Mama Day

George Andrews is the co-founder of the Andrews-Stein Engineering Company in New York City; he is 31 at the start of the novel and 35 by Part 2. Orphaned at a young age, George grew up at the Wallace P. Andrews Shelter for Boys on Staten Island, a facility run by the cruel and exacting Mrs. Jackson. Rational and pragmatic to a fault, George’s philosophy follows the repeated mantra of Mrs. Jackson: “Only the present has potential” (40). Preferring to stay focused on his “nows” (219), George finds little sense in dwelling on the past, which he cannot change. However, somewhat hypocritically, George gradually grows increasingly fascinated with Cocoa’s family history, to the point of obsession, and it becomes clear that he is jealous that he never had a rich history of his own.

Throughout the novel, George insists on applying logic and reason to every situation, even those seemingly supernatural occurrences in Willow Springs that he is unable to explain. Despite Cocoa’s insistence that “some things just couldn’t be boiled down to a formula that you could shove new elements into and have it all come out nice and neat” (244), George continues to rely on manmade tools to explain the supernatural, even when doing so repeatedly fails him. In this way, George has his own set of rituals that make him a foil to the “supernatural” characters of Willow Springs, especially Miranda. Whereas Miranda’s rituals involve herbs, natural remedies, and mysterious silver and yellow powders, George’s rituals involve graph paper, rulers, charts, and maps.

However, the novel does not necessarily critique George’s own “brand” of ritual but rather his reluctance to consider any alternatives, as this is what causes eventual death. Even Miranda admits that “there are two ways anybody can go when they come to certain roads in life—ain’t about a right way or a wrong way—just two ways” (485), suggesting that neither her nor his form of ritual is the “correct” way of going about things. George’s demise comes about because he remains unwilling to even entertain the possibility of the supernatural, which he finally calls “mumbo-jumbo” (486), even when it means saving his wife. Because he remains closed off to the supernatural power of Willow Springs and fails to evolve to fit his new surroundings, he never finds a place there and dies.

Despite Cocoa and George’s prominent roles in the novel, Miranda dominates the book’s action for several reasons. First, readers are immediately introduced to her as a larger-than-life character, a direct descendant of the mythical Sapphira Wade. As her relative, Miranda has inherited some of Sapphira’s alleged supernatural power, which she uses multiple times throughout the novel. 

Miranda also serves as the novel’s most prominent foil to George. Miranda’s “hoodoo” rituals stand in stark contrast to George’s rational, empirical methods; she could serve as an example of how to adapt to and survive in Willow Springs, if only George would listen. Her brand of ritualism also functions as a counterpart to that of other characters, as well. For example, she dismisses Dr. Buzzard’s tricks and talks of “haints” as fraudulent, calling him an “out-and-out bootlegger and con man” (87). Her interaction with the town’s real doctor, Brian Smithfield, shows that she respects him as a fellow healer but remains partial to her own natural remedies. Finally, she functions as the benevolent counterpart to the evil Ruby, as Miranda tends to use her powers for good.

Miranda also frequently plays the role of resolver of conflict. She uses her powers to help Bernice Duvall (both when Bernice suffers the effects of the fertility pills and when she helps her conceive), to eliminate the “worms” from Carmen Rae’s afflicted baby, to exact retribution on Ruby, and to conduct the ritual that saves Cocoa’s life. She primarily uses her powers for good—especially healing—but the scene in which she sends George the letter coated with what seems to be a kind of aphrodisiac, along with the scene in which she sabotages Ruby’s home, casts her as a character not to be trifled with.

Although Miranda is one of the novel’s protagonists, she can also be manipulative and even destructive when she wants to be. She seems to agree with George’s philosophy that the past is immutable and therefore not worth worrying about, even when she finds herself unable to completely abandon it. Miranda is also somewhat inconsistent about when and how she applies her powers; for example, she clearly prefers not to interfere with what she considers the natural order of things. This is why she refuses to even try to do anything about Little Caesar’s death, despite that earlier in the novel, she was willing to play a role in the boy’s conception. So while Miranda might be Mama Day’s most powerful figure, her flaws remind readers that she is indeed human.

Bernice Duvall is Miranda’s neighbor and the lover of Ambush Duvall. Bernice falls gravely ill after taking some stolen fertility pills in an effort to get pregnant; she relies on Miranda’s home remedies to cure her. Concerned that the pills have permanently impaired her ability to get pregnant, she seeks out Miranda’s supernatural powers at the “other place.” Miranda’s “hoodoo” seems to have worked, as Bernice later gives birth to a son named Charles (also known as Little Caesar). Bernice’s good fortune is short-lived, however, as Little Caesar is killed in the hurricane that strikes Willow Springs a few years later. She once again seeks out Miranda’s help at the “other place” to try and rescue her son; however, Miranda considers death to be one thing that should not be interfered with, and she instructs Bernice to “go home and bury [her] child” (426).

Naylor uses Bernice, alongside George, as an ominous example of confirmation bias, a psychological phenomenon in which people see what they want to see and remain closed off to any alternatives. Miranda even tells Abigail that her magic will work because, as a sort of placebo effect, Bernice will believe what she wants to believe. On the other hand, Bernice convinces herself that Miranda has the power, as well as the willingness, to do something about her son’s death, but she is confronted with the harsh reality that there are some things even Miranda will not interfere with.

Ruby is Junior Lee’s lover and eventual wife, and she has her own reputation in Willow Springs as a wielder of supernatural powers. Suspected of “working roots” (159) on men to steal them away from their other love interests, she becomes a feared woman in the town and the novel’s primary antagonist. When Junior Lee comes onto Cocoa at the wedding party, Ruby invites Cocoa to her home under the pretense of wanting to atone for her husband’s behavior. Ruby uses that opportunity to braid poisonous substances into Cocoa’s hair, causing Cocoa to suffer debilitating sickness and hallucinations. Upon finding out about this, Miranda scatters an explosive powder around Ruby’s property, and when lightning strikes it, the house goes up in flames. Naylor characterizes Ruby as the evil, manipulative counterpart to Miranda, who—for the most part—uses her powers for good.

The novel repeatedly characterizes Ruby as a massive, imposing woman. She was “A mountain. Huge and still,” (263) and “Her huge legs were a fortress” (404). Ruby is something to be feared—a looming, foreboding presence in the novel—and the reader cannot help but feel that the tension between Miranda and Ruby will eventually come to a breaking point. Even Miranda feels it as she tells herself, “Ain’t no hoodoo anywhere as powerful as hate. Don’t make me tangle with you, Ruby” (263). Their conflict boils over when Ruby poisons Cocoa. Through Ruby’s downfall, Naylor argues that while people are only human, people with power have an obligation to use it for good. 

Introduced to readers as a young slave girl “not without extreme mischief and suspicions of delving in witchcraft” (9), Sapphira Wade becomes the novel’s most ominous and mysterious figure. The novel’s Prologue explains that, according to Willow Springs folklore, Sapphira bore her owner, Bascombe Wade, seven sons, before mysteriously killing him and escaping execution, “laughing in a burst of flames” (10). Sapphira’s legacy carries so much import in Willow Springs that it is taboo for the locals to even mention her name, and even her fairly distant descendants—Miranda included—inherit some of her clout.

The legend of Sapphira Wade establishes Willow Springs as a place steeped in the supernatural and inseparably connected to its past. This sort of characterization of Willow Springs allows Naylor to set the town up as a foil to New York City, a metropolis defined by the rational and the present. New York personifies the same obsession with immediacy—the here-and-now—that characterizes and eventually dooms George. In the same way, Sapphira Wade, a “true conjure woman” (10), serves as the representative of Willow Springs, a place of magic and mystery.