World Literature

Natacha Peguero

Pilkings- What do you mean you don’t know?  It’s only two years since your conversion. Don’t tell me all that holy water nonsense also wiped out your tribal memory.

Joseph- [visibly shocked] Master!

Jane – Now you’ve done it

Pilkings – What have I done now?

Jane- Never

Death and The Kings Horsemen by Wole by Wole Soyinka goes back and forth between the lives of two groups one is indigenous Africans (Praise Singer, Elesin, and etc.) and the other British Colonizers (Jane, Joseph and etc.).  The British colonizers Jane and Simon Pilkings live in a house as slave owners and have noticed unusual drumming in the neighborhood. Pilkings ask Joseph, a slave, why is this occurring and what does it all mean. When Joseph is unable to give the Pilkings an answer Simon Pilkings insults Joseph traditional ways before enslavement which offends Joseph. Jane Pilkings dismisses the whole situation. This depicts the overall perspective Europeans had on Africans at the time. Europeans believed that Africans were peculiar and did not know a how behave sophisticated like them. “Don’t tell me … it wiped out your tribal memory” which meant that Joseph must have known about the weird and ghastly because of his origins, and no amount of conversion especially recent conversion can change that. In the process of insulting Joseph and expressing that Christianity is not strong enough to erase his memory. Simon Pilkings insults Christianity. Simon Pilkings express that Christianity is too weak to change Joseph traditional ways and call Christianity “holy water nonsense”. Simon Pilkings disrespects Joseph’s culture which leaves Joseph “[visibly shocked]” and also manages to disrespect his own. Pilkings believes that Christianity is too weak to change others who are different from him which incidentally offends his culture as a British Christian.