SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF THE GODS ARE NOT TO BLAME. by Ola Rotimi ANALYSED BY Alilonu Collins

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK :THE GODS ARE NOT TO BLAME. – Ola Rotimi

ANALYSED BY – Alilonu Collins

The gods are not to blame is an example of  a Greek tragedy. Greek tragedy is any form of drama , whereby the Protagonist suffers a great fate due to his inbuilt flaw ( tragic flaw), but doesn’t really die at the end of the play, but suffers instead.

In the case of the gods are not to blame., our protagonist : Adewale, who is a king, suffers this fate after he unknowingly curses himself.

SYNOPSIS AND SUMMARY  OF THE PLAY

The gods are not to blame, a tragedy patterned after Sophocles’ Oedipux Rex, has its setting in a Yoruba town of Kutuje.  The land is being bedeviled by serious plagues. Everybody, including the king, begins to look for a solution to the problem. This prompts King Odewale to send Prince Aderopo to Ile-Ife in order to seek for divination from the Ifa Oracle. The Priest puts it succinctly, “We have sent Aderopo to Ile-Ife, the land of Orunmila, to ask the all-seeing god why we are in pain.” (p. 12). Unfortunately, Aderopo returns and refuses to divulge the information received from Ile-Ife. King Odewale therefore decides to send for the Ifa Oracle diviner, Baba Fakunle from Oyo. On arrival, Baba Fakunle refuses to solve the riddle. This infuriates Odewale who feels that the diviner has teamed up with Aderopo, his (Odewale’s) perceived enemy. The conflict between the duo of Odewale and Fakunle degenerates into physical assault which is a demonstration of hubris (i.e. hot temper) in the king.

From this point, the play metamorphoses into a flashback which eventually reveals Odewale’s past as the accursed child who would kill his father and marry his mother. Having been caught in this web, Odewale realises that he has brought misfortune upon his people. He, therefore, blindfolds himself and abdicates the throne for an unknown destination while Queen Ojuola (Odewale’s mother and wife) commits suicide.

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE PLAY

THE SETTING

The play is set in a typical Yoruba society in Nigeria. Specifically traced to the people of  kutuje .

LITERARY DEVICE/ DEVICES EMPLOYED

FLASHBACK

This literary device employes the narration of what has happened in the past. Most part of the play were narrated through the use of flashback. The story of Odewales birth and how he was supposedly killed were all narrated through the use of flashback.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PLAY.

This involves the outlining of characters in the play, as well as their role towards the construction of the play. A play is made up of characters, whose role help in the development o the plot of the story.

Characters are of different types. We have the major and minor characters in any play.

The major character are the characters whose role are very essential to the play, as the whole story revolves around them. The minor characters only help develop the character of the major characters. The are those people whose roles affect the major character. (Note: Not all characters would be discussed here.)

Narrator

As the name suggests, this character introduces the play at the beginning (see prologue on page 3). He performs his role succinctly by giving the plot a background in order to aid the reader/audience’s heuristics. His choice of words indicates the beginning of an action; thereby giving the play an expected introduction and narrativity. He speaks:

                                                The stuggles of man begins at birth

   It is meet then that our play begin with

the birth of a child.

The place is the land of Kutuje.

A baby has just been born

to King Adetusa and his wife Ojuola,

the King and Queen of this land of Kutuje. (p. 3)

The playwright adopts the African oral narrative technique by introducing this character. It is a common style among the Yoruba Africans to have a narrator and a participating audience during evening story sessions particularly, the moonlit play. The name therefore presupposes that a play is in offing and it is expected to be narrated by somebody. Since this narrative role has been prescribed from the outset, we may submit that the illocutionary act of the name is prescribing.

King Adetusa

This character appears as Old Man in the flashback on page 46 of the play-text. He is attacked and eventually killed by Odewale on his farm for “digging up my [Odewale’s] sweat!” ( p. 45) and for mocking his tribe. Odewale speaks, “The Old Man should not have mocked my tribe. He called my tribe bush. That I cannot bear.” (p. 50). The king’s name is Adetusa, a Yoruba expression which denotes “crown is digging up holes.” It should be noted that holes are mostly found in the bush and are homes to dangerous animals like snakes, scorpions and crabs. Meanwhile Odewale is referred to as a scorpion by Alaka on page 42 of the text. As a king, Adetusa does not walk alone. He has to be accompanied by his retinue of bodyguards. The latter were hypnotized with sleeping charm by Odewale (see page 47 of the text). Reminiscing on the incident, Odewale tells Alaka:

I went to my farm one morning. And what did I find?…

First this man… short, an old man. In his company, all

  over the farm, people-all sorts of people, armed with hoes.

   On my own farm. And what were they doing? Digging up

     my sweat! (p. 45, emphasis mine)

From the foregoing, we may deduce that Adetusa lives up to his name– a crown is digging up holes in the farm of a “scorpion.” The illocutionary act of the name therefore is affirming/informing. The situation is felicitous enough because the king (accompanied by his bodyguards) is indeed found digging up holes in Odewale’s farm. However, it should be recalled that the gods have foretold that if Odewale as an infant is not killed, he would live to kill his father (King Adetusa) and marry his mother (Queen Ojuola).

Queen Ojuola, Adetusa’s wife

The name, Ojuola derives from the Yoruba saying, “Oju eni maa la a ri iyonu” (S/he who will be great will see troubles). Although the full rendition of the name is “Ojuolape” (The eyes of wealth are complete), the playwright probably clipped it to reflect the former. Initially, she and her husband (Adetusa) have been warned that unless they killed their weird child, he would grow to marry her and kill the king. To heed this warning, Gbonka, one of King Adetusa’s bodyguards was asked to kill the baby. But the man handed the baby over to hunter Ogundele who later taught him the art of hunting. Later, the boy (Odewale) killed his father and married Ojuola. Their union was blessed with four incestuous children. This incident therefore plague the land of Kutuje. It also brings about the conflicts (Odewale versus Aderopo, Odewale versus Baba Fakunle and Odewale versus Alaka) in the play. The fact that she witnesses all these conflicts before realising eventually that her son is also her new husband partly complicates her tragic fate in the play and partly corroborates the fact that she lives up to her name. She therefore commits suicide in the end of the play. The illocutionary acts of the name are therefore predicting, informing and asserting. It forewarns that anyone who wants to see the truth will pass through travails.

King Odewale, successor to Adetusa

The name of this character is also a Yoruba expression which denotes the hunter comes home. As an evil child destined to kill his father and marry his mother, Odewale decides to change this fate by running away from his supposed home. He was warned against this act as follows:

VOICE: ‘You have a curse on you son.’

ODEWALE: ‘What kind of curse Old One?’

VOICE: ‘You cannot run away from it, the gods have

willed that you will kill your father and marry

your mother!’…..

ODEWALE: ‘What must I do then not to carry out this

will of the gods?’

VOICE: ‘Nothing. To run away would be foolish…Just

stay where you are. Stay where you are…

stay where you are…’ (p.60)

But he thought that by running away, he would escape the gods’ verdict. Unknown to him, the father he runs away, the closer he is to his destiny. He believes that “the world is struggle” (p.6). Thus, he met the people of Kutuje in conflict with the Ikolu men and assisted the former in defeating their enemies. Therefore, the Kutuje people “broke tradition and made me (Odewale), unasked King of Kutuje” (p.7, emphasis mine). He was given the name (Odewake) by hunter Ogundele who brings him home from the bush where he should have been sacrificed. As a hunter, he is belligerent and bellicose. He is hot tempered. He makes Baba Fakunle feel his sword while attempting to kill the seer on page 27 of the text. This made Baba Fakunle to retort, “Go on, touch me. Call up your raw anger, and in the blindness of it, strike me dead!” (pp.27-28). He is called scorpion by Alaka who says, “…tell him the Farmer wants to see the Scorrpion!” (p.42).

He is referred to as a thief and a goat by Old Man on page 47 of the text. He proves his hunting background by confronting the Old Man and his three bodyguards simultaneously and defeating them. He equally recites a lot of incantations (see pages 47-49) which is characteristic of the Yoruba hunters. As a weapon man, he says, “Ogun…I have used your weapon, and I have killed a man.” (p.49). He even threatens to kill Alaka when the latter reveals to him that Ogundele was not his real father on page 62 of the play-text. Eventually, he left his Ijekun-Yemoja for Kutuje after killing a man (who later turns out to be his father). Getting to Kutuje, he is enthroned as the new king and as customs demand, he must marry the old queen (his mother), thereby fulfilling his destiny. He speaks:

For eleven years now,

I, Odewale,

the only son of Ogundele,

have ruled Kutuje

and have taken for a wife,

as custom wishes,

Ojuola, the motherly Queen (p.7)

The locution, the hunter has come home, therefore, has an illocutionary act of informing. Notice that hunter in this sense indicates the belligerent child who should not have been allowed to live.

CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY

The Gods are not to blame is a tragedy. A tragedy is any form of literary work which ends in a sad note. This sadness may be a a result of the death or bad will that befalls the protagonist.

Summarized by : Alilonu Collins

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