Nationalistic Myopia:
 Pocomania's Reflection and
 Projection of the Jamaican Nation'

 Alison J. Van Nyhuis
 Postcolonial scholars often turn to novels as a means to discuss
 nation-building. In "The national longing for form," Timothy
 Brennan even argues: "It was the novel that historically accom-
panied the rise of nations by objectifying the 'one, yet many' of na-
tional life, and by mimicking the structure of the nation, a clearly bor-
dered jumble of languages and styles" (49). Novels play an influential
role in nation-building. But privileging novels as the nation form ex-
cludes other artistic forms that could enrich nation-building discus-
sions. Like the novel, Una Marson's play, Pocomania, contains multiple
voices, offers an imaginative vision of a nation, and accompanies the
rise of a nation. The Kingston Drama Club performed the play in
Kingston, Jamaica, in January 1938, a year of widespread labor upris-
ings. In May of 1939, Norman Washington Manley led the first annual
conference of the People's National Party.2 Despite blatant similarities
between Pocomania and novels' nation-building connections, and the
fact that Pocomania was "among the very earliest plays produced in
Jamaica which dealt with Jamaican issues and used Jamaican actors

 The text of Pocomania and the right to reproduce excerpts in this essay is
courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.
 2 See "A Travesty of Reform" in Public Opinion, 27 May 1939 for Report of the
first annual conference of the PNP 1939," pp. 83 ff.