Sleeping Volcanoes: The Production (and Productivity) of Violence in Joan Anim-Addo\u27s Imoinda, Or She Who Will Lose Her Name
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- Lehigh Preserve
Abstract
This thesis foregrounds the significance of gender and violence in the creolization process within the Caribbean slave system, as depicted in Joan Anim-Addo\u27s libretto, Imoinda, Or She Who Will Lose Her Name. Written as a reimagining of Aphra Behn\u27s novella, Oroonoko, Anim-Addo\u27s Imoinda contends that violence (particularly sexual violence) is an integral component of creolization. Yet, this thesis operates on an understanding of violence in which it signifies a simultaneously destructive and productive event, wherein cultures clash and meld together in order to form a new identity. This thesis further explores the ways that a libretto, as a performative genre, specifically addresses the issue of textual silence that Anim-Addo believes is inherent in Behn\u27s Oroonoko. Finally, this thesis closes with a call to readers, in which the audience (like Imoinda\u27s daughter) is charged `not to forget\u27 neither Imoinda\u27s personal suffering, nor the collective history of her people