Gloria Naylors Mama Day Essay -- Gloria Naylor Mama Day Essays

Gloria Naylors mommy DayIt is impossible to lay out Gloria Naylors 1988 novel, Mama Day, in wiz way. There be multiple standpoints that a ref can take in explaining various events that occur throughout the book, as well as distinct 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 individualized experiences and beliefs. The numerosity of perspectives in Gloria Naylors Mama Day is embodied in the legend of Sapphira Wade and the dynamics amid logic and the supernatural and between George and deep brown. Sapphira Wade is a character that Naylor uses as a tool to right apart present the theme of multiple perspectives. Sapphira, who was brought to the island of Willow Springs as a knuckle down in 1819, is at the top of the Day family tree. Through time her bequest had transformed to the point that her true i dentity became more of a issuing of opinion than a matter of fact. Even the simple matter of the coming into court of her skin becomes so distorted through the time span of a few generations that each member of the Willow Springs community describes her complexion differently. In regards to her supernatural attributes, members of the community portray Sapphira as being able to walkway through a lightning storm without being touched and use the heat energy of lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot depending upon which of them takes a mind to her (Naylor 3). It is up to the reader to decide which viewpoints to accept about Sapphira. These vary views on Sapphiras identity provide the reader with immediate licence of the theme of multiple tr... ...its not as if they were dressing to petition the pope (Naylor 230). Of course Cocoas perception of the situation was rather different I had to be perfect that evening she says (Naylor 233). Both G eorge and Cocoa quality as if the discrepancy was the fault of the other. Their attitudes regarding the situation that night are completely different. Mama Day is filled with situations in which the theme of multiplicity of perception arises. Various types of readers can interpret these situations in ways they feel are appropriate, just as different characters tend to have different perceptions of subjects based on their own values and ways of thinking. The important thing is that the reader does not forget that there is, in fact, more than one way to view these situations, and ignoring any one of them can take away from the worth of the book.