New York vs. Willow Springs: Remapping America in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day

Noriega-Sanchez, Maria Ruth (2003). New York vs. Willow Springs: Remapping America in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day. In: 25th International Conference of AEDEAN, 13-15 Dec 2001, Granada, Spain.

URL: http://www.ugr.es/~aedean25/

Abstract

In her novel Mama Day (1988), the African American writer Gloria Naylor presents a double narrative set in opposite worlds, New York and the island of Willow Springs. This paper aims to discuss the strategies that Naylor uses in her configuration of both worlds and, particularly, in the creation of an isolated space that functions as the symbolic centre of an autonomous African American identity. In her treatment of issues related to land and genealogy, Naylor challenges the traditional concept of America and reconstructs an alternative black history. Analysis will focus on the framing documents and collective prologue of the novel, as well as on its intertextual references. Naylor engages in a revisionary project of Western genres that undermines dominant myths and foregrounds oral tradition and African American literary practices. Her specific reworking of Shakespeare’s The Tempest addresses significant questions about race, ideology, and colonialism.

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