The Swamp Dwellers Literary Elements

Drama, theater

English

A Remote Village in a Swamp near River Niger in south Nigeria, 1958. Colonial and postcolonial period.

Multiple points of view including that of the author, and all the major characters.

Serious, Dramatic, chaotic.

Protagonist is Igwezu and the beggar. Antagonist is Kadiye and Igwezu's brother.

Conflict between modernity and tradition; new and old; village and town, superstition and reason.
Igwezu has returned to his village after his brother seduced and kept his wife and he has lost all of his money having gone in debt to his brother.

Igwezu questions Kadiye with a barber's blade on his chin to determine if he has tampered with his sacrifices and blessings for wealth and marriage, and finds out he has. Igwezu must leave the swamp as the people of the village will come after him once they find out he threatened the priest.

Alu believing her son is dead foreshadows the truth that her son has died a death to his soul as he has betrayed his brother and family.
Kadiye's figure foretells something sinister about him.

It is understated as to what exactly Kadiye did to Igwezu which caused him to lose the blessing of his marriage.

The play has an allusion to capitalism, greed and corruption being chosen over family, values and morality.

The image of Kadiye on the swivel chair Igwezu bought for his father.

The imagery of the deep darkness of the night that Igwezu must head into in order to escape persecution from the villagers.

Alu believe her son is dead, but he is alive. Paradoxically, though he is alive he has died a different death as his morality has been corrupted and died and this is the death his mother feels.

Igwezu leaving his family at the end of the play parallels how his brother left nearly a decade earlier and never returned.

Kadiye becomes the personification of corruption through the power of religion.

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