Rethinking Suicide: Echoes in Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Abstract

Suicide is the wilful, abrupt termination of one’s life by oneself. While some people understand it as a negative, depressive phenomenon which requires pity, other people view suicide victims as cowards. Yet many others view them as heroes. In this way, scholars are challenged to properly categorize suicide as negative or as deserving pity. The problem is made more difficult by the way the phenomenon is represented in some literary texts. In Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the deaths of Elesin Oba and Okonkwo respectively, do not do justice to the debate whether suicide is an act which deserves reproach or acclaim. While we can argue that many people who commit suicide in real life do so out of depression, the two characters in the texts mentioned above are not victims of depression, therefore, their deaths deserve reproach and condemnation. Their suicide is a direct act of cowardice. Relying on the theory of psychoanalysis, this paper argues that Elesin Oba and Okonkwo’s suicides are inconsiderate, dastard acts of cowardice which should not be blamed on depression. From the texts chosen for this study, both Elesin Oba and Okonkwo were not brave enough to face the consequences of their realities. Therefore, they decided to kill themselves without consideration for the fate of society. Certainly, humanity will love to see the end of suicide in the world. Literary texts, which are generally seen as a reflection of life, should continuously, portray suicide as a negative practice and those who commit it as cowards. This will help in checkmating the scourge of the phenomenon.