Social Stratification in Niyi Osundare’s The Man Who Walked Away and The Wedding Car

No society is completely classless; for, as an adage says, “all fingers are not equal.” However, in spite of the inequality of persons, many  societies have managed to keep the gap between the haves and the have-nots from becoming too wide. In The Man Who Walked Away and the Wedding Car, the society dramatised has not been able to keep the gap between the classes within manageable proportion. Using the Marxist theory, this paper investigates the nature of social stratification in these plays. It finds that injustice, poverty and depression are triggered by this unbridled stratification. The paper concludes that unless these issues are redressed very fast, everyone is in grave danger because neither persons nor property will be safe.

Keywords: Stratification, Marxism, Injustice, Poverty, Depression.