Gloria Naylor's Mama Day

Alice Malsenior Walker, an African American born into poverty, came into this world on February 9, 1944 in Eatonon, Georgia. She was the youngest child of eight children born to Willie Lee and Minnie Tallulah Walkers. Both of her parents were sharecroppers as well as expert story tellers. Things were not easy for the Walkers and Alice often witnessed her mother’s frustration of having the burden to take care of eight children with little means. Even though children of share croppers were usually made to work the fields, Alice’s mother made sure that her kids received an education. Alice was brilliant at writing poetry.

In “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens”, Alice Walker looks to educate us on the hardships that almost all black women face when trying to express themselves through things such as art. She delves into many sociological and psychological concepts that have affected black women throughout human history. These concepts and ideologies created a realm for mass exclusion, discrimination, and oppression of many African American women, including Alice Walker’s Mother, who Alice utilizes as one of her particular examples. The writing thematically aims to show how these concepts of sexism, racism, and even classism have contributed to black women’s lack of individuality, optimism, and fulfillment for generations. The author does a tremendous job of defending and expanding upon her arguments. She has a credible background, being a black woman that produces the art of literature herself. As well as being raised by one, Walker’s first-hand experience warrants high regard. Therefore, her use of abstract and introspective language is presented clearly and convincingly. Also, her use of evidence and support from sources like Jean Toomer, Virginia Woolf, and Phillis Wheatley, all produce more validity for her stance through poems, quotes, and even experiences. All these individuals have their own accounts pertaining to the oppression of black women and their individuality. Successfully arguing that the artistry plights of black women described in “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” are

It is impossible to interpret Gloria Naylor’s 1988 novel, Mama Day, in one way. There are multiple standpoints that a reader can take in explaining various events that occur throughout the book, as well as different ways that the characters in the book interpret these events. The author never fully clarifies many questions that the story generates so as to leave the readers with the opportunity to answer them based on their own personal experiences and beliefs. The multiplicity of perspectives in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day is embodied in the legend of Sapphira Wade and the dynamics between logic and the supernatural and between George and Cocoa.

In “Mommy, What Does Nigger Mean?”, author Gloria Naylor explains throughout her piece that reality shapes language and language can shape reality. Naylor explains this, “chicken or the egg dispute” (Naylor 1) through her experiences with the word nigger. Gloria explains how she starts on one side of reality and shaping her language, then comes to another understanding from the boy in her third grade class. Language can be how words are used, what their meaning is and the purpose behind that selection of words. Reality is everyday life and experiences. When in third grade Naylor encounters nigger as a racial derogatory when a boy said “nigger” to her while receiving graded tests back. To Gloria it was anything but a racial put down since

George and Ophelia, two characters in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day, have a complex yet intimate relationship. They meet in New York where they both live. Throughout their hardships, Ophelia and George stay together and eventually get married. Ophelia often picks fights with George to test his love for her, and time after time, he proves to her that he does love her. Gloria Naylor uses George as a Christ figure in his relationship with Ophelia to eventually save her life.

In “everyday Use,” Alice Walker tells a narrative of a mother’s frustrating relationship together with her two daughters. At this facet, “,Everyday Use”, tells that how a mom little by little refuses the cursory values of her older, successful daughter at the aspect of the useful values of her younger, much less lucky daughter. On a deeper outlook, Alice Walker takes on the theme of heritage and its norms as it applies to African-Americans.

Charles Waddell Chesnutt is an African American writer who writes many novels and short stories about African American superstitions and folklore of the south in “The Conjure Woman”. “The Conjure Woman” is a collection of folk tales that explore complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War. Chesnutt writes these stories in vernacular forms to represent the oral act of storytelling and express Chesnutt’s black identity and cultural heritage of African American people. Chesnutt's folktales are narrated either to teach the readers lessons or to represent how African American people are treated by whites as second class citizens. The following essay concentrates on superstitions and folklore in Chesnutt’s stories, and how Chesnutt uses African American folklore

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

The Wiz has several female characters that are central to the storyline: Aunt Em, Miss One the Good Witch of the North, Evillene the Wicked Witch of the West, Evamean the Wicked Witch of the East, Glinda the Good Witch of the South, and Dorothy. All of them except for Dorothy are representative of some form of the motherly family-oriented place African-American woman hold in society. Dorothy represents a new type of female role for African-American woman in society, one that is independent and has choices about what role she wants to play in society. This paper argues that Motown’s production of The Wiz shows the creation of a new role for black women in society, one independent from the motherly family-oriented role society previously expected of them.

Mama Day by Gloria Naylor portrays magic as a central force in the lives of the characters living on Willow Springs, including George who is an outsider brought on the inside. The art of enchantment or magic is the reason the island manages to sustain itself, regardless of pressures on the outside (white capitalism) or on the inside. The entire novel is set on the premise of the existence of an island so surreal and arguably idealistic, that black people are successfully governed by themselves. Willow Springs could be portrayed as a utopia for African Americans living in a racialized America. This paper seeks to explore the extents to which supernatural influences characterize the lives of Sapphira, Miranda and Ruby, as well as establish the roles they serve individually.

Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day, through prefatory documents at the beginning of the novel, is able to further her rewrite of the African experience post-slavery. Naylor published Mama Day in 1988. During that year the term African American had been coined by Jesse Jackson. By using this term today we are able to honor our current place as American while also giving recognition and preserving our African Heritage Through the use of three prefatory documents Naylor is able to rewrite the historical African experience post-slavery.First through the use of the Day family tree to allude to the bible and the depiction of Sapphira Wade as a God-like person. Secondly through the use of the Bill of sale to demonstrate the relationship of slaves with

In Pearl Cleage's Flyin’ West the historical narrative of reconstruction and migration of African-Americans post civil war is retold from the perspective of three familial women living in Nicodemus, Kansas. The story touches on an array of issues, many of which we still deal with today, such as miscegenation, colorism, the exodus of African-Americans from the south, sisterhood, racism, transgressing gender roles, and standards of beauty. The characters Minnie, Fannie, Mrs. Leah, and Frank all create this perfect blend of reality that creates relatability and reveals truths about the struggles for black folk in Nicodemus, Kansas circa 1898. The ability for Flyin’ West to recount/retell history from another perspective while maintaining contemporary

The Souls of Black Folk broadens the minds of the readers, and gives the reader a deeper understanding into the lives of people of African heritage. W.E.B. Du Bois articulates the true meaning of the problem of the color-line through his vast knowledge of American history and descriptive personal scenarios. Du Bois

Haley’s Roots is a pastoral, placed at the intersection of historiography, ethnography and genealogy. While narrating the history of the Afro-American, he plays with antinomies of fiction and facts with an eye of a mythologist. There is a vast catalogue of people, places and incidents in Roots and the time movements are non-linear. The story shifts from Africa to America and vice-a-versa repeatedly, foregrounding the relationship between the rural agricultural life patterns that mark the seasonal routines of both people of Mandinka origin and plantation slaves. For example Haley shifts abruptly from the story of Kunta to that of Kizzy of Chicken George, trying to become coherence in the present by being is coherent to the past. It combines

Toni Morrison develops the prospects of Afro-American environmental writing through a black male protagonist and the healing potential of southern woodlands. Thus she forces an evaluation of Afro-American attitudes toward, pastoral, wilderness as well as wildlife. Her remarkable novel Song of Solomon observes the intricate relations of an Afro-American protagonist with nature like southern fields and woodlands, as do narratives by Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright and Alex Haley in the present study. The significant difference is that Morrison’s depiction of a black man returning to the South in a way of reverse pastoralism, learning his family-history (a version of genealogy) and experiencing a pristine sense of rootedness in the place, relates