摘要：The present study aims at investigating the perspective through which the Yoruba of Nigerian view death as a rite of passage using Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s *** examines the customs and traditions of the Yoruba as they relate to deaths,like that of the king’s *** argues that although death is a physical separation of one from his kith and kin,it is not the end of *** items like honour,duty,voyage,and sacrifice acquire additional cultural meaning in relation to death,meaning which is unknown to the outside world other than the Yoruba *** by the cultural materialist critical theory,the study reveals that unlike the everyday meaning of the word death which refers to“the last end of life”,death means sacrifice,honour,and duty but excludes sorrow,tears,mourning,and solitude as our knowledge of the text has ***,death is passage that leads to total *** study also reveals that death has a cultural meaning when a notable dies for the sake of the community,which necessitates the mytho-ritualistic dramaturgy of Wole Soyinka’s *** Soyinka,death takes an additional dimension such that its meaning is characterized as“duty+honour+sacrifice+satisfaction”.The study further reveals that transition from life to the world beyond reminds us that life is a continuum and as we continue to the world beyond we take up our responsibilities depending on what we were on earth.

摘要：This study discusses how Liking(1996)in The Power of Um and Onwueme(1992)in The Reign of Wazobia anchor complex negotiations of public and private identities on gender as a site of enactments of *** experimentation with dramatic techniques,the selected Cameroonian and Nigerian women playwrights emphasize the centrality of gender as a site for a sustained critique of the larger social *** paper hypothesizes that Liking’s and Onwueme’s plays are thematically ambitious and stylistically experimental demonstrating a dynamic process through which the dramatists integrate concrete experiences into their creative consciousness in gender-conscious *** that respect,gender stands out as the performance space of struggle between the performance of power to maintain hegemony and the power of performance for social *** scientific vigour,the study uses the gender relations approach to demonstrate how the playwrights appropriate the dynamics of performance to translate,interpret and challenge deeply ingrained patriarchal paradigms and also to explain,theorize and account for the complex realities of African women’s lives.