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 2, Pages 326-388Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Pages 326-388 Summary
George and Miranda are still in Willow Springs, and they meet early in the morning to go fishing. The two have a conversation about fishing folklore; Miranda tells George that it is bad luck to talk to an old woman before fishing, but George dismisses the superstition, saying, “I’ve always made my own luck” (337). Miranda leads George on a long walk through the woods, and George’s attention is drawn to the tombstone of Bascombe Wade. Miranda tells George that Wade “fell under the spell of a woman he owned—only in body, not in mind” (340).
The action then turns to the card game at Dr. Buzzard’s place. The players are George, Dr. Buzzard, Parris the barber, Junior Lee, and a local named Rickshaw. Despite considering himself a good poker player, George quickly realizes that Dr. Buzzard is somehow cheating and “the pure strategy [George had] been using wouldn’t work to [his] advantage against [Buzzard]” (347-48). Eventually, George is able to figure out how exactly Dr. Buzzard is cheating, and George foils his plans to win the card game. Instead of being upset, however, the other players begin singing a mournful spiritual. This surprises and fascinates George, who “didn’t understand the rhythm” but “refused to spoil it by attempting to join in” (352).
The next day, George and Cocoa have a conversation about Willow Springs and the Day family history. George, infatuated with the heritage, says he could see himself staying in Willow Springs “forever” (362). Cocoa disagrees, claiming that for most of the year “[t]here is absolutely nothing going on here” (362). Later, the two make the walk to the other place. George remarks on the impressiveness of the house but also feels “that house had known a lot of pain” (371) and “resonated loss” (372). Miranda “feels death all around her” (372); she senses a massive storm coming, and she talks with Abigail about how to prepare for it. This section ends with a particularly nasty fight between George and Cocoa about Shawn, which culminates with Cocoa hitting George with a vase.
Part 2, Pages 326-388 Analysis
One of Mama Day’s motifs is the importance of names: many characters have two or more names (for example, Cocoa/Ophelia, Miranda/Mama Day, Ambush/Charles, Charles/Chick/Little Caesar). Even minor characters, such as Carmen Rae’s baby, “Blackbird,” receive nicknames from other characters. The naming underscores the novel’s theme that people’s pasts stay with them forever: even characters who seem self-conscious about one of their names, such as Cocoa, cannot get away from them completely. Names, like history, become an indelible part of who people are.
These pages also provide additional descriptions of the other place. George describes it in contradictory terms: it is a “lovely place,” but it “resonated loss” and “had known a lot of pain” (372). The other place is simultaneously beautiful and unsettling and has its own liminality, just like Willow Springs. Additionally, Naylor uses personification to further characterize the other place. Personification is the act of giving human characteristics or actions to inanimate objects or places; for example, the phrase “Time is running out the door” gives the abstract concept of time the human ability to run. Personification offers a unique way to characterize an object or place besides simply describing its features: the object or place suddenly becomes capable of thinking about and interacting with the world around it. Here, Naylor’s personification brings the other place to life: it feels pain. This further contributes to the other place’s mythical “character,” and it gives the place power beyond merely the townspeople’s belief.
This section also explores another of the novel’s motifs: rhythm. After George wins the card game at Dr. Buzzard’s, the other players erupt into a spiritual that George finds both confusing and entrancing. He thinks, “I didn’t understand the rhythm and I refused to spoil it by attempting to join in” (352). This is not the novel’s first mention of rhythm; in the scene with Bernice and Miranda at the other place, the narrator writes, “A rhythm older than woman draws it in and holds it tight” (236). Even George hears the rhythm of Willow Springs in his dream, which he describes as a “slow, rhythmic chant” (303). Willow Springs has a spiritual rhythm all its own. Whereas most people use time to mark the ebbs and flows of life, Willow Springs pulls from something deeper. The rhythm of the island—and the town—points to the importance of the spiritual and ritualized past.
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By Gloria Naylor
