Inflationary and Deflationary Characterization in the Novels of Ayi Kwei Armah

Abstract

It is a truism of course, that much of the pleasure of contemporary readers comes from the study of characters. For every literary work is an artistic response of the perception of man and his society. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Ayi Kwei Armah employs the Inflationary and deflationary technique of characterization which is shown to be his foremost stylistic method in his novels. Armah does so by revealing that his technique is a means of objective correlative, meaningful within the African society. Armah’s technique as this study reveals brings to the fore that characters who perpetrate corruption and the destructiveness inherent in the African continent are deflated. And morally upright characters are presented in the inflationary mode.