SS2  Literature Lesson Plan and Notes- Week Ending

The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka

1. Read and summarize the major characters.

2. Discuss  the major characters in the play.

2. Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka

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Step II: Students and teacher interact as they summarize the text. Step III. The students were asked to explain roles.

Step IV: Students were allowed to ask questions and proper feedback was given.

Characterization

Characterization is a literary device that reveals the details and traits of a character in a story. The following are the major characters in the play:

1. Sidi is the jewel of the story. She’s the most beautiful young woman in the village where she lives. She is being courted by the school teacher, but she refuses to marry him because he won’t pay her bride price; this custom is traditional in the village where they live. She finds out that her picture was prominently featured in a magazine after a photographer came and took photos of the village and her. She’s excited and arrogant, believing herself to be better and more esteemed than Baroka, the village elder. Sidi rejects him when his first wife tells her that she should be Baroka’s last wife but decides to go to mock him when she hears that he’s impotent.

He tricked her, however. He coaxes her into sleeping with him and she’s happy to ultimately marry him at the end of the play.Khabarovsk is the village elder. He’s trying to make the village modern in some ways—like acquiring the stamp machine—while rejecting progress that comes too quickly. He’s clever and wily. He tells his wife Sadiku that he’s impotent and swears her to secrecy; he realizes that she’ll tell Sidi and Sidi will come mock him. Once he has her alone, he praises her beauty. This encourages her to sleep with and ultimately marry him.

2. Lakunle: Lakunle is the local school teacher. He’s a modern man who wants to marry Sidi but refuses to pay the bride price. He thinks he’s above the old traditions. He even tells Sidi that he knows women are less intelligent than men because scientists studied brains and discovered that women have smaller brains.

He is outraged that she chooses to marry Baroka at the end fo the play. However, he’s already flirting with another woman at the wedding ceremony. He doesn’t appear to learn much.

Lakunle enjoys a half baked education and makes a lot of noise with it. He uses his eduaction, unfully formed as it is, to harrass both Sidi and Sadiku. In spite of his level of education, he possesses an inflated sense of his importance in the village and merely consults shorter dictionaries before talking to a non-educated Sidito who he blows all the grammar he knows or has heard.

3. Sadiku: Sadiku is Baroka’s first wife. She tries to convince Sidi to come to visit and marry Baroka by telling her that she’ll be the last  wife, the first wife of the new village elder once Baroka dies, and that she’ll live with honor.

When Sidi refuses and Sadiku tells Baroka, she promises not to tell anyone about his claim of impotence. However, she tells Sidi; this puts Sidi and Baroka’s meeting and marriage into motion.

4. Baroka is the Bale (village chief) of Ilujinle. He’s known as both the “Lion” because of his strength, and the “Fox” because of his cunning tricks. At 62 he’s an older man, but he still performs impressive feats of strength despite his age. He has many wives and concubines, and he marries a new wife every few months