead of wisdom… I don’t think we can afford to go on pretending that all

his obscure riddles are profound. The socially committed writer must speak to his

people in a language they can understand.”

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye in his critical essay “Wole Soyinka, An Enigma, at 70”

(2004) observes towards the close of this essay, that the characters The Interpreters are

queer and eccentric “who are unable to convince anyone that they really subscribe to

any ideology to which one can attach a label, or that they possess what it takes to be the

custodians of societal morality, as against the other members of the establishment they

view with boundless scorn.”

We may observe certain relevant points about the novel, The Interpreters. Wole

Soyinka, by the time he finished his novel in 1965, has been well known to the literary

world as an eminent playwright and a reputed poet but it provoked adverse criticism

from critics of different levels of understanding. This novel, especially to a reader who

is not familiar with the latest modern techniques in writing fiction, bristles with certain

difficulties. Critics like Anjali Gera, while admitting that this novel presents certain

difficulties, observes that these seeming difficulties can be resolved, if the reader is

equipped with the knowledge of the Yoruba tradition, its sacrificial rituals and

folktales. The one dominant theme of this novel is, as Soyinka himself states, is

“cannibalism”. It exposes corrosive evil of corruption that eats into the vitals of the

Nigerian society. The Interpreters are there to make an analytical study of the body
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politic of Nigeria as an efficient doctor diagnoses the nature of disease(s) of a patient.

Soyinka, we presume, is the super- interpreter since; ultimately, it is through his eyes

we see the whole picture of the Nigerian society, sickly and rotten. The critical

comments made by critics of all ranks, high, middle and low apart, the comment that

crowns all these is the Nobel committee’s specific citation of this novel, The

Interpreters.

Ibadan: the ‘Penkelemes’ Years makes a highly exciting reading some of the

very common facts about a very uncommon man, are full of excitement. The language

is full of pep and the faction fictionalised is full of verve. The life that Soyinka has

chosen obviously bristles with prickly problems of a rare kind -- both personal and

public. Having confronted many a risky encounter and perilous circumstance, he has

become hard-bitten. The way the whole corpus of facts and incidents was described was

in a unique dramatic manner.

Soyinka’s ‘Memoirs’ (Ake, Isara, Ibadan, and including The Man Died)

constitutes an epic-struggle of a super-individual- encounter that may justly be

described as the ‘Odyssey of the soul.’ Such a title will speak volumes of the

Himalayan confrontations that Soyinka had and had overcome. His Promethean

patience coupled with fierce determination and his Inflexible will have dwarfed all the

organized military forces of the Id Ameens, the monsters in human guise. His acuity of

vision and his creative imagination have the power to transform ideas into unerring

action. Above all, Soyinka is the very embodiment of rare qualities that smack of a

super human being.

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Soyinka is very sensitively aware of the writers playing significant role in

properly guiding the society on the right path by injecting into it the inevitable sense of

socio-political awareness addressing a gathering of African writers in 1967. Soyinka

observes, “The Time has now come, when the African writer must have the courage to

determine what alone can be salvaged from the recurrent cycle of human stupidity.”

(Soyinka 1968:20). Soyinka continued; “It is about time that the African writer stopped

being a mere chronicler and understood also that part of his essential purpose is to write

with a very definite vision . . . he must at least begin by exposing the future in a clear

and truthful exposition of the present. (ed. Per Wastberg, 1968)

Soyinka, as a novelist, does not follow the Western writing of fiction; especially

in respect of characterisation, Soyinka totally ignores the Western norms of

characterisation, ever since E.M. Foster has distinguished in his book Aspects of the

Novel the two types of characters: the flat character and the round character.
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Works Cited

David, Mary T. Wole Soyinka: A Quest for Renewal. Madras: K.V. Mathew for B.I.

Publications Pvt. Ltd, 1995.

Duerden, Dennis and Cosmo Pieterse, eds. African Writers Talking. London:

Heinemann Educational Books, 1972.

Ejinkeonye, Ugochuku. Wole Soyinka, An Enigma, at 70, Published, 2004.

Forster, E.M. Aspects of the Novel and Other Writings. New York: Harcourt, Brace,

1927.

Gopalakrishnan, Radhamani. “The ‘Bedraggled’ Pantheon: Imagery in Soyinka’s The

Interpreters.” Commonwealth Fiction. Ed. R.K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Classical

Publish Co., 1988.

Jones, Eldred. The Writing of Wole Soyinka. London: Heinemann, 1973. 162-63.

Lindfors, Bernth. Wole Soyinka, When are you Coming Home? Yale French Studies,

No. 53, Traditional and Contemporary African Literature (1976). 197-210.

McEwan, Neil. Africa and the Novel. London: Macmillan, 1983. 64.

Moore, Gerald. Wole Soyinka. New York: African Publishing Corporation, 1971. 79.

Ogungbesan, Kolawole. “Wole Soyinka and the Novelists Responsibility in Africa.”

New West African Literature. Ed. Kolawole Ogungbesan. London: Heinemann,

1979. 7-8.
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Palmer, Eustance. The Growth of the African Novel. London: Heinemann, 1979. 267-

68.

Rajeswar, M. The Novels of Wole Soyinka. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1990.

Ravenscroft, Arthur. “Novels of Disillusion.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature.

1969.

Redmond, William Valentine. “Soyinka’s The Interpreters as an Example of Black

African Literature,” UFJF, 1994.

Soyinka, Wole. Ibadan: the ‘Penkelemes’ Years: a Memoir: 1946-1965. London:

Methuen, 1994.

_____. Season of Anomy. New York: Third Press, 1973.

_____. The Interpreters. New York: Africana Pub. Corp., 1965.

_____. “The Writer in Modern African State.” The Writer in Modern Africa. Ed. Per

Wastberg. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies; New York:

Africana, 1968. 14-21, 51-52.

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929658. accessed: 18/10/2008 14:38