“No Danger No Delay”: Wole Soyinka and the perils of the road

Abstract

This article examines the way in which the road functions in Wole Soyinka’s work as a Bakhtinian chronotope that gives shape to the paradoxical symbolism and dangerous reality of Nigerian roads. After briefly examining Soyinka’s poem “Death in the Dawn”, where Soyinka first articulates the psychological consequences of road accidents, it turns to discuss his play The Road. It highlights the ways in which various chronotopes interact dialogically to reveal the complex space‐times that the characters occupy as they attempt to cope with the death and tragedy that is part of daily life on the road.

Keywords:

• Wole Soyinka
• The Road
• Mikhail Bakhtin
• chronotope
• Nigeria
• automobile accident

Notes

1. See Peter Chilson and Adeline Masquelier on how the enduring violence of colonial conquest and forced labor contribute to contemporary spiritual beliefs about the road.

2. See James Gibbs for a chronicle of Soyinka’s road safety campaigns.

3. This quotation is a response to the types of critics Soyinka labels neo‐Tarzanist due to their rejection of the modern world. They believe that African poetry and literature should be filled with images of masks, animals, drums, and the types of Africans who would mistake an airplane for an iron bird.

4. Touts are essentially freelance assistants who work in motor‐parks, or transportation hubs across Africa. Their tasks include procuring passengers, collecting fees for their drivers, and ensuring the smooth operation of motor‐parks. See Enoch Okpara.

5. Robert Fraser writes:

The poet’s reaction to this reminder is torn between a chastened recognition of man’s limitations and a haughty dismissal of all that these imply. It is noticeable, for instance, that Soyinka supplies no answer to the rhetorical question with which the poem ends. Most commentators have assumed that the implied answer is “Yes”, and that the poet therefore fully identifies with the dead driver. (236)

6. See Jeffrey Schnapp for a further discussion of the history of the Euro‐American romance with the car crash.

7. Soyinka also uses the word bolekaja to describe a certain form of intellectual pugilism, one he associates with the neo‐Tarzanists discussed above. Although the idea of bolekaja criticism was originally intended by Chinweizu et al. to be a productive but outraged provocation to African literature to “cure itself of its colonial hangover” (xi), Soyinka finds the type of criticism advocated to be one that is hostile and stifling. He therefore reverses the positive connotation of the term by pointing out the aggressive and unpleasant aspects of bolekaja travel.

8. See Gibbs.