Myth and Modernity in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel and Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit

The collision between traditional worldviews and modernity is a theme that transcends cultural boundaries, and a comparison of Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel and Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit illuminates how mid-twentieth century drama from very different intellectual traditions engaged with questions of freedom, authenticity, and the limits of human self-determination. This study examined how both plays construct theatrical worlds in which the possibilities for genuine choice are severely constrained, whether by existentialist metaphysics or by the social dynamics of a Yoruba village negotiating colonial modernity. An existentialist literary critical methodology supplemented by postcolonial theatre theory was applied. In Soyinka's play, the contest between the progressive Lakunle and the traditional Baroka for Sidi's future represents a critique of both uncritical modernisation and uncritical traditionalism. In Sartre's play, three characters trapped in a room represent the existentialist hell of other people's defining gaze. The analysis revealed that both plays use a confined dramatic space and a small cast to examine how individuals are constrained by the social systems they inhabit and the definitions others impose upon them. Results showed that Soyinka employs irony and celebration to resist totalising ideological claims, while Sartre uses tragic stasis. The study recommends this pairing for theatre and drama courses exploring existentialism and African performance at universities in the South West geopolitical zone of Nigeria.

Keywords: myth, modernity, Soyinka, Sartre, existentialism