Insight

The lion and the Jewel is a playwright written by Nobel Prize Laureate, Wole Soyinka . The play captures the story involving four characters – Sidi, Lakunle, Baroka, and Sadiku. The narrative hinges on an unusual love-triangle. Lakunle is a schoolteacher who wants to marry Sidi but refuses to pay a bride-price for her, ostensibly because it is one of many outdated practices of the Yoruba people that do not match his civilised opinions. Sidi, the “jewel” of the title, seems to return Lakunle’s affection but is constantly angered by his condescension towards her as an “uneducated bush girl” and by his highfalutin phrasemaking. Moreover, her sense of self-worth according to “traditional” criteria for desirability as a bride-to-be is (ironically) increased by her prominence in a recently-published book of photographs taken by a visitor to the village. When the bale or autocratic head of the village, Baroka seeks a new bride to add to his harem, Sidi’s growing rep...