Death and the King's Horseman

Simon Pilkings is the colonial District Officer. It’s clear from the start that Pilkings has little to no understanding of Yoruba culture despite having presumably resided in Nigeria for some time. He and his wife, Jane, appear for the first time wearing egungun costumes, taken from a ritual honoring the dead. When Amusa, Pilkings’s Native Administration officer, refuses to speak to him in the outfit, Pilkings has no idea why. He tells his wife that Amusa is Muslim and cannot fathom why he would be so bothered by the costume. He fails to grasp the depth of meaning the clothing and the ritual they represent hold for Amusa. He also “couldn’t understand the fuss” (28) Elesin made when he sent his son, Olunde, away to study medicine. As the eldest son, Olunde was meant to carry on his father’s role as the king’s horseman, a fact to which Pilkings was oblivious. This lack of understanding implies an absence of respect for, and interest in, the local culture; Pilkings has made no effort to get to know the people for which he is responsible.

Like Elesin and Olunde, Pilkings is motivated by a sense of duty. He tells the imprisoned Elesin, “I did my duty as I saw it,” and reports having “no regrets” (62) for stopping the ritual. On the one hand, Pilkings seems well-intentioned and tries to do what he believes is right in saving Elesin’s life. However, he is mainly and selfishly motivated by the Prince’s presence. He wants to stop the ritual because he doesn’t want the British Crown to think he can’t handle his responsibilities. 

Despite his position of power, Pilkings is often portrayed as ineffectual, clueless, and therefore useless. He has trouble controlling his subordinates, and Amusa and Joseph do not treat him with respect or follow his orders. His wife often has to act as a cultural interpreter and explain things Pilkings doesn’t understand, causing him to lose his temper with her occasionally. Ultimately, Pilkings manages to interrupt the ceremony, but he cannot prevent Elesin’s suicide. His failure to understand the Yoruba people results in a failure to comprehend the importance of Elesin’s ritual and the lengths to which the community, even the Western-educated Olunde, will go in order to fulfill it.

Jane Pilkings is Simon’s wife and lives with him while he fulfills his duty as a district officer. Jane is kinder and more sensitive than her husband, and she repeatedly serves as a cultural translator, explaining things to the more obtuse Pilkings. Jane quickly understands that Amusa is upset by the egungun costumes, for example, and she grasps that Olunde’s role as the eldest son is the reason Elesin did not want to send him away. Although she is horrified by Olunde’s reaction to his father’s death, she recovers herself, telling him, “I feel a need to understand all I can” (56). While Jane’s insistence that Olunde remain with her and explain his way of life instead of attending to his father’s body is undeniably insensitive in its own way, Jane’s desire to learn and understand is a marked improvement from her husband’s dismissive arrogance. 

Of course, Jane isn’t without fault, and despite her more sensitive tendencies, she is also arrogant and behaves with superiority toward the Yoruba population. She “giggles” when Pilkings tells her that Elesin cursed him for sending Olunde away and mocks Amusa’s fear of the egungun costumes behind his back. When Olunde calmly accepts his father’s death, Jane exclaims that he is “a savage like all the rest” (54), implying that she, too, subscribes to the colonial rhetoric of the inferiority of the native population.

Olunde is Elesin’s eldest son. He has lived in England for four years, where Pilkings helped him get into medical school. However, the oldest son is meant to carry on the father’s role as the king’s horseman, and Olunde’s departure caused Elesin to disown him. Despite the family conflict, Olunde returned the moment he heard about the king’s death, knowing that he must fulfill his duty and bury his father. Jane describes Olunde as “much too sensitive,” but when he reappears halfway through the play, he is calm, focused, and self-assured. 

He has a strong sense of duty and speaks admiringly of his father’s suicide and that of a ship captain who exploded his ship at sea to save those on the shore. He seems to believe in the importance of sacrifice for the greater good. Most importantly, Olunde’s time away has only strengthened his understanding of, and respect for, his native cultural practices. He explains that his time in England and observations of the war showed him the hypocrisy of white society. He argues that Jane cannot condemn his father’s suicide as “barbaric” without doing the same for the “mass suicide” taking place on the battlefields of World War II. The strength of Olunde’s convictions is proven at the end of the play when he kills himself to take his father’s place as the king’s horseman.

Known as the “mother” of the market, Iyaloja is a strong character who watches out for the other women in the market. Associated with the market, the heart of the community, Iyaloja acts as the keeper of Yoruba tradition. She often speaks in proverbs and helps guide Elesin through his final hours. She is friendly and deferential to Elesin at the beginning of the play. Like the other women, she shows him respect, remarks on his honorable reputation, and is distressed when he pretends to be offended. However, when he asks for the beautiful young woman as his bride, Iyaloja tries to stand up to him. She tells him he is more honorable than taking another man’s woman and warns against binding himself too firmly to the earth with a new lover. Eventually, she worries that denying Elesin his desire will impact the ritual and agrees to his request.

In the last act, when Iyaloja visits Elesin in his cell, her stance changes completely. She blames Elesin for his failure, accusing him of weakness and betrayal. She continues shaming him until he begs her to stop and then reveals the body of Olunde without any sympathy. She tells Elesin that he has disrupted the balance of the universe, and although Olunde tried to correct his father’s mistake, the damage is irreparable.

Amusa is a member of the Native Administration police, the Yoruba officers who act upon colonial authority. Although he has converted to Islam, Amusa still holds on to some of his traditional beliefs. He shows fear of, and therefore respect for, the egungun costumes that Pilkings and his wife wear, refusing to speak to them about Elesin’s suicide while the Pilkingses are dressed in the outfits. Amusa’s fear of the costumes illustrates that his conversion is not complete: He still believes in Yoruba mythology. Likewise, Jane and Simon Pilkings still view Amusa as different from themselves, lumping him in with the collective and distinctive “they” of the native population. However, Amusa’s own people treat him like he no longer belongs because of his association with the colonial government. The women at the market call him a “white man’s eunuch” and make it clear he has no authority over them.

Joseph is the Pilkings’s houseboy, and the district officer jokes about him being their “native guide” to local culture. Despite being a minor character, Joseph is nonetheless important because he illustrates the complex relationship between the colonial government and the Yoruba people. Like Amusa, Joseph has converted to a new religion—in his case, Christianity. He has distanced himself from his traditional beliefs but remains othered from white society.

Pilkings is immediately frustrated when Joseph cannot answer questions about the ritual taking place at the market, annoyed that the “holy water nonsense” has “wiped out [Joseph’s] tribal memory” (30). Pilkings wants to stamp out traditional practices and westernize the native population; however, when he needs help, Joseph is too Westernized for his liking.