From the Western perspective, it is hard to understand ritual suicide as anything positive or helpful to the living. There almost seems to be no Western equivalent to the "duty" of Elesin in Death and the King"s Horseman. However, Wole Soyinka gives us a comparable situation in Jane"s description of a captain blowing up a ship to save the people on the shore. It"s a moment of hypocrisy on Britain"s part, both trying to prevent Elesin"s suicide and lauding a Western suicide which purports to do the exact same thing - save the living from destruction. It"s also clear that...
to sacrifice that for a small amount of pride or to try and convince someone who has no power to do anything.

We can see from this small piece in the book that Soyinka is continually forcing us to recognize that the Western way is not the only way. By presenting us with situations that we cannot understand at first, we are led to understanding only by thinking through what happens. While it might seem at first that the Yoruba are giving up the battle, they are really keeping their high ground without stooping to fight with the English.