Ethnics and Heritage Destroyed George in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day

Ethnics and Heritage Destroyed George in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day

It has been said before that opposites attract when it comes to love. In Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day, two people who would seemingly never end up together somehow find a way to form a relationship that eventually leads to a marriage. George and Cocoa, the two lovers featured in this book, come from backgrounds that could not be more unlike the other. How they end up falling in love is close to a miracle, but because of their huge difference in background, they bring to each other what they wish they could have in themselves. While George is a man who comes from the diverse and strictly governed big city atmosphere of New York, Ophelia is a woman who was raised on the island of Willow Springs which is inhabited by descendants of slaves and is subject to racism and disregard for normal conduct in society. New York is a place where science and facts control the decisions of life; Willow Springs has many rituals based on magic and superstition. Because the two locations are so incredibly opposite from one another, it is difficult for George to believe in anything that Cocoa was raised on. However, in order for George to get Mama Day’s approval, he must believe and understand magic as it exists in Willow Springs both in its physical form and as a form of belief.

The biggest influence of magic on the island of Willow Springs is Mama Day. A descendant of the legendary Sapphira Wade, Mama Day is said to have convinced her master to give the land that is Willow Springs to the slaves, for which she “…bore him seven sons in less than a thousand days, to put a dagger through his kidney and escape the hangman’ noose, laughing in a burst of flames.” (Naylor 3) The influence of Sapphira’s magic is carried over into Mama Day, as it is said that she could, “…walk through a lighting storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightning in her hand; use the heat of lightning to start the kindling going under the medicine pot.” (Naylor 3) For a rational minded person like George, this and some of the other traditions can be hard to accept. One such example of George’s ideas of normal human behavior clashing with Mama Day’s occurs when Mama Day and Grandmother Abigail give the married couple a quilt made entirely of articles of clothing from past generations.