Written by Africa’s well known dramatist, Wole Soyinka, the play – The Lion and the Jewel – has its setting in the village of Ilunjunle in Yoruba West Africa. It was published in 1963 by Oxford University Press.
The play is characterized by culture conflict, ribald comedy and love, where the old culture represented by the uneducated people in Ilunjunle, led by Baroka, Sidi and the rest, clashes with the new culture led by Lakunle, who is educated, school teacher by profession is influenced by the western ways.
Like the title suggests, The Lion and the Jewel is symbolic. The lion is Baroka and the jewel is Sidi. She is the village belle. The lion seeks to have the jewel.
The play starts with Lakunle pouring out his heart to Sidi but she does not want to pay attention. If only Lakunle can pay dowry then she would marry him. But to Lakunle, that’s being barbaric, outdated and ignorant. If he could only make her understand. He says:
“To pay price would be to buy a heifer off the market stall. You would be my chattel, my mere property.”
Sidi does not pay attention. To her a girl for who dowry is not paid for will be hiding her shame for she will not be known as a virgin.
Her beauty has captured many souls, besides Lakunle. There is the photographer who took her photos and published them in a magazine, and even Baroka the lion, the bale/chieftain of Ilunjunle as well as other girls in the village. Sidi also brags a lot about her beauty. She is not afraid to speak of it in public.
Baroka has many wives though, despite his wanting Sidi for a wife. On seeing her in a magazine seated alone, he laments:
“Yes yes…………… it is five full months since I last took a wife…..five full months” (page 18)
Sadiku is Baroka’s head wife. As custom suggests, the last wife of the previous bale/chief becomes the head wife of the new chief once succeeded.
Her duty as a head wife is to lure any woman Baroka pleases to have into getting her. Sidi turns off Baroka’s proposal in the most demeaning way, through his head wife. She scorns him:
“Compare my image and that of your lord… an age of a difference….”
See how water glistens my face…. But he-his is like a leather piece torn rudely from the saddle of his horse.
Baroka blames it on himself when he gets the news of his rejected proposal. He says:
“My man hood ended a week ago.”
Sadiku rather glad about Baroka’s confession tells the news to Sidi. Sidi goes to see Baroka on the grounds that she did not intend to reject his invitation and proposal well knowing that he would not be capable of doing anything. In an unexpected turn of events, Baroka manages to seduce her and win her over Lakunle.
The The Lion and the Jewel is a very interesting play, and remains one of Wole Soyinka’s best works.