Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka's "The Lion and the Jewel"

I am teaching the play "The Lion and the Jewel" by Wole Soyinka to my Form 4 students. So far we have had one 2 hour lesson. I enjoyed the play. The students are also enjoying it. They find it very different from the usual kind of stories that read about and watch on TV. The culture is different and everything else is different. The only similarity is human nature.
Although we are not going to stage the play proper, I hope to get the girls to act out scenes of the play and perhaps video-tape them doing that. It should be fun. The girls are also having fun with some of the word play and certain connotations in the play. It is very adult in nature and one has to be very mature in ordert to understand and appreciate the plot and themes.
One of the things I might want to do, if it is possible, is to make a trip with the girls to the Nigerian High Commissioners and see for ourselves all things Nigerian and try to understand the Nigerian way of life, etc.
Well, whatever happens, I am glad I chose this play, and that I was patient enough to wait for the book to arrive via post.

The book cover







Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1986

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