The gods Are Not To Blame PDF

Download The gods Are Not To Blame PDF book free online. The gods Are Not to Blame is a 1968 play and a 1971 novel by Ola Rotimi. An adaptation of the Greek classic Oedipus Rex, set in an indeterminate period of a Yoruba kingdom, the story centers on Odewale, who is lured into a false sense of security, only to somehow get caught up in a somewhat consanguineous trail of events.

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Characters in The gods Are Not To Blame PDF

Odewale: The king of Kutuje, who rose to power by unwittingly assassinating the previous ruler, King Adetusa, who was also his father. When his boyhood buddy Alaka comes to Kutuje to question why he wasn’t in the village of Ede as he said he would be when he left at thirteen, the method in which he kills his father is revealed in a flashback. Oedipus Tyrannus’ royal parents hear a premonition from Baba Fakunle that Odewale would grow up to kill them both, similar to the Greek play. [more clarification is required] To avoid this, King Adetusa orders the assassination of Odewale. He is instead wrapped in a white cloth (symbolizing death) and abandoned in a bush distant from Kutuje. He is discovered and taken in by a farmer hunter named Ogundele, who raises him with his wife Mobe. Gbonka, a messenger, confronts Odewale and tells him about the events that led to King Adetusa’s death. It is revealed to him, along with the Ogun Priest, that the ancient monarch was his father and that Ojuola was his mother.

Ojuola was the late King Adetusa’s wife. King Odewale’s current wife. She has six offspring, two of whom are under King Adetusa (Odewale and Aderepo) and four of whom are under King Odewale (Adewale, Adebisi, Oyeyemi, Adeyinka). She and King Adetusa were given a prophecy that their child, Odewale, would one day steal the throne, murder his father, and marry his mother. She finds herself working as Odewale’s conscience as queen of the kingdom of Kutuje, comforting him when he begins to act unreasonably. When the Ogun Priest reveals that Ojuola is Odewale’s mother, she retreats to her room and commits herself.

Aderopo is Odewale’s brother and the son of King Adetusa and Ojuola. Odewale accuses him of having ulterior motivations in attempting to usurp the throne, even claiming that Aderopo bribed the soothsayer, Baba Fakunle, to provide a false account of what is to come. Aderopo is also accused of propagating rumors that Odewale was the one who assassinated Adetusa, the old king.

Former ruler of Kutuje, King Adetusa. Despite his best efforts to put an end to the prophecy that his child, Odewale, would grow up to assume the throne by murdering him, he is inevitably killed when he meets his grown son in Ede.

Baba Fakunle: Baba Fakunle is a blind, old man who serves as a soothsayer to those who seek him out. Odewale summons him to inquire about a solution to alleviate his kingdom’s misery. Baba Fakunle informs him that he is the source of the kingdom’s ills. Following a disagreement, Baba Fakunle refers to Odewale as a “murderer,” alluding to the assault on the yam patch in Ede, in which Odewale unknowingly murders King Adetusa, his father.

Odewale’s childhood pal Alaka. Alaka is from Ishokun, a hamlet in Japan. He travels to Kutuje to inform Odewale that his father had died two years before and that his mother, albeit elderly, was still in good condition. Odewale discloses to Alaka why he abandoned the town of Ede, where he stated he would reside after leaving Ishokun when he was thirteen, during the course of the play.

Gbonka: The late King Adetusa’s former messenger. When King Adetusa was assassinated by Odewale, Gbonka was present. Gbonka retells this experience to Odewale near the end of the play, which leads to the discovery that Odewale was the son of the former king, the present queen, and his birth mother, Ojuola.

Summary of The gods Are Not To Blame PDF

The novel The Gods Aren’t to Blame tells the story of Odewale, a man born with a destiny he wanted to avoid. When his parents went him to the village diviner, the Ogun priest, to learn about his future, they were confronted with grief amidst the joy of drums and dancing; their first son was destined to kill his father and marry his mother, and the only way to prevent this was to kill him.

However, unable to strike a balance between his comprehension of his mission and his affection for the newborn baby, the messenger Gbonka, who had been sent alone to dispose of the infant in a forest, found a foster father for the child and returned to his position of employment.

The foster parents, Ogundele and Mobike, who had no children of their own, joyously accepted the infant, and only a few people were aware that the child had been adopted. However, they were unaware of the child’s original parents because Gbonka had abandoned the two men in the bush without saying much.

Odewale’s uncle told him the truth about his fate as an adult, but he left out the fact that his biological parents were unknown. As a result, he fled to a faraway continent, where he purchased a farm near the intersection of the three foot routes and worked hard to make a decent life. Odewale did not react until the old guy insulted the village they both assumed he originated from, which Odewale could not accept. He attempted to utilize his mystic talents against the old man, but the old guy’s powers appeared to be stronger than his, so in a last-ditch effort to save his life, he struck the man with a hoe, killing him.

Odewale then ran for months from town to town until he arrived in Kutuje, where the people had just lost their monarch and the enemy had taken advantage of the situation to attack them, but Odewale, in his rage, led the people to fight against their foes and conquered. They violated convention and made him King of their land out of respect for him, which meant he had to marry the late king’s wife (his mother), thereby fulfilling the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

All of this was unknown to the king until he promised to find and punish the man who killed the former king of the land, whose perturbed spirit was the source of the terrible disease that afflicted the people of Kutuje; the priest accused him of being the man he was looking for, and his old friend Alaka paid him a visit, telling him old stories with new meanings.

Odewale soon discovered a plot involving the late king’s son and an Ogun priest, for which he vowed never to see Aderopo again. When the chiefs pleaded with him to ignore the priest’s words, he was about to turn against them as well, until the queen mother, his wife, told him about her first son, whom the priest had asked to be thrown away in the bush because he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother, and that the king had been reportedly killed by armed robbers. Many more stories were given to prove that the priest’s old age had caught up with him and that he could no longer be trusted.

Odewale became interested in the matter of the former king being murdered by thieves and requested that the eye witness be brought in, unaware that the same messenger who had given him over to Ogundele was also an eye witness to the crime.

Gbonka, now grey with age, was assisted by Alaka in making sense of the stories, and he finally revealed the truth: Odewale was an abandoned child, the son of the late king and the son of the queen mother, whom he now referred to as wife and the mother of his four children. The queen killed herself because she couldn’t bear the truth, and the king, in order to keep his promise to the people of Kutuje, plucked out his eyes and ordered the queen’s proper burial, then banished himself with his children after healing the wounds he had created in his relationship with his brother Aderopo.

Originally published: 1971

Playwright: Ola Rotimi

Original language: English

Genre: Novel

Characters: Odewale, King Adetusa, Queen Ojuola, Ifa Priest, Alaka

Publishers: Oxford University Press, Oxford, University Press plc(UPPLC)