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Anancy in the Great House: Ways of Reading West Indian Fiction

(Hardback)


Publishing Details

Full Title:

Anancy in the Great House: Ways of Reading West Indian Fiction

Contributors:

By (Author) Joyce E. Jonas

ISBN:

9780313273445

Publisher:

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Imprint:

Praeger Publishers Inc

Publication Date:

24th August 1990

Country:

United States

Classifications

Readership:

Tertiary Education

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Other Subjects:

Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000
Literary theory

Dewey:

813

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Hardback

Number of Pages:

168

Description

This volume offers an interdisciplinary approach to six examples of West Indian fiction, combining symbolic anthropology with traditional literary criticism. Focusing on works by George Lamming and Wilson Harris, two vastly dissimilar Caribbean writers, Joyce Jonas identifies an emerging West Indian aesthetic, stressing the conflict between oral and written communication, and between folk culture and imperialist domination. By applying post-modernist literary theories to the texts, Dr Jonas explores colonization as a key metaphor for exploitation of gender, class, race and environment. The six novels surveyed all describe a "plantation landscape" within which the action takes place, and which provides a context for the study of the polarized world of colonizer and colonized. Two icons are employed in the analysis: the Great House, a colonial world view of binary oppositions, and Anancy, a trickster-figure of West Indian folklore. The first of the three essays focuses on the collison between imperialist culture and the submerged folk heritage. The second explores the phenomenon of exile through the artist-in-the-text, a feature common to all six novels, that places the artist at the crossroads of a colonized world. Finally, the third essay blends the anthropological concept of liminality with a feminist perspective, widening the discussion to embrace all types of oppressive exploitation. With its literary readings and its philosophical commentary, this volume may be of use as a resource for courses in West Indian and Third World literature, literature and culture, and race and gender in literature. It should also be an important addition to academic and public libraries.

Author Bio

JOYCE JONAS is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Guyana. Her articles Anancy-strategies in The Whole Armour and Reflections on Reflections appeared in the journal Kyk-over-al, and Wilson Harris and the Concept of Threshold Art was published in Journal of West Indian Literature.

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