Knowing Soyinka's beliefs on the Yoruba god Ogun is critical to understanding his play "The Strong Breed." Such knowledge is particularly needed in order to clarify both the carrier based ritual in and the circular ending of the work. Given that Eman represents the eternal self-sustaining/fracturing nature present in the universe that is captured by Soyinka's Ogun, there can be neither a definitive ending nor a definitive redemptive sacrifice within the play. So, there has to be a strong breed of people who endure the word's suffering in order to better it. This is not to say that the carrier is totally responsible for removing the evil with the community; the communal response to the sacrifice must be one of initial recognition of responsibility in order for forgiveness to be effective (Wright 33, Soyinka 103). Rather, Soyinka uses the end of the play to clarify an underlying Yoruba belief: "[that] suffering must be undergone and ritually performed not merely as a prelude to but as a condition of the [continual] restoration of communal prosperity, the earth's fertility, and the whole continuum of existence" (Wright 33).
-Grayson Hill 15’
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