The possibility of allegorical reading of the play cannot be dismissed. It is true that the play has many Yorbuan elements with its mimes and dances, but it is almost as though these are exotic elements brought in to provide 'local color' to a Western text. His form is completely Western: the text is even written in iambic pentameter (though Soyinka has a rather dead ear for it). But, on the one hand, it is hardly allowable that art could be won by tradition through, 'the fear of impotence, and woman's sexual malice' (Laurence 24), while on the other it is obvious that Soyinka's own art belongs to the West. This would suggest, if one followed the allegory, that art ought to become the property of Nigerian tradition. Similarly, it is the village Bale of chief Baroka who triumphs in the seduction of Sidi. Is it SIDI who makes the men chokeIn their cups, or you, with your big loud wordsAnd no meaning?. …the whole world knows of the madmanOf Ilujinle, who calls himself a teacher!

Lakunle fails in his imitation of the West, presenting an appearance in the stage directions that begin the play (Soyinka 1), that a Westerner would find comic, and humiliating himself as an imperfect mimic of the West even in the eyes of a simple village girl (which is at least as Lakunle wishes her to be) such as Sidi: With a series of academic posts in Britain and the United States and his defense of Western ideals of freedom and justice in the face of Nigeria's dictators, Soyinka is very Westernized indeed. Indeed, if one followed the implications of such an allegorical reading of the play, then Soyinka would be arguing against his own life.

But Walser concludes that this is wrong-headed because the characters are developed beyond being such ciphers. Speaking of the three main characters of the play, Andrew Walser comments: 'One could reduce Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel to an allegory in which Baroka represents African tradition, Lakunle stands for the temptation to mimic the West, and Sidi represents beauty and art' (Walser, 284). It would be easy to approach the play as an allegory of traditional Nigeria's encounter with modern Western culture.

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