Elesin Obas Pride in Death and the Kings Horsemen
... The king has passed and his Horseman, Elesin Oba is expected to take his own life in order to ride the King to heaven. Elesin, a man of great hubris focuses more on self-satisfying pleasures rather than the customary law. Wole Soyinka, the author of Death and the King’s Horseman, shows that by concentrating on his pride as opposed to his culture, Elesin Oba abandons his people by ruining an important ancestral ritual. As the play opens Elesin discusses the nature of human’s fear of death. Although he seems to accept his fate and does not fear death, we, the audience, know that this is impossible. Especially because this ritual of suicide is an act of will, which Elesin does not fulfill. Elesin explains a farmer’s escape of death, Death came calling.