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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Prologue Summary
The novel’s Prologue, which takes place in August 1999, introduces readers to the folklore of Willow Springs, one of the novel’s two primary settings. The narrator describes the legend of Sapphira Wade, a young slave woman sold to Bascombe Wade in 1819. According to the Willow Springs locals, Sapphira possessed supernatural powers: “She could walk through a lightning storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightning in the palm of her hand […] She turned the moon into salve, the stars in a swaddling cloth, and healed the wounds of every creature walking up on two or down on four” (10). In fact, the legend goes that Sapphira bore Bascombe Wade seven sons before killing him, though the exact cause of Wade’s death is disputed. Now, to even speak Sapphira’s name is taboo in Willow Springs.
The Prologue also familiarizes readers with the history of Willow Springs, including its unusual geographical status. Willow Springs is an island that seems to be somewhere between or on the border of Georgia and South Carolina, but it “ain’t in no state” (12), and the only way on or off the island is by way of a single bridge “that [has] gotta be rebuilt after every big storm” (13). However, that does not stop developers from occasionally attempting to buy out the land from the locals. To negotiate, though, potential buyers must go through Miranda “Mama” Day, who herself is supposedly a descendant of Sapphira Wade and, as such, carries heavy influence in the Willow Springs community.
As the Prologue concludes, the narrator begins using the second person “you,” suggesting he or she is speaking directly to an unnamed listener. The narrator alludes to the story of two people named Cocoa and George and “that summer fourteen years ago when she left, but he stayed” (22). The narrator also alludes to the “other place,” a strange location in Willow Springs that remains shrouded in mystery until the novel’s second part.
Prologue Analysis
The Prologue immediately raises a reoccurring question of the novel: what is real and what is superstition? Readers must decide whether mythological stories like Sapphira Wade’s are just local folklore, or whether they hold truth. It is the mystery surrounding Sapphira that makes her a frightening figure, both for readers and for the Willow Springs locals. In addition, the legend of Sapphira also extends to Mama Day, who is a direct descendant of the legendary slave; in this way, Miranda herself becomes a larger-than-life character who has her own folkloric reputation in the town. Like Sapphira, Mama Day is also rumored to have supernatural powers. Throughout the novel, Naylor will continue to juxtapose, or compare and contrast, Miranda’s “brand” of sorcery with that of other characters, including Dr. Buzzard and Ruby.
The Prologue also introduces readers to the liminality of Willow Springs itself. Liminality refers to the ambiguous state of being in between places, rather than having a definite, traceable location. Willow Springs embodies liminality in several ways: rather than being located in either Georgia or South Carolina, it seems to be somewhere in the middle, which could serve both to its advantage and its detriment. For example, being “in between” shields characters like Dr. Buzzard from the law, but it also means the town has fewer resources for dealing with events like the storm, in Part 2 of the novel. However, Willow Springs also seems to be liminal in terms of time, not just place: the third-person narrator frequently refers to it as a place where time stands still and the seasons never change.
Finally, the Prologue introduces readers to a mysterious location called the “other place.” Naylor continues to build suspense about the other place throughout Part 1 of the novel, building it up as something that has achieved legendary status. In fact, the other place is itself a place of liminality: although it is a part of Willow Springs, it is somehow isolated from the rest of the community, and that alone grants it a large part of its supernatural importance. Just as the narrator speaks of “crossing over” into Willow Springs by way of the town’s only bridge, it is implied that certain characters must cross over to the “other place,” too. For example, much later in the novel, Bernice Duval has “to step over the last line all by herself” (164). By associating the other place with the idea of crossing over—which also implies dying and crossing over to the afterlife—Naylor characterizes the other place as a place separate from the rest of the world and immersed in the supernatural.
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By Gloria Naylor
