LIT/A/2: KONGI’S HARVEST By Wole Soyinka

Universally acclaimed playwright Wole Soyinka artistically realises convincing portraits of his characters in Kongi's Harvest through dialogue. Since drama unlike the novel is not a narrative, it means that whatever information is needed on any aspect of a play can only be acquired through dialogue. This is the major reason why Boulton says that “a play is its dialogue” (37). Whether on stage or on paper, we get to know more of a character through what he or she says or what is said of them. Therefore, the information given about a character either by him or her or by others is important for the identification, understanding and classification of that character. On dialogue being a clue to character, Majorie Boulton says: Speech is in real life, a considerable clue to social positions, standards of education, character, and habits... there is great deal of difference, indicative of educational standing and social rank in the speech... These differences are a matter not only of pronunciation, but of the choice of words, sentence-structure, tack or the lack of it, explicitness, and delicacy of language or otherwise and all the other qualities that go to make up a person's speech habits. (103)