ABSTRACT
The Jamaican proverb, 'Duppy know who fi frighten, an' who fi tell good night', is generally understood to mean that bullies can distinguish between those they can intimidate and those who are better left alone. This chapter departs somewhat from the expression's accepted meaning to suggests an alternative reading of the duppy, or ghost, of how and whom it frightens in order to suggests that this figure, so central to the Jamaican and Caribbean imaginary. It explores the duppy's presence in three novels by white Jamaican authors whose racial identities inform their representations of particularly volatile moments in Jamaican history: Hamel, the Obeah Man, Morgan's Daughter, and The Duppy. These particular texts written by authors both distanced from African Caribbean belief systems by race and socioeconomic status and, as Creoles, greatly influenced by Africanist culture emphasize the processes. According to African Caribbean belief, is the spirit of someone who has died, whose time has passed, it remains an active.
