WOLE SOYINKA: The Lion and the Jewel Discuss the significance of the use of play-within-a...

Explanation

This is stressed again by the recollection of the Stranger's entry into Ilujinle. The characters in The Lion and the Jewel (notably the Girls, Lakunle, Sidi, and much later Baroka) enact a play within the play, assigning themselves roles.

Play-within-a play is one of the device commonly employed by playwrights in which the characters of a play perform brief dramatic sketches in the course of the play. In this play, it is used as a form of flashback in The dance of the lost traveler to enact the experience of the Lagos visitor. Through the play, the audience gains an insight into the ordeal of the Lagos visitor during his first visit who has problems with his car and has to abandon it to continue his exploration on foot.

The second play is dramatized to illustrate how Baroka bribes the surveyor to divert the railway track from llujinle.

The third play is called The dance of virility employed to mock Baroka which involves a combination of music, mime, and movement meant to entertain the characters themselves.