Mama Day Essay

Words: 904
Pages: 4

In the novel Mama Day by Gloria Naylor home is a very important aspect to those who live in Willow Springs. It has such a deep meaning to those whom live there because they are choosing to be secluded on the island. Cocoa lives in New York and visits her family on the island once a year during the winter time. For Cocoa coming home to Willow Springs brings her back to so many memories of her heritage. Gloria Naylor sets Willow Springs in a town that is not actually in a state to embody their lifestyle and how sacred the grounds are to those who live there. Each home means something special to Cocoa. “Home. It's being new and old all rolled into one. Measuring your new against old friends, old ways, old places, knowing that as long as the old survives, you can keep changing as much as you want without the nightmare of waking up to a total stranger.” (Naylor, 49) Home will never change for those who make it a part of their lives that they don’t give up even if they aren’t still living there.
Willow
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The lifestyles that the Day family live by are so sacred to the island, they don’t want to give up their island to the people from the mainland because those are their roots from the history of their ancestors who lived as slaves and came to Willow Springs as their first “free” home. The history is so rich and beautiful that it being an island that is not part of any state helps show that. Gloria has a few definitions for the meaning of home throughout the novel, “Home. You can move away from it, but you can never leave it. Not as long as it holds something to be missed (Naylor, 50) Naylor is saying that home is somewhere that you are tied to because of a memory that is held near and dear to one’s heart. Willow Springs is that place for the Day’s even though Cocoa doesn’t live their day to day it will always be somewhere that she considers to be