Hybridity Of Yoruban And Western Cultures:Research Of The Lion And The Jewel And Death And King S Horseman

There are a few articles interpreting Soyinka and his works from the perspective of post-colonialism, which, however, were mainly based on Edward Said’s theory of orientalism, while the study from the perspective of Bhabha s theory is rarely discovered. In addition, confined by the lack of the first-hand research stuff, most of them seem unoriginal. Therefore, reinterpreting Wole Soyinka in a new perspective might produce a different location of him and his theory. It is this pulse that encouraged me to carry on this study all through the end.In this thesis, the theory of hybridity is adopted to study Soyinka and his works. The author holds that Bhabha s hybridity theory is one of the practicable approaches that helps to answer the question why Soyinka calls himself as African traditional writer when he is regarded as heretical writer in Nigeria.This paper consists of five chapters. Chapter I mainly introduces Soyinka s main writings, related foreign and domestic researches, research significance, research methods and framework of thesis. Chapter II configures the framework of post-colonialism and Homi Bhabha s hybridity theory. ChapterIII discusses Soyinka s mixed identity, and briefly reviews his life and education. Chapter IV analyses comprehensively Soyinka s two plays, The Lion and the Jewel and Death and The King s Horseman. At the same time, Chapter IV also elaborates, in the view of theory of Hybridity, the cultural conflict between Yoruba and the west, highlighting the influence on his works. Chapter Vconcludes that, as a modern African writer with immediate cultural background of both Africa and the west, Soyinka has become a symbol of cultural hybridity in himself and a political symbol in the third space; The Lion and the Jewel and Death and The King s Horseman intensely present the cultural conflicts between the Yoruba and the West. The thesis also maintains that the best way to solve these conflicts is not that one conquers the other but that they co-exist, which might direct a practicable methodology to Nigerian literature, even to African literature.