48 pages • 1 hour read
Gloria NaylorMama Day
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaPart 1, Pages 165-221Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Pages 165-221 Summary
Cocoa and George continue to date, but their relationship is tumultuous: they seem to alternate between getting along very well and fighting. For example, when George decides to tell Cocoa about Shawn, his ex-wife, Cocoa pretends not to be bothered, but her inner thoughts relay self-consciousness. On the other hand, the two share a passionate experience over Shakespeare’s King Lear soon after.
The action then shifts to Miranda, who is preparing for Candle Walk, a local Willow Springs holiday celebrated on the night of December 22nd. The narrator calls Candle Walk “a way of getting help without feeling obliged” (186), and involves the exchange of homemade gifts between neighbors. On their walk, Miranda and Abigail encounter Ambush and Bernice Duvall, who gift Miranda with a rocking chair that Ambush made. Later, Miranda decides to continue her Candle Walk to the other place. She asks Abigail if she would like to come with her, but Abigail declines, saying that “It’s too much, sister” (197). The next several pages describe Miranda’s quiet walk through the woods to the other place. She knows the way well—Naylor writes that “Miranda could walk those west woods stone blind” (198)—but she struggles to make the walk, concluding “she wasn’t meant to get to the other place tonight” (198). Her mind wanders to her family: Cocoa, Abigail, their deceased sister, Peace, and her mother and father. She also wonders how Bernice will react to the other place when the two must inevitably meet there.
The novel returns once again to Cocoa and George’s relationship, which continues to be marked by frequent fighting. Cocoa feels that George is keeping secrets, especially about Shawn, whom she learns works in the same building. Out of spite, Cocoa agrees to go on a date with another man. George has had enough of this back-and-forth; he ultimately decides he wants to spend the rest of his life with Cocoa and prepares to propose. However, Cocoa proposes to George first.
Part 1, Pages 165-221 Analysis
One recurring motif in Mama Day are the works of the playwright William Shakespeare. For example, Ophelia—which is Cocoa’s given name—is the name of a character in Hamlet, while Miranda is the name of a character in The Tempest, and Cocoa and George bond over Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear. In fact, one could argue that Cocoa and George’s relationship resembles that of Romeo and Juliet, two characters from vastly-different backgrounds who nevertheless realize that they are “star-crossed” lovers, seemingly destined to fall in love. Though they continuously fight, they seem unable to escape spending the rest of their lives together. Just as George could offer no logical explanation for why he decided to hire Cocoa in the first place, there seems to be no rationality behind the two getting married—but they do so anyway. Naylor merges the world of the supernatural with the world of the natural, or, rather, she shows how the world of the supernatural imposes itself onto the world of the natural.
Candle Walk offers another look into the colorful folklore of Willow Springs, but it also comes with its own counterpart: Christmas. The two holidays occur only three days apart and are marked by similar themes of gift exchange and community. Once again, Mama Day explores how ritual can take many, equally valid forms. In this case, Candle Walk is simply another way of going about Christmas. The narrator’s description of Candle Walk also reintroduces another of the novel’s central questions: namely, when is change appropriate, and when is it not? As Miranda reflects on how the younger generations are interpreting Candle Walk, she feels surprisingly unthreatened: she recalls how the holiday used to be even more different, and now, young people are simply taking it in a different direction. She seems to be fine with these kinds of changes in a way that she is decidedly not fine with when it comes to the natural order of things (for example, Bernice’s taking the fertility pills). Naylor leaves it up to the reader to decide whether Miranda’s conflicting opinions make sense or are hypocritical.
Whenever the setting switches to Willow Springs, readers can be sure that allusions to the other place are not far behind. Naylor continues to refer to the other place in vague, shadowy terms: even Abigail, Miranda’s sister, seems reluctant to go there, and although Miranda knows the way well, there seems to be something keeping her from the other place on her Candle Walk. Still, it seems inevitable that Bernice and Miranda will end up there together; to do what, exactly, is hard to tell, but that only adds to the other place’s mythic quality. In giving the other place such a mysterious atmosphere, Naylor shows that places—and not just people—can have supernatural power.
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