| This dissertation will utilize a method informed by the ideas and worldview of Ifa, an ancient African spiritual system, to unlock deeper levels of meaning in the writing of African peoples. The dissertation argues that this methodology, which I name the Ifa Paradigm, will permit us to read Caribbean and African American texts in an entirely new way. I want to investigate how some literary use of colors, signs, symbols, numbers, images, myths, legends, and landscapes reference African culture. A critical method, the paradigm suggests that knowledge of continental African cultures can provide a richer critique of work by Africans in the diaspora. It further outlines the particular areas of knowledge that would assist with such a critique. These---Orishas, ancestors, ritual, initiation, conjuring, magic, divination---are what will frame the method and be brought to bear on the critique of specific works with a view to enrich understanding of them.;Utilizing the Ifa Paradigm, the dissertation will examine at length four texts---two Caribbean and two Caribbean---Martiniquan Edouard Glissant's The Ripening, Grenadian Merle Collins' Angel, African American Tina McElroy Ansa's Baby of the Family, and African American Arthur Flowers' Another Good Loving Blues. One additional text---Puerto Rican Rosario Ferre's short story "The Youngest Doll"---will be examined in the introduction to demonstrate my paradigm.;Each text will be situated within the frame of Edward Braithwaite's four kinds of literature---rhetorical literature, literature of African survival, literature of African expression, literature of reconnection. As I approach analysis of each text, I ask: (1) Does the story's use of symbolic language suggest the influence of African cultural traditions in the diaspora? (2) What cultural traditions specifically and how might they be represented in the community that helped to shape the work?;Colors, numbers, and particular symbols play a major role in the progression of theme and plot. There is symbolic use of apples, honey, brass, dogs, drums, water, fire, wood, red, recipes, spells, dances, the deceased, spirits, wind, thunder, lightning, snakes, dreams, black, all of which are representative of various deities and the ancestors. Thus the Ifa Paradigm will examine the meanings imbedded within the use of these particular symbols. |
