Volume III Special Issue I January 2023

Name of Author : Gavin Jude Wilson

Title of the paper : Women and Yoruba Patriarchy in Wole Soyinkas The Lion and the Jewel

Abstract: Theatre has always been a very powerful medium of expression and this is best seen in Wole Soyinka’s play The Lion and the Jewel. Women in most parts of the world where the culture is phallocentric have been subjugated to various forms of marginalisation and discrimination. The patriarchal dominance has exerted its heavy hand on the existence and position of women and the African, Nigerian scenario is no exception. Soyinka through this play wishes to lay bare among many other themes, the position of women in the Yoruba culture and tradition. Sidi and Sadiku are the two major women characters who are victims of the Yoruba patriarchal system in their own way. The paper will focus on how the playwright Wole Soyinka brings out the dominance and treatment meted out to the two women by a patriarch like Baroka.

Keywords : Nigerian, Yoruba, Tradition, Patriarchy, Exploitation

DOI :

Page Number : 69-71