Self-Preservation as a Tragic Paradox in Death Not A Redeemer

Abstract

Death, a universally acclaimed violator of existential order, famous for its capacity to sustain a plurality of truths and half-truths, has dominated academic discipline including the arts. Death, a perpetual punishment to mankind, is the most dreaded and feared of all phenomenon of life. It is the inevitable end which ensures a mystifying monotony of grief among the living. Death, whose angel in its fervent collapses the boundaries of race, religion and culture and initiates a paralyzing hypnosis which benumbs humanity’s sensibility, is the major focus in Hope Eghagha’s play, Death, Not A Redeemer? In interpreting the play, this paper attempts to determine the paradox inherent in sacrificial death as a condition for the continual existence of humanity. It also delineates death as a life sustaining verity and completely divests any death that complements life the paraphernalia of a tragic event. In this way, we argue that sacrificial death that guarantees the peaceful passage of the dead, the continual and peaceful existence of the living, any death that promotes human consciousness and complements life, that cleanses and purifies, that is deemed to redeem a whole community, that ensures fertility and the protection of the unborn can be exonerated the accolade of tragedy.