Structure and meaning in Soyinka’s · works: a case study of The Road Richard, Oliseyenum Maledo* ABSTRACT: To an average student or a graduate of Literature, the works of Wale Soyinka are obscure and incomprehensible. The Road, one of Soyinka’s most discussed plays, is not free of these obscure and incomprehensibility claims. In fact, The Road has often been described by critics as “an enigma” and “a problem play”. Others have attempted a metaphysical interpretation of the play. One of the reasons why The Road is associated with these views is the complexity of its structure. This arises as a result ofthe organization ofthe various units of the text and the dramatic techniques deployed by the playwright. This paper, therefore, is an exploration of the structure of this play. At the end, it is observed that despite the complexity. the structure projects the meaning of the play. This, in a way, suggests that the artistic merits of the play lies essentially in its structure Introduction W ole Soyinka, one of Nigeria’s foremost dramatists, is a significant figure in the development of drama in Nigeria. A prolific writer, he has published many plays, poems, novels, and essays. His ultimate concern as a literary artist is his society. He “focuses more directly on the living to enable him to anticipate and safeguard the future which he considers the primary concern of the writer” ( Kolawole Ogungbesan, 175). This is very explicit in his published works. As a visionary writer, he exposes and satirizes the ills in society for a betterment of the future. To an average reader of his literary works, Wole Soyinka is a literary giant but very difficult to understand. A casual reading of The Interpreters with its curious opening sentence and the organizational pattern of the novel underscores this point. Equally, plays like A Dance of the Forests, Madmen and Specialists and poems like “Purgatory” and “Death in the Dawn” appear puzzling and obscure from the perspectives of language and form. To accentuate this point, Mr Onigbinde of Sunday Concord, in reaction to Soyinka’s Nobel Prize for Excellence in Literature notes, on February 23’\ 1992, that: To an average literature student, the name of Wole Soyinka is only meaningful within the context of FRSC because the Nobel Laurete (sic) for * Department of Engl ish and Literary Studies, Delta State University, Abraka.