The Pilkings

My two favorite characters to study in the play, Death and the King's Horseman, are Jane and Simon Pilkings. While they are both inherently culture-insensitive and ignorant, they are not portrayed as hateful characters. Both of them seem to mean well when speaking to their servant, even if Simon did accidentally offend the man by belittling the concept of holy water. The couple simply doesn't realize that they are being rude when speaking to people with differing cultures. For example, when Simon and Jane wore the sacred outfits to a European ball, this was not a hateful act, because they just thought the costume was pretty. They do not know enough about Joseph's culture to purposefully share a hateful comment or express a hateful action, so they just end up looking uncultured. I think the culturally insensitive actions of the couple are supposed to represent the ignorance in those who are not diverse  in the real world. Soyinka may have been trying to express that there are many people who do not intend to hurt others, but also do not care to know enough about their cultures to prevent themselves from hurting them.