The Role of Women in The Lion and the Jewel

The role of women in The Lion and the Jewel is one likely WASSCE Literature-in-English essay topic we cannot easily ignore. So, this tutorial will give you the main points you need to know about the role of women in The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka.

You will find more likely questions on The Lion and the Jewel right here.

For your easy understanding, I’ve divided this tutorial on the role of women in the Lion and the Jewel into chewable parts.

• The Two Major Female Characters

• Contribution of Women Characters to the Setting of the Drama

• The Role Women Play in the Development of the Major Themes

• How Women Contribute to the Development of the Plot

• How Women Contribute to the Comic Element in the Play

• Conclusion

Are you ready to know more about the role of women in Soyinka’s play, The Lion and the Jewel? Then come with me.

Major Female Characters

Prominent among the women characters in the Lion and the Jewel are Sidi and Sadiku. Apart from these two, however, there is also Ailatu, Baroka’s favourite wife.

Sidi

Sidi is the village belle or the most beautiful girl in the whole of Ilujinle. She is the Jewel over whose attention and love Baroka and Lakunle are locked in conflict in this play. As she sees her beauty glow on the pages of the photographer’s magazine, Sidi gets more and more vain until she blindly walks into Baroka’s trap. After complaining that Baroka tricked and raped her, she still prefers to marry him rather than follow Lakunle, the bombastic village teacher.

Sadiku

She is Baroka’s senior wife. Sadiku is the stereotype head wife in an African chief’s palace. She shows that she is in charge in the palace and plays the role of a willing matchmaker for Baroka. But when Baroka tells her he has recently lost his sexual power, Sadiku rejoices. On realizing that Baroka has deceived her and Sidi, Sadiku still bears no grudges. She accepts Sidi’s decision to marry Baroka.

How Women Contribute to the Setting of the Play

In The Lion and the Jewel, the female characters play a central role in the playwright’s depiction of Yoruba culture. By extension, the women portray African culture and the environment within which it thrives.

One way the women in The Lion and the Jewel contribute to the setting of the play is their costume. Their manner of dressing truly portrays the play as one telling an African story.

Secondly, the music and dance these women perform in the course of the play are purely African.

Finally, their mannerisms as well as their strong attachement to traditional values such as the bride price, make us appreciate the African setting of this drama.

The Contribution of Women to Major Themes

Let’s now turn our attention to our next role of women in the Lion and the Jewel. We will find out how Sidi and Sadiku in particular contribute to the themes in the play.

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The Theme of Marriage

Through his women characters, Wole Soyinka succeeds in showing the high premium African women place on their marital status. Marriage is a traditional institution that is not taken lightly.

Thus, in stark contrast to Lakunle’s casual approach to courtship and marriage itself, Sidi is quick to point out that she takes marriage very seriously. A bride price is a must for anyone who wants her hand in marriage. Also, she cannot allow herself to indulge in any pre-marital romantic adventures like kissing openly in public.

Furthermore, polygamy a traditional practice that these women accept so easily. This is why Sadiku is happy to ask Sidi to marry Baroka, her husband. And Sidi is willing to go into a polygamous marriage. She will forego the one-man-one-wife marriage that Lakunle promises her.

But the women appear to have been stripped of their rights in such polygamous marriages. They are more or less a tool in the hands of the more powerful male gender.

Wole Soyinka uses these women characters to tell the sorry status of Yoruba women in polygamous homes. Not only must they share their husbands with other women, but they are also obliged to go in search of more brides for their husbands. They have no say in the number of women a man like Baroka decides to marry or sleep with.

It is interesting to note that Sadiku sees nothing wrong with Baroka having sexual relations with a girl he is yet to marry.

The Theme of a Clash Between Tradition and Modernization

Sidi plays this role well in the play, The Lion and the Jewel. Her first encounter with Lakunle at the beginning of the play exposes the tensions that exist between traditionalists and westernized characters like Lakunle.

The graceful manner Sidi defends her cultural roots and values contrasts sharply with the semi-literate Lakunle’s display of contempt for his own culture. At the end of the day, Sidi is used to expose the emptiness of Lakunle’s ideas. He comes across almost like a caricature, struggling to imitate European mannerisms.

The Theme of Power

The role of women in The Lion and the Jewel as far as the theme of power is concerned cannot be overstated.

The Power of Sidi’s Beauty

Sidi, for example, belongs to the new period of railroads, stamps, cameras and magazines in Africa. Modernization is slowly but steadily levelling the playing field for both genders. Opportunities to fame and power are no longer the preserve of the more powerful males.

This is why previously unknown and never-to-be-heard African girls like Sidi have suddenly found their voices. Young women like her can now share the same spot in the limelight with men, even powerful ones, and beat them to it. This new power, because it is so strange, can really get intoxicating.

And when she sees herself occupying a more prominent position on the stranger’s magazine than Baroka who “is in a little corner somewhere in the book, and that corner he shares with one of the village latrines”, Sidi concludes that there is nothing else that can match the power of her beauty.

But we must never forget that Sidi’s power only exists in her mind and on that magazine. Beyond that, in fact, in the presence of a man like Baroka, that power quickly disappears into thin air. Like other women, Sidi ends up being one more victim of the sexual power men in this society continue to wield over their women.

Sadiku’s Source of Power

For women like Sadiku, tradition has made them believe that they wield enormous power in the polygamous societies to which they belong. If you’re the senior wife of the village chief, you can have your way with the man you share with so many other women.

You have the singular privilege as the one to choose who becomes the next wife to satisfy the libido of an old chief.

But again, just like Sidi, Sadiku’s power is superficial. Because, Sadiku is simply unable to prevent Baroka from having his way with any other woman he desires.

The Role of Women in the Development of the Plot

Another way of looking at the role of women in The Lion and the Jewel is to consider their contribution to the development of the plot.

Women play a central role in the conflicts that drive the action of Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel. Let’s not forget that the whole drama is about the struggle between Baroka and Lakunle over the love of the village belle, Sidi.

So, right from Scene one, women’s actions and their choices help in no small way to shift the plot from one episode to the next.

Another way women contribute to the development of the plot is the music and dance they perform. These are interludes that either mark the beginning of one part of the drama or introduce the next action.

Examples include the dance with Baroka’s statue and the marriage procession at the very end of the play.

It is a female character, Sidi, who puts forward the idea of the dance of the lost traveller. This dance serves as a play within a play (sub-plot). And with a flashback to the events that happened long before the action of the play, we are made to appreciate better the incidents, the actions of characters and the themes of this drama.

Contribution of Women to the Play as a Comedy

Similarly, the women’s dances create a hilarious atmosphere in the performance of the play. The humour that is generated enables the audience to enjoy the play fully.

Then also, Sidi’s arguments with Lakunle are what prompt him to show his laughable ideas and beliefs. And when Sadiku interacts with Lakunle, the latter has more to say for us to laugh at. He speaks of grandiose dreams of single-handedly bringing infrastructural development and civilization to Ilujinle village.

The play ends on a happy note because Sidi grants the wishes of both Sadiku and Baroka. A happy marriage ceremony is to follow while a disappointed Lakunle runs away.

Conclusion

Women characters in The Lion and the Jewel play a significant role in developing the setting, themes and dramatic techniques. Among the women in the Lion and the Jewel, Sidi and Sadiku stand tall. It is through these women characters’ roles that the conflicts are played out. Their sense of humour, their dances and their way of dressing all go to make The Lion and the Jewel a largely successful comedy.

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