- Family Relationship – The familial relationship is an important theme in the play. It gives insight into the close association among the family members with each other. Makuri and his wife Alu have two sons Igwezu and Awuchike but their children are unable to cope up with the environmental changes in the swamp and hence leave their home and migrate to urban areas. This causes the family relationship to breakdown but Alu and Makuri wait for their children to come home. Igwezu is the only son who comes back home from urban area but is left disturbed since his own brother snatched his wife since he became bankrupt and Awuchike own a timber business generating a lot of wealth. Critically, the family relationship is represented as weak since the characters are a victim of materialism and capitalism except for Makuri and Alu who believes that they were able to even develop a good relationship even in the darkest times or when the environment is unreliable itself.
2. Materialism – Materialism is another aspect and theme in the play. As Makuri notes that the younger generation leaves their home in search of fortune to the cities to generate wealth and forget about their parents once they are settled there. Makuri’s statement highlights that the younger generation do not communicate with their parents anymore once they leave their home for the urban city and the reason is the thirst for money and the uproar of materialism. Awuchike is a classic example of such generation where he does not even communicate with his parents and family any longer since he started to live in the urban city generating money. He has become so materialistic that he even does not care about his brother Igwezu sentiments and his wife who left Igwezu for the wealth of Awuchike also reflects the materialistic mindset.
3. Cultural Clashes – The another trope of Soyinka’s writing is the clashes between tradition and modernity. After the Independence, Africa was gripped with modernity and the younger generation seems to not bother about their beliefs anymore. Makuri symbolizes a person of tradition while his sons symbolizes a modernity. Their son do not adhere to the traditional system since they were gripped with the arrival of modernity who only thought of searching for fortune and capital. Though Makuri and his wife may live in the swamps but are not devoid of any love yet their sons are devoid of love and care since they only care about money and capital inputs. However, the same cultural clashes is also seen in the priest of their village Kadiye who was corrupted. The Yoruba believes that the priest can perform rituals to settle the environmental catastrophe but Kadiye was engaged to materialism and only cared about the money. Igwezu angrily told that the entire villagers have given food and other necessary stuffs to perform the ritual but he only kept for himself to satisfy his fat belly reflecting his corruption. Kadiye projects the idea of appearance and reality where he appears as a traditional priest to the people but in reality was corrupted and materialistic.
4. Mythology – Soyinka has also talked about myths of Yoruba beliefs in his play. The play also shows the myth of Yoruba culture where Makuri believes that there is a sea serpent who lives under the swamps. It is their responsibility to nurture and feed the serpent spirit while he was talking to the Beggar who belonged to the Bukanji community. Makuri’s resistance to let the Beggar work in the swamp reflects the fact that Makuri is a conservative person and stated that the sea serpent will not allow any outsiders to work in the swamps.
5. Ecology – The post-colonial Africa was having a lot of internal issues with ecology. Soyinka has shown ecocritical consciousness in his writings and the play depicted the issues of globalization and deforestation where the urban modernity is engaged with deforestation destroying a huge number of forests contributing to climate change. Awuchike was engaged with timber production and sells it over seas reflecting the globalization. The climate change is also one of the issues in the play where the constant rain in the swamp makes it unreliable for the agricultural products to grow and the community of Bukanji where the Beggar came from is affected with drought with less rainfall. This reflected the climate change. The climate change has also led to displacement of the people as well as the production of diseases. The younger generation leaves their home due to the unreliability of the weather conditions as well as the Beggar who insists to grow crops but is unable to due to less rainfall. Hence, the Beggar and his community has to leave their home and beg alms in the streets in the urban areas. The animal poaching is subtly depicted where Makuri mocks at his wife stating that she should leave with the urban traders who use to come to the rural areas in search of crocodile skins reflecting animal hunting and poaching.
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