Analyze the influence of modernity upon an indigenous community with reference to Makuri's comments on young generation

 

The Swamp Dwellers by Wole Soyinka is placed in a backward village of Nigeria in the Delta region. But the characters of the play often have important interactions with the town life. Typical to the people of a poverty ridden village, the town is a place of money, and luxury to the Swamp dwellers. To the older generation of the swamp dwellers however, the town is the symbol of corruption. Here the attitudes to the city life are mainly expressed by Alu, Makuri, Igwezu, and Kadiye. The older generations’ views to the city are expressed through Alu and Makuri.

In the opening scene of the play Makuri says to Alu that Awuchike went to the city because he had got sick of the Swam. Moreover, Makuri says that the young men go to the big town in order to make money. But most of them forget their folk and cut their relation with the roots, . Makuri also says that the city is the place of immortality and corruption.  Makuri further says that the city people are materialistic.

Some of the events confirm Makuri’s views. For example, Desala who had gone to the city with her husband Igwezu left him and went with Auchike who had more money. Gonushi’s son is another example of the victim of city. He also went to the city and cut off his relation with wife and children.

 

 All the Swamp Dwellers believes in that  city is the  right  place to make money. Then  Igwezu returns from city and meets Kadiye. He asks him about how much money you got  from city. Kadiye has one false perception in his mind that Igwezu has enough money to buy entire village. But Igwezu says that he is in financial constrain and by saying this he shows the bitter side of city life. He also talks about the reality that in the city only money that is matter.

 

Thus we see that the Swamp Dweller have mixed feeling about the city. To most of the Swamp Dwellers city is the place of comfort, money and luxury. But there are also some people who hate the city life but is forced to go to the city to make money. ‘The Swamp Dwellers’ focuses the struggle between the old and the new ways of life in Africa. It also gives us a picture of the cohesion that existed between the individual and southern Nigerian society. The play mirrors the socio-cultural pattern, the pang and the sufferings of the swamp dwellers and underlines the need for absorbing new ideas. The struggle between human being and unfavorable forces of nature is also captured in the play.

 

Wole Soyinka’s play The Swamp Dwellers, The Swamp itself is the physical image of spiritual death. The spiritual death by which the young server all family and human ties with the village and indulge in a new kind of life in the towns is one of the main threats to the society of the village. 

 

We can see conflict of tradition and modernity in the play. Village is representing tradition and city as modernity. They both are different from each others. This play is representing those different very well. Soyinka focuses  the influence of modernity upon an indigenous community on young generation.