Construal of Nation and Identity: A Postcolonial Analysis of the Play Madmen and Specialists by Wole Soyinka

Abstract

This research paper attempts to study the construal of postcolonial nation and postcolonial national identity in the play Madmen and Specialists (1971) by the Nigerian playwright, Wole Soyinka. The present paper draws on the postcolonial theory with special focus on the postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon’s concepts presented in his seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth (1961). The findings of the paper reveal that even after gaining independence from the colonial rule, the newly independent nations cannot free themselves from the clutches of colonial rule. The colonial oppression just changes its form; it does not end completely. Post colonial nations may remain succumb to colonial oppression at the hands of their own native cultured class / native intelligentsia. Moreover, their national identity and national culture fall apart, and they live either with a hybrid culture and identity or get totally immersed in the Western/colonizer's identity and culture