A Dance of the Forests by Wole Soyinka

 A Dance of the Forests by Wole Soyinka 

This blog forms part of a reflective learning activity centered on Wole Soyinka’s play 'A Dance of the Forests'. It offers a short overview of the playwright, a clear and compact outline of the drama, and a question-and-answer segment for better understanding. The assignment has been given by Megha ma’am.

About Author:

Wole Soyinka, born on 13 July 1934, is a distinguished Nigerian dramatist, poet, and essayist, widely regarded as one of the most prominent voices in African literature. In 1986, he made history by becoming the first African author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His writings often explore issues such as political repression, social inequality, and the conflict between inherited traditions and modern influences.

In addition to his literary career, Soyinka has been deeply involved in Nigeria’s political life. His commitment to democratic ideals led to his imprisonment during the Nigerian Civil War as a result of his outspoken activism. His major plays—including A Dance of the Forests, The Trials of Brother Jero, and Death and the King’s Horseman—blend Yoruba mythological elements with satire and sharp political critique. He has also written powerful memoirs and essays, notably The Man Died and You Must Set Forth at Dawn.

Soyinka’s style combines indigenous African narrative traditions with Western theatrical forms, giving his work both local depth and international appeal. His unwavering opposition to tyranny and injustice has established him as a formidable figure in both literary and political spheres.

About the play:

A Dance of the Forests by Wole Soyinka is an intellectually challenging drama that premiered in 1960 during Nigeria’s independence celebrations. Through dense symbolism and allegory, the play delivers a critical examination of the nation’s historical legacy and raises concerns about the direction of its future.

The narrative centers on a community that summons ancestral spirits to commemorate its past, hoping to encounter honorable and heroic figures. Instead, they are visited by the Dead Man and the Dead Woman, whose presence exposes disturbing realities of earlier generations marked by injustice, moral failure, and brutality. Central characters include Demoke, a troubled sculptor haunted by remorse; the Forest Head, a supernatural authority who oversees events; and Eshuoro, a vengeful spirit embodying unresolved conflict. Together, these characters reflect the moral, spiritual, and historical forces that influence society.

By intertwining myth, ritual, and historical reflection, the play rejects an idealized view of history and emphasizes the need for accountability and self-examination. Its focus on cyclical patterns of human behavior, the burden of inherited guilt, and the redemptive potential of creativity underscores its lasting relevance. As a result, A Dance of the Forests stands as one of Soyinka’s most complex and enduring dramatic achievements.

1) Write a proposed alternative end of the play 'A Dance of the Forest' by Wole Soyinka.

As the long night loosens its grip on the forest, the first fragile light of dawn seeps through the towering trees. Pale gold mingles with shadow, illuminating both spirits and mortals who remain gathered in uneasy stillness. No one speaks. No one moves. It is as though time itself has drawn a breath and is holding it, uncertain whether to advance or retreat. The revelations of the night still hover in the air—heavy, unsettling, impossible to ignore. The past has spoken, exposing wounds long buried beneath ceremony and pride. Yet the future remains unformed, suspended between repetition and renewal.

The people instinctively turn toward Demoke. Throughout the night, he has stood at the center of guilt, creation, and destruction—a man whose hands have shaped both beauty and betrayal. They wait for him to speak, to offer meaning, to declare absolution or punishment. But Demoke remains silent, his gaze fixed on the broken ground before him. His silence is not emptiness; it is burdened with thought, with an awareness that words alone cannot undo what has been done.

Suddenly, the stillness fractures.

Eshuoro strides forward, his presence crackling with volatile energy. His form wavers, at times solid, at times flickering like embers in the wind. Fire dances in his eyes, and shadows coil around his limbs. The air tightens as he speaks, his voice sharp and echoing through the forest.

“You cannot escape what you have made,” he thunders. “The past is not a story to be rewritten—it is a debt to be paid.”

His fury surges toward Demoke, feeding on centuries of unresolved wrongs. Eshuoro raises his arm, prepared to strike, prepared to restore the cycle of punishment and suffering that has governed human history.

Before the blow can fall, two figures step forward.

The Dead Man and the Dead Woman place themselves between Eshuoro and Demoke. Their movements are slow but resolute. Unlike Eshuoro’s blazing rage, their presence carries the weight of endurance. They are scarred by history, marked by betrayal, cruelty, and neglect, yet they stand unarmed and unafraid.

“We have suffered,” the Dead Woman says, her voice calm but unwavering. “We were denied justice in life and memory in death. Yet vengeance did not heal us.”

The Dead Man follows, his tone measured and solemn. “Punishment alone does not cleanse history. It only ensures that suffering learns to repeat itself.”


Eshuoro recoils slightly, not weakened, but unsettled. The forest listens. Even the wind seems to pause.

“The past is not a prison,” the Dead Man continues. “It is a lesson written in blood and silence. If it is not understood, it will return—again and again—demanding its due.”

At last, Demoke lifts his head.

His voice, when it comes, is quiet, stripped of arrogance and fear. “I cannot undo my actions,” he admits. “I cannot erase the dead or rewrite the harm I caused. But I refuse to let the past decide everything that follows.”

He steps forward, his movements hesitant at first, then deliberate. His eyes fall upon the fallen tree—the one he once carved in anguish, driven by pride, fear, and desperation. That tree had borne a totem shaped by guilt, its figures twisted by unresolved violence. It had stood as a monument not to unity, but to fracture.

Demoke places his hands on the wood once more.

This time, there is no haste. No attempt to impress. No need to escape judgment. His hands move slowly, guided not by ambition but by understanding. As he carves, new forms emerge—not isolated figures locked in struggle, but bodies leaning toward one another, supporting, listening, bearing shared weight. The carving does not deny pain; it acknowledges it. Yet it refuses to glorify suffering.

Those gathered watch in silence, drawn into the rhythm of creation. The forest itself seems to respond—the light grows warmer, the shadows less threatening.

Gradually, something shifts among the people.

Old divisions—tribe against tribe, past against present—begin to loosen their hold. Murmurs rise, not of blame, but of recognition. The totem no longer stands as an accusation; it becomes a question. Not what were we, but what might we become?

A faint rhythm emerges. At first, it is barely perceptible—a foot tapping, a breath falling into pattern. Then another joins, and another. Movement spreads through the gathering, tentative yet purposeful. The dance begins again, but it is different this time. The steps are not inherited blindly from tradition; they are adjusted, reshaped, chosen.

This is not a dance of denial.

It is a dance of reckoning.

Eshuoro watches as the rhythm builds, his fury transforming into confusion. “This is not how it was meant to end,” he roars. “There must be payment. There must be fire.”

But the fire finds no fuel. As the people acknowledge the truth of their past without surrendering to it, Eshuoro’s power falters. His flames dim. His form fractures.

With a final cry—half rage, half despair—he dissolves into the mist, absorbed by the forest that once sustained him. The cycle he guarded has not been destroyed, but interrupted.

Forest Head, who has watched silently throughout, steps forward at last. His expression is neither approval nor condemnation. It is contemplation.

“My task was never to punish,” he murmurs. “It was to reveal.”

He surveys the scene—the unfinished totem, the cautious dance, the people learning to move without illusion. “The dance must go on,” he says softly. “But it must no longer pretend that the past was pure.”

As he fades into the shadows, his final words linger in the air: “Only those who remember honestly can step forward freely.”

The sun rises fully now, casting the forest in clear light. Music swells—not triumphant, not mournful, but steady. The people continue to dance, their movements imperfect, evolving, human. They do not claim redemption. They claim responsibility.

The spirits retreat, not defeated, but acknowledged.

And so the dance continues—not as a celebration of forgotten glory, but as a promise: that history, once faced without illusion, can become the ground from which a different future may grow.

References :

Soyinka, Wole. A Dance of the Forests. Oxford University Press, 1963.

“Wole Soyinka – Biographical - NobelPrize.org.” Nobel Prize, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1986/soyinka/biographical/. Accessed 20 February 2026.

“Wole Soyinka | Biography, Plays, Books, & Facts.” Britannica, 10 December 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wole-Soyinka. Accessed 20 February 2026.