dilemma of a ghost and anowa pdf

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Ama Ata Aidoo And The Akan Culture A Critique Of The Dilemma Of A Ghost And Anowa

2013, International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research

The paper focuses on the relationship that exists between literature and culture through a critical analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo's The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa. This exercise has become necessary due to the misconception that some people usually have about literature and the way it relates to our lives. Thus there is sometimes the misconceived idea that literature is only imaginative, fictional, and creative but does not address issues related to everyday life. The paper corrects this misunderstanding about literature by exploring the literary qualities and cultural issues that have been highlighted by Aidoo in her two plays as well as relating such issues of mores and ethos to the Akan living culture.

Related Papers

Cecilia Addei

This study is a study in Literature and Culture. Its primary objective is to throw light on and to contribute to the already existing school of thought as to exactly what the culture of a people is and to see how the elements of culture are successfully portrayed in literary works. To do these two Ghanaian playwrights namely: Efua Sutherland and Ama Ata Aidoo have been selected. A critical look has been taken at a play each of these selected playwrights. The study looks at Sutherland's The Marriage of Anansewa and Aidoo's The Dilemma of a Ghost.

Awo Mana Asiedu

Ama Ata Aidoo, the well known Ghanaian writer, has been keenly concerned with themes of slavery and issues regarding Africans in the Diaspora. In her two published plays, The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa, the return of the African American to the continent of Africa and attitudes of Africans to the slave trade feature prominently. Both of these plays make use of elements of Ghanaian traditional folklore to which Aidoo was introduced quite early in life by her mother and grandmother. The Dilemma of a Ghost has as its central motif a childhood song about a ghost at Elmina junction who did not know whether to go to Cape Coast or to Elrnina. The historic Ghanaian coastal cities, Elmina and Cape Coast, are in themselves significant symbols of the slave trade. They house important castles and forts which served as trading posts for slaves during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Slaves were kept in these massive castles to await ships to carry them off to their lives of servitude in Europe and America. Anowa also has as its basic source the folktale of the beautiful young woman who refuses suitors approved by her parents and insolently chooses her own husband only to discover that she had made a terrible mistake. These traditional sources become, for Aidoo, metaphors through which she addresses the issue of slavery and its contemporary repercussions for Africans and people of African descent. This article examines the permutations of these traditional sources, in Aidoo's two plays, towards effectively addressing the near taboo subject of slavery and its lasting repercussions.

Children's Literature Association Quarterly

Helen Yitah

Yogita Goyal

Esther Pujolràs

An African (Auto)biography: Ama Ata Aidoo's Literary Quest es un estudio exhaustivo de lo que considero la primera fase de la obra de la escritora ghaneana, Ama Ata Aidoo. El texto que marca la primera fase del desarrollo y consolidacion de la voz de Aidoo es Our Sister Killjoy or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint, un texto inclasificable genericamente y una presencia indiscutible en la literatura africana anglofona. Ama Ata Aidoo nacio en el ano 1943 en la Central Region de Ghana, por aquel entonces colonia britanica llamada Gold Coast. Asi pues, la experiencia vital de Aidoo se ve definida por el colonialismo, la lucha por la independencia, la esperanza de un futuro postcolonial y la decepcion del neocolonialismo. La experienca literaria de Aidoo se nutre de los textos que configuran la tradicion literaria occidental, por una parte, y la rica tradicion oral africana, por la otra. Su busqueda literaria -su lucha por encontrar y definir una voz propia- es un intento de reconc...

European Journal of English Language and Linguistics Research

Naglaa Abou-Agag

The paper investigates the description of East/West cultural relations in Ama Ata Aidoo's Dilemma of a Ghost. Close analysis of the text proves that the hegemony of the English language and Western structures still manifest themselves in the twenty first century. Indeed, English is a tool used by Neocolonialism, seemingly to bring speakers of the language from all over the world closer. Reading a text in English inherently involves drawing upon the heritage received from the native speakers of the language. The superiority of English language and literature may, then, be taken for granted and may be part of the subconscious. Hence, the hegemony of the English language further reaffirms the existence of the state of colonialism in spite of the withdrawal of foreign armed forces and foreign government officials from traditional British colonies and protectorates.

abraham oloche

ERIC NKETIAH

VINCENT ASSANFUL, PhD