120 ALISON J. VAN NYHUIS

conventional parson." Both of these educated, middle class men know
of lower-class revivalist practices, but neither man knows what
pocomania means. David tells the Reverend,

 the word means, I think, 'a little madness'-it's this religious mania.
 Those abominable shouting fanatics seem to have fascinated her. She
 could never resist drums and now, it is beastly-I hate to think. (2.2)

The Reverend responds, "The revivalists? It's incredible. I had never
heard them called by that name, but it's an excellent name. I can't be-
lieve it. Has she really joined in with them?" (2.2) The Reverend's "us/
them" distinction reflects class divisions in Jamaica: those involved
with pocomania tended to be at the lower end of the socioeconomic
scale.12 Stella's name, Miss Manners, reminds the audience what Stella
loses in that exchange, her manners, morals, and respectability. As
George Mosse explains in his introduction to Nationalism and Sexual-
ity, "manners and morals cannot be separated. Both were intrinsic as-
pects of man's control over his sexual passions" (4). Staging Stella
Manners' rejection of middle-class respectability for lower class besti-
ality as a real possibility entrenches middle-class fears of pocomania:
pocomania could spread across class lines and infect members of the
middle class.
 The play's binding of pocomania with fatal connotations reflects but
also critiques the orthodox Christian middle-class perspectives of a
binary, oppositional relationship between members of the Jamaican
middle and lower classes, respectively: true versus false religious be-
liefs, good versus evil worship, eternal salvation versus eternal dam-
nation, respectable versus disrespectable lifestyles, and emotional/
physical stability versus emotional mania and physical illness."3 For
example, in the Reverend's eyes, pocomania could kill the Baptist


 12 In a 1956 sociological essay, Simpson writes, "those who are involved in
revivalism are at the lower end of the socio-economic scale" (408). He also writes
that "their work is dull, family life is unstable, school is not very meaningful, and
their expectations for satisfactions in this life are not that great." Other scholars
consistently link revivalists practices with the lower classes.
 : Edward Seaga's "Revival Cults in Jamaica: Notes Towards a Sociology of
Religion," published in 1969, supports my reading that these perceived dichotomies
reflect those held by the Jamaican middle class's perspectives. Seaga claims the
Christian middle class views revivalists as "pagan, superstitious, comical in ritual
behavior, tolerant of dishonesty" (5).