Tragic Vision in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex and Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame

The adaptation of Greek classical tragedy to African theatrical contexts raises fundamental questions about the universality of tragic vision and the cultural specificity of dramatic form, and a comparison of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex and Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not to Blame reveals how the Yoruba playwright both honours and transforms his classical source. This study examined how Rotimi relocates the Oedipus narrative within Yoruba cosmology and pre-colonial Yoruba social structures, and what this relocation reveals about the cultural assumptions embedded in Greek tragic form. A comparative drama methodology drawing on reception theory and African theatre scholarship was applied. Rotimi retains the fatalistic structure of the Oedipus myth but introduces specifically Yoruba elements: the oracle is a Yoruba divination priest, the setting is a Yoruba kingdom, and the protagonist Odewale's name and cultural identity are Yoruba rather than Greek. The comparative analysis examined how both versions construct the relationship between fate, free will, and the protagonist's character flaws as the engine of tragic action. Results showed that Rotimi's adaptation preserves the Greek structural inevitability of tragic fate while infusing it with Yoruba philosophical concepts of destiny (ori) and the social consequences of character failure. The study concludes that this comparative pairing represents one of the most elegant examples of African literary appropriation of the classical tradition and is highly recommended for drama courses at Nigerian universities, particularly in the South West zone.

Keywords: Greek tragedy, Yoruba drama, Rotimi, Sophocles, adaptation