Kwame Kwei-Armah's Triptych Technique in Delineating the Black British Community

Abstract

This paper analyses the three plays of Kwame Kwei-Armah's triptych, Elmina's Kitchen (2003), Fix Up (2004) and Statement of Regret (2007), in light of Ferdinand de Saussure's theory of semiotics. Kwei-Armah attempts to record the experience of Afro-Caribbean immigrants in Britain and, in so doing, his technique depends on employing the sign notion of this theory. In his Course in General Linguistics, Saussure illustrates that semiotics is a science which studies signs in a social milieu; hence signs are not mere verbal words but there is meaning behind the connection that reflects the reality that people are living in their societies. The study reveal show the playwright uses this entity to signify elements of the Caribbean culture in the context of the triptych which is a feature of his plays that no previous work has mainly focused on in detail.