Postcolonial Feminist Theory: An Overview - Igcollege.org

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Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, Nandeddivine a new home in Brewster Place byembracing and nurturing those who sharethat place with her. If, however, thesemarginalized communities do not own theirphysical spaces, theydo expand their definitions of family topeople 'homes' that extend through timerather than space. Children become thepromise of a future 'home' n the world inwhich they may live, and communal survivalbecomes the means to each that home.Consequently, Mattie is willing to suffer andeven die to enable her children and othermembers of her extended concept of familyto continue the struggle to tear down thewalls that confine them. This is to claim ahome in a future they strive to make a realpossibility.IIIMama Day too is, in many ways, related tocommunity and voices. In a magicoreligiousmanner, Gloria Naylor presents ahealthy, alternative community in this novelwhich points out the short-sightedness ofethnographers. Lindsay Tucker explains howNaylor divines a different community inMama Day with the help of narrativestrategy and collective voice:For example, the collective voice,which introduced the reader to thecommunity of Willow Springs,concludes with a critique ofethnography and its methodologies.The failure of the ethnographer is dueto his inability to hear and to ask theright questions, a failing that, the voiceseems to warn us, may be our own:".....he could listen to them," the voiceexplains, "the way you been listeningto us right now. Think about it: ain'tnobody really talking to you". 10 1Naylor also depicts a group of conjures inMama Day. Ruby, Dr. Buzzard, thematernal ancestor Sapphira Wade and MamaDay figure prominently in the novel. Theseconjures brings a new perspective into thenarrative and they also help Naylor toconstruct an Afro-centric community in thenovel. The conjurers in Mama Day bringforth a different community in WillowSprings, the members of which have strongfaith in African medicinal practices, beliefsystems, religion and ancestry.Conjuration also has some significance in thecontext of space. It creates narrative spaceand linguistic space within the community.Naylor finds for her conjures enough spaceswithin the framework of the folktale. Sherips open the patriarchal territory of folktaleand gives conjure women such as MirandaRuby visible textual presence.Mama Day deals with space and communityin another way too. Naylor dissolves thebinaries of past and present, and magic andreal – all the boundaries of conventionalnarratives. Naylor's attempt on theboundaries of narratives can also be seen asher attempt on the boundaries of space withina tradition – patriarchal or capitalist tradition.Lindsey Tucker also notes this complexmetaphor involving language, narrative,space and community in Mama Day:...4...Naylor's employment of a communalvoice allows her to establish MamaDay's rootedness in the place, sincethis voice not only gathers up themany voices of the community, pastand present, but allows theconsciousness of Mama Day to comethrough when it is important to do so. Thusthe communal voice succeeds indemolishing the boundaries betweenomniscient and limited-omniscientpoints of view, even as the novel'ssubject matter demolishes theboundaries between the mimetic andthe magical. 2Mama Day also evokes a community thatdraws its spiritual and mental strength fromthe African heritage. Naylor makes WillowSprings look estranged from the mainlandand the people living in this island preferringnot to be aligned with American communitypatterns. Amy Levin identified the ideologybehind the community life in Willow Springsas Africanism. She writes:In Naylor's Mama Day, thecommunity of Willow Springs reflectsthe value and power relations evidentin West African women's societies.Allusions to Africa are indirect andappear trough metonyms and291 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1
Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, Nandedmetaphors. Moreover, despite theircontinuity, Naylor emphasizes theunderlying dissimilarities betweenisland and mainland cultures. (p - 20) 3Levin also perceives similarities between theWillow Springs community with the womencentered Sande Societies of Sierre Leone andIvory Coast. According to Levin, the plot ofMama Day reflects a metaphor of maternitywhich is comparable to that of motherhood inSande Society. In this regard, Levin writes:A summary of the duties of the SandeSowei, or leader, reveals deepersimilarities between her position andMama Day's role in her community.The Sowei is a powerful woman whois elected to office. Much of herpower is directly attributable to herknowledge of society secrets fromwhich other members are excluded.Another distinguishing feature is theSowei's mastery of society's practices.She throws its techniques of healing,she dances in its rituals, and she wearsthe black Sowo mask, the embodimentand articulation of the society's ideals(p – 32) 4 .Naylor's notion of an Afro-centriccommunity is also tempered by a belief in therelationship with the ancestors. Quite visibleis the connection between the communityand the graveyard in Mama Day. Themembers of the Willow Springs communityrefer to the graves of their ancestors as if theyare animated spaces. George, an outsiderbrought up in the materialist mainlandculture, struggles to understand thesignificance of the ancestors for the WillowSprings Community. Even his logo-centricperception of the graveyard cannot miss thecloseness and the transcendental strength ofCocoa's community:The tombstones – some granite, somelimestone – were of varying heightswith no dates and only one name. Youexplained that they were all Days sothere was n o need for a surname. Butwhat, as in your case, if a womanmarried? You live a Day and you die aDay. Early woman's lib, I said with asmile. A bit more than that, youanswered. You showed me how theywere grouped by generations: theseven brothers and then the sevenbefore them. The sizes of the headstones represented the missing dates –but only in relationship to each other.There was a Peace who died youngertan another Peace and so her stone wassmaller. There was your mother'sstone – Grace – and she had obviouslydied younger tan her sister. Hope,Mama Day, you said, would have thetallest stone. She'd already livedlonger tan any day before her. Thecloseness of all this awed me – Peoplewho could be this self-contained. Whohad redefined time? NO, totallydisregarded it. (Naylor, p – 218).David Cowart finds the patters of positivetribal connections in this Willow Springscommunity. Cowart also reads West Africanconstructive social practices in Naylor'spicture of the community:Here, in a number of scenes, theisland's living inhabitants sustainrelationships with their ancestors –indeed, worship them – in moments oftribal communion very much likethose still common among Dogon, theYoruba, the Fon, and other peoples ofWest Africa. 5 .The black community in Willow Springs isdifference from the mainland AfricanAmerican community in one more account.Willow Springs community has a separateAfro-American identity as it is insulatedfrom the shame of slavery and racialoppression. The inhabitants of WillowSprings are aware that the island has a legacyof freedom and hence they do not seethemselves, unlike the majority of AfricanAmericans, as the property and the other ofwhite masters. David Cowart explain thisunique emancipating legacy of Naylor'scommunity in Mama Day:Naylor sets Mama Day largely on anisland off the coast of the Americansoutheast an island to which neitherGeorgia nor South Carolina can layclaim. Offering a somewhatromanticized version of thetopography, landscape, and culture ofthe barrier islands, she asks the reader292 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1
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