Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel:

An Allegory of Imperial Resistance

Abstract

Since the composition of the drama The Lion and the Jewel in 1959 by Wole Soyinka, critics have been intrigued regarding its contribution to postcolonial and anglophone African literature but the objective of this article is to illustrate the drama as an allegory of imperial resistance with various theoretical approaches. The study delves into exploring how a counter-discourse is created against the discourse of racism and dominance of the imperialist. The paper deals with the unprecedented forms of psychological resistance from the colonized people. It also foregrounds an “ideological resistance” in the drama against Eurocentric politico-cultural hegemonizing and hybridizing effort. Thus, the paper argues that the drama conveys the imperial resistance through counterdiscourse, psychoanalytical approach, and ideological resistance through syncreticism, and consequently, the drama has been a metaphor for all “marginalized voices” in the postcolonial world.