Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

conflict betweenthe oppressed and the oppresso r. juxtaposed between the saviour and
the sacrifice . The Slave Leader proclaims that the worst form of brutality is to
sacrifice an unwillin g slave from the already underprivileged class for the sakeof
maintaining the wealth of the aristocracy. After Pentheus' sacrificial death. the Slave
Leader respo nds to the Old Slave who accuses the god of such heartless revenge :
SLAVE LEAD ER: Who pities us? When the mine-prop falls and pulps
Our bones with mud, who pities us'? When harvest
Fails, who goes without? And you , if you had
Died at the feast of Eleusis . would Thebes
Have remembered you with pity? (87) .
His words invoke the memory of those who die in the South African mines, or in
peace ful demonstra tions. and of those wbo died in slave ships or on the plantations.
sacrificed for the advancement and profit of the master race . 32 Similarl y. British
coloaization of the African colonies introduced western education and culture at the
painful sacrifice of West African's culture and laDguage.
The Stave Leaderrefers to Pentheus' brutal rituals as "unspeakable rites"
because they are no longer efficacious; they bave become corrupt and polluted . In
"The Exigencies of Adaptation: The Case of Soyinka's BaaJrae," K. E. Senaa u
suggests: "Pee tbeus hasestablished a tyranny whicb involves a perversion of religious
rites into a crue l and meanin gless sacrifi ce of slaves as scapegoats " (109) .
Soyinka's descri ption of the yearly ritual processi on: "a liturgi cal drone - lead
and re frain . a dull , thin, monotone .. .. black-robed priests intoning a liturgy ,
punctuated by hand-bells" , offers a thinly veiled satire of Western religion more
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