Mytho-Ritual Dramaturgy:Death as Rite of Passage in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman

摘要：The present study aims at investigating the perspective through which the Yoruba of Nigerian view death as a rite of passage using Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman.It examines the customs and traditions of the Yoruba as they relate to deaths,like that of the king’s horseman.It argues that although death is a physical separation of one from his kith and kin,it is not the end of life.Lexical items like honour,duty,voyage,and sacrifice acquire additional cultural meaning in relation to death,meaning which is unknown to the outside world other than the Yoruba themselves.Informed by the cultural materialist critical theory,the study reveals that unlike the everyday meaning of the word death which refers to“the last end of life”,death means sacrifice,honour,and duty but excludes sorrow,tears,mourning,and solitude as our knowledge of the text has shown.Thus,death is passage that leads to total satisfaction.The study also reveals that death has a cultural meaning when a notable dies for the sake of the community,which necessitates the mytho-ritualistic dramaturgy of Wole Soyinka’s art.To Soyinka,death takes an additional dimension such that its meaning is characterized as“duty+honour+sacrifice+satisfaction”.The study further reveals that transition from life to the world beyond reminds us that life is a continuum and as we continue to the world beyond we take up our responsibilities depending on what we were on earth.