I Am Therefore You Are: An Existentialist Perspective on Wole Soyinka’s Writings

Abstract

This essay sets out to account for the existential import of the writings of Wole Soyinka. It submits that the writings of Wole Soyinka define life as a void in search of meaning which man can only accomplish through the affirmation of the will to live, freedom and conquest. The work draws positions from a number of Soyinka’ s works especially those dedicated to the Ogun deity who, for Soyinka serves as a moral standard for mankind, to illustrate how the same quest for vitality and affirmation of the human essence runs through his works The work establishes the claim that Wole Soyinka’s works define life in terms of quest for the autonomy of the individual. It locates Soyinka’s existentialist conviction in the belief that only the human essence deserves unqualified allegiance for which every other item or value: culture, institution, constitution, agencies, government, etc, should be negotiated to its favour. The work then goes forward to establish how the contradictions inherent in the human reality and the desire to overcome these contradictions and authenticate the self result in such themes as freedom and justice through which we ascribe meaning to life. The work concludes by drawing an analogy between Wole Soyinka’s existentialist convictions and those of Fredrick Nietzsche the German philosopher, whose ideas stand at the root of the existentialist
tradition of philosophy.