Download our SSCE Study Guide Bundle
Act 5 Summary of Death and the King’s Horseman
Act 5 serves as the tragic resolution of Death and the King’s Horseman. Set in a prison cell, it transforms the play from a potential political drama into a profound metaphysical tragedy. The act reveals the catastrophic consequences of the colonial intervention and the ultimate failure of the protagonist, Elesin Oba.
Act 5 of Death and the King’s Horseman opens in a prison cell where Elesin stands in chains, wrists manacled. His new bride sits silently outside the cell, gazing at the ground. Simon Pilkings enters, attempting to justify his actions. He claims he has “saved a man’s life,” but Elesin retorts that Pilkings has merely “shattered the peace of the world forever.” Elesin accuses Pilkings of being a “ghostly one” who has twice stolen his legacy: first by sending his son Olunde to England, and now by preventing his ritual transition.
Iyaloja, the leader of the market women, arrives at the prison. Pilkings hesitates to let her in, fearing a disturbance, but eventually relents after demanding her “word of honour” that she will not help Elesin escape or commit suicide. Iyaloja’s visit is not one of comfort, but of scathing judgment. She berates Elesin for his failure of will, calling him an “eater of left-overs.” She mocks his earlier boasts, noting that he promised to confront death but instead sits alive in the white man’s chains.
Elesin admits his shame. He confesses that his will was “squelched in the spittle of an alien race,” but he also acknowledges a deeper failure: his own attachment to the world and the “moist contact of living earth” (his bride) weakened his resolve at the critical moment.
Iyaloja announces that she has brought a “burden” to the gates—a courier sent by the King. Pilkings, believing this to be a threat of a riot, is defensive. However, the women enter peacefully, carrying a cylindrical object wrapped in cloth.
Iyaloja reveals the contents: it is the body of Olunde. She explains that Olunde, seeing his father fail to complete the ritual, realised that the cosmic order was collapsing. To prevent the “honour” of their race from flying away, Olunde took his father’s place and committed suicide to guide the King’s spirit.
The sight of his dead son breaks Elesin completely. The tragic reversal—where the son dies to cover the father’s shame—is too much to bear. In a sudden, swift movement, Elesin flings his chains around his neck and strangles himself. Pilkings and the guards rush to stop him, but they are too late.
The play ends with Iyaloja rebuking Pilkings one last time. She points out the irony of his “rescue”: in trying to save one life, he has caused two deaths. She turns to the Bride, who silently closes Elesin’s eyes with earth. Iyaloja tells the girl to forget the dead and “turn (her) mind only to the unborn.” This signals that the only hope now lies in the child the bride carries.
Analysis of Act 5
The climax of the play relies on a subversion of the natural order. In the Yoruba worldview, the “parent shoot” (Elesin) should wither to feed the “young sapling” (Olunde). Instead, the young shoot has died to cover the failure of the parent. Olunde’s suicide is not just an act of filial duty but a desperate metaphysical intervention. He dies to prevent the universe from plunging into the “void,” taking on the burden his father was too weak to carry.
Pilkings stands as the symbol of colonial arrogance. His actions are dictated by a rigid moral code that views the ritual as “murder,” yet he lacks the cultural literacy to understand the consequences of stopping it. By “saving” Elesin, he forces Olunde’s hand, leading to a far greater loss. Iyaloja’s final condemnation highlights this: “The gods demanded only the old expired plantain but you cut down the sap-laden shoot to feed your pride.”
While Pilkings is the catalyst, Soyinka does not absolve Elesin. Act 5 of Death and the King’s Horseman brutally examines Elesin’s character. He admits that his failure was not just due to the handcuffs, but because he “committed the blasphemy of thought”—he allowed himself to feel relief when the white man intervened. His love for the world, symbolised by the bride he took in Act 1, became the “weight” that tethered him to earth when he should have been flying to the ancestors.
The physical chains in this act are deeply ironic. At first, they represent the colonial power binding the indigenous culture. Then, Elesin uses these very chains (the tools of his captivity) as the weapon of his suicide. This suggests that while the colonial power trapped him, his death is still an act of his own agency, however delayed and tragic.
The play ends not on the dead men, but on the Bride and the unborn child. This reinforces the Yoruba concept of the tripartite existence (the Living, the Dead, and the Unborn). The ritual went wrong, the continuity is damaged, but it is not destroyed. The final image of the bride applying earth to Elesin’s eyes suggests a fragile hope that life will continue, even amidst the ruins of tradition.
Related:
- Act 1 Summary and Analysis of Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka
- Act 2 to 3 Summary and Analysis of Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka
- Act 4 Summary and Analysis of Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka
Receive Literary Updates through our Social Media Channels:
- WhatsApp: Literature PADI
- Telegram: Literature PADI
- YouTube: @literaturepadi
- Facebook: Literature PADI
