Saying the Truth about Us: A Cultural Study of Ama Ata Aidoo’s: The Dilemma of a Ghost

Abstract

The Dilemma of a Ghost is Ama Ata Aidoo’s response to the unwary Europeans who nurse the impression that Africa is savage. A lot of Europeans disparage Africa and in their individual books, they express their aversion for the continent by presenting Africa as being too primitive and without any culture and tradition. Concerned Africans, pioneered by Chinua Achebe, in his debut novel, Things Fall Apart, proves them wrong by vividly X-raying the good images of the continent so that those who nurse ill impressions about Africa will tend to have a rethink. Other Africans follow Achebe in the evangelism. Ama Ata Aidoo is one of them. Like Achebe, she has made it vivid in her play that Africa has rich cultural heritage which must not be drawn to the mud. In the comic piece, she meticulously selects plausible and credible characters to enable her to effectively pass her information. The researcher in this paper thus uses Cultural Criticism as the theoretical framework to explore the play with the aim to vivify the techniques adopted by the author in driving home her points.