NATIONALISTIC MYOPIA 125

 But contextualizing Stella's pocomania turn diminishes its poten-
tially empowering effects. Linking female leadership and empowerment
with pocomania could generate even more disdain for pocomania and
its followers. Pocomania's feminized space disrupts the middle-class
orthodox Christian perspectives of respectable gender roles. David
explains, "Besides, these thousands and thousands who live in concu-
binage, they are kept outside the Church" (2.2). In other words, the
orthodox Christian middle class would probably view Stella's move as
an exchange of respectability for immorality.
 Near the play's conclusion, dialogue between David and Stella sug-
gests that Stella plans to exchange a more European, respectable, pa-
triarchal lifestyle for a more African, folk, matriarchal lifestyle:

 DAVID. No more Pocomonia then?
 STELLA. No more Pocomania. I was always really frightened of it, but
 I had to have something.
 DAVID. I shall try to give you something better. (3.3)

Ending the play with Stella's blatant rejection of pocomania and David's
offer of "something better" would have made it much more explicit
that Stella planned on exchanging pocomania for marriage. But the
play continues, and the final lines open up additional readings.
 The final lines suggest Stella could choose both pocomania and
marriage. In response to David's offer of "something better," Stella asks,
"A little madness? (3.3). "A little madness?" could mean many ways,
including heterosexual love, spontaneity, or pocomania. As Edward
Seaga notes in "Revival Cults in Jamaica: Notes Towards a Sociology
on Religion," people have called Pocomania (the only form of the word
used in the play), not Pukkumina, the "proper form by relating the prac-
tices of the cult to the alleged Spanish translation 'little madness'" (4).
Is Stella cleverly reversing her previous "No more Pocomania" answer
when she asks, "A little madness?"? David could have interpreted these
three words as a request for pocomania. Earlier in the play, he uses the
words "a little madness" to explain what pocomania means (2.2). But
instead of interpreting "A little madness?" as an exchange of marriage
for pocomania, David seems to interpret the question as an addition
to their life together: "Yes, I suppose love can be called that as well. We
all need a little madness in our lives perhaps." If "A little madness?"
means a little pocomania, then pocomania becomes love. Only then
does Stella say, "Now you have admitted that, it will be so much easier
to love you" (2.2). This line concludes the play, powerfully bridging