Kongi’s Harvest Essay

President Kongi, the dictator of an African developing nation, is trying to modernize his nation subsequently deposing King Oba Danlola, who is being held in detention. Kongi de bitds that Danlola present him with a ceremonial yam at a severalise dinner to indicate his abdication. Daodu is Danlolas nephew and heir, and he grows prized yams on his farm. Daodus lover Segi owns a bar where Daodu spends most of his time. Segi is revealed to be Kongis former lover.The different tribes atomic number 18 resisting unification, so Kongi tries to reach his goal by any means necessary, including forcing government officials to wear traditional African outfits and even seeking advice from the man he deposed. In a climactic scene at the state dinner, Segi presents Kongi with the disembodied genius of her father. Post-Colonial review Colonization and Post colonization are twin evils in the so c solelyed civilized times. During colonization criticizing the Empire was not possible. moreover i n the postcolonial era the colonized is not spared.Personal freedom demands that a human being has the right to preserve any religion and faith. According to sociable rights he has the right to social security, protection and participation in the heathen life of the community. But these fundamental rights were denied to the colonized and the post colonized. The sources in the post-colonial period uncover the cruelty and dehumanization ruthlessly practiced on the colonized. The very(prenominal) means and ways by which the native was discredited become effective weapons to hit can at the colonizer.The native was demeaned as a savage, his land called a dark continent, his heart heart of darkness, his religion barbarous and himself a cannibal. The post-colonial writers use their cultural myths to prove the ignorance of the colonizer and his racial prejudice. They prove through their myths the greatness of their religion, the cosmic vision engendered by it, the possibility of rejuv enation indispensable in it and the lesson of universal brotherhood advocated by it. The writers aim at exploiting various techniques as myths, carnival, intertextuality, palimpsest, contrapuntal reading, symbol etc.to help the reader see things from a new angle so as to question the official version of history, the so-called authenticity of the canon and the authority of intellectual hegemony exercised. The difference between the post-modern writer and the post colonial writer is that the former does it to promote nihilistic playfulness, whereas the post colonial writer is always conscious of the suffering underg hotshot by the individuals starting from concrete experience of pain he expresses his characters utter disorientation at the psychic level.The post colonial writing aims at rejuvenation of the wronged colonized and restoration of their prestigiousness and identity. Myths engender ageless wisdom. When a writer uses it creatively and dynamically, he invests them with fresh layers of meaning and interpretation which highlight the contemporary reality. Malinowskis observation affirms this Myth contains germs of the proximo epic, romance and tragedy and continues that it finds itself in certain of its forms of subsequent literary elaboration Myth and ritual in a primitive society are the sustaining forces both(prenominal) in normal times and crises.No wonder all the African writers seek recourse to myths for restoring the fragmented personality of their fellowmen and reclaiming the distorted faith in their cultural tradition. Soyinka as a great traditionalist uses myths as the core of all his writings whether they are poems, fiction or drama. Kongis harvest home, Wole Soyinkas latest play, has predictably created a sensation at Dakar, where it was presented at the Negro Arts Festival.For Soyinka has chosen a topical subject, African nationalism, and whether he tikes it nor not, his hysterical Kongi has probably been judged as oftentimes in terms of Nkrumahs ejection, for example, as by artistic merit. This reviewer is largely unfamiliar with African politics and the traditional values upon which Soyinka apparently bases so much of his work. Consequently, these remarks of an unabashed outsider of necessity concern only the clarity and coherence of the play considered, perhaps unfairly, outside its social context.As mounted in the Arts Theatre at the University of Ibadanthat is, without the final scene, called Hangover and with considerable confusion attending its conclusionthe play depicts for the outsider what sort of harvest a man reaps if he sits alone on top of a mountain. That is Kongissituation through the greater part of the play he descends, at its conclusion, to a harvest festival at which he is presented not with the expected new yam, but with a decapitated human head. Kongi, as several characters, in the play remark, is a poseur , a man who thinks of the world as watching him at all times.He sits upon his mountain lo oking out on the world, and at the same time, he is visible to that world. such an approach to living seems to have taken its, emotional toll. Kongi is, hysterical, and in the final scene, he delivers in mime what we are t anile is a four-and-a-half hour speech, patch the affairs of the world the preparation of the new yam and the noise thereof completely submerge the words of the speech. The speech is pure gesture, devoid of sound, unheeded by the world. The gestures, full of fury only, are those of a man out of all emotional control.Ranged in various more or less defined sorts of underground to Kongi are at least three characters. The first of these is Oba Danlola an old arid obstinate, fiery, traditional leader. He is in detention as the play opens, presumably for opposition, and one of the major actions of the play involves bringing Danlola to present Kongi with the new yamto renounce in effect his traditional authority in I he feast. The old order passeth, and DanLoJa final ly consents. The outsider is not rightfully competent to judge Obas generically. One imagines that, as sketched, Danlola is a stock traditional figure, and he seems a grateful enough fellow.Yet, at one establish, two characters liken him to Kongi in the important matter of posing. To the uninitiated there seems little obvious point in the equality not because Danlola does not pose, but because his posing does not seem to have produced hysteria. This point may also be made in terms of the whimsey of isms developed in the play. Kongi, rules a land called Isma and his devotion to isms seems to be a function of his posing. Danlola, poseur though he may be, cant really be said to participate in this fondness for isms.We have only the bare, unqualified assertion of Danlolas likeness to Kongi and nothing visible on the symbolize to suppport the statement. Surely, here Soyinka has either led us considerably astray, or has failed entirely to carry us with him. Apparently, Danlolas neph ew and heir, Daodu, is also ranged against Kongi and his isms, Apparently because we see Daodu do cunning little. He is a bar fly, a habitue of Segis Night Club, and Segis present Lover. Segi is a sort of Herculean whore, Kongis former schoolmarm about whom terrifying stories circulate she destroys men, the suggestion is, sexually.It does not appear to what extent. Kongis present, highly disorganized condition is owing to his experiences with her. Nor is it clear whether it is Segi or Daodu who has the upper go past in their relationship. When he is not drinking Segis beer. Daodu raises champion yams on a farm settlement which runs a sort of Loose competition to the Kongian establishments, outdistancing them every time, it is his yam which is selected at the concluding festival, pounded and presented to all but Kongi, Obviously in the matter of harvest Daodu and his yams are separated from Kongi and hiS human head by the outer space between life and death.However, Daodu at one p oint in the play announces a platform of resistance to Kongi which is predicated upon very nearly universal hatred and, to follow the metaphor, human heads. Segi opposes his position pleading for a loving approach to ones fellow men, but, like so much in the play, the point of this chat remains obscure. One is left to speculate whether Segi here asserts her basic domination of Daodu, or whether Daodu is to be viewed as the developing character who grows out of his hatred, or whether it is all a horrible joke. Segis words of love sullied by her profession.At any rate Daodus program of hatred seems clearly opposed to his compassionate yam growing, and we neer see him do anything which resolves the issue. Segi may also be placed in opposition to Kongi, but if it is difficult to determine Daodus and Danlolas positions, with Segi the problem is hopeless. Primarily this is true because we see her do even less, than Daodu. She never acts unambiguously in such a way as to disprove the o bdurate story that she destroys men. Her relation with Daodu is so undefined as to shed little light on this matter.For much of the play she maintains silence, which she breaks most noticeably with her passionate ingathering for universal love. Here, her destructive tendencies seem open to question. Her other major action, completely at odds with her profession of universal love, concludes the play. Facing Kongi directly, she presents him with the decapitated head of her father. As staged, the confrontation is symbolic with a capital S , in view of the obvious sexual overtones of the harvest festival, one immediately guesss that Kongis particular harvest results from cultivating the Likes of Segi, that if one resorts to her one can only get abominations.Here again Soyinka may have led us astray. If Segi is a champion in the toss battle between the sexesengaged in the good fight Soyinka his portrayed in The Lion and the Jeweldestroying men as rumor reports he does, Soyinka has car ried us a long way from African nationalism in that final scene. For in that case, Kongi, and also Danlola and Daodu are mere tools in a perverse birth rate rite, and the trouble with Africa lies not in its dictators, but in its whores. In view of the series of major interpretive alternatives suggested above, one is forced to conclude that Kongis Harvest is, to the outsider an incoherent sprawl.Alternative, and mutually exclusive interpretations are not artistic ambiguity, Soyinka sets us on a number of scents, which pursued, lead in no bingle direction. We are led into every briar patch in the area, along widely divergent andmutually exclusive paths, and end by running in very small, perplexed circles. Against such a view of the play two objections efficiency be raised. First, some of the suggestions about the meaning of various actions might be termed over-ingenious.Such an objection must be at least partially granted yet, Soyinka himself must bear partial responsibility for thi s critics over-zealous application, Soyinka has the true dramatists gift of making actions seem significant. His imaginative use of action and language effectively commands the audience look here, this is important, and you should watch carefully. When a comparability of two characters is underlined try considerable discussion of the comparison, when a dumb character finally speaks, when a passive character finally acts, we cannot choose but suspect the situation is important.Perhaps Soyinka is too good at gelling, our attention, with the result that we are fascinated by the non-essential as well as the essential. On the other hand, it might be objected that a man as unfamiliar with African politics and culture as this reviewer cannot form a proper opinion of such a play. This too is a formidable objection. Still, drama is a public form of art, if it is anything, and an artist like Soyinka should decide whether he wants to reach anything larger than a purely Nigerian or African publ ic.It would seem that an artist tries to order parochial events in such a way that they have more than a parochial significance in presenting the uninitiated a dramatic experience with African politics Soyinka only confuses, and one can only suspect that he is confused himself. The matter of Right and Left Ears of State exemplifies the outsiders difficulties very nicely. Those two remarkably named characters are introduced, as the henchmen of Kongis Organizing Secretary. They are a grand sight gagthe conception funny enough to demand our attention, and we expect that they will do something amusing.Instead, they disappear mutely into the backroom of Segis Night Club, never to re-appear. We later learn that they have been killed in retribution for Kongis politics. Their memory lingers on, however we cant really believe that we have lost them so early moreover, various characters employ ear phrases which recall their names to us. As a result, when in the last scene, the head is present ed to Kongi, we, without Soyinkas stage note stating whose head it is, recall, even if only for a brief moment, our old friends the Ears.Our attention, in other words is at least partially distracted at this important point by the strong expectation that the Ears will prove interesting. Soyinka must reckon with the fact that he can arouse our interest, and in nonessential matters, handle that endowment fund carefully. It is a great disappointment to realize finally that, in the interests of coherence and clarity, many fascinating dramatic touches in Kongis Harvestshould, like the Ears of State, be more fully developed, carefully subordinated, or lopped off.Conclusion The end of the play leaves no hope in us for the purging of such societies. The struggle by Daoudu and others to get well Kongis destruction is doomed. This futility of action is first hinted in the proverbs from Hemlock . Even Daodu and Segi who are the only ones courageous enough to openly condemn Kongis rule, are i n the end victims of the predicted general clampdown indicated by the iron grating that clamps on the ground at the end of the play.