On Magical Realism In Gloria Naylor's Mama Day

Gloria Naylor is a significant African American woman writer in the 20^th century. Once published,her third novel Mama Day has aroused wide acclaim among reviewers and critics.Her application of magical realism in this novel represents perfectly the artistry of the fiction and makes it attractive and worth reading.Magical realism is a new artistic genre,in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even "normal" setting.It has been widely used in relation to literature,art and film.Magical realism created a new way to search the reality.In other words,as a new approach to literary realism,magical realism relies on the presentation of supernatural,imagined or magical elements as if they were real to search for the hidden meaning and real truth behind them.Besides complying with the basic principle of revealing and reflecting the social reality by blurring the boundary of the real and the magic worlds to create a mystical setting, magical realists are also proficient in applying myths in Bible and other cultures in order to bestow the reality with allegory meanings.In magical realist works,some postmodernist strategies are frequently employed to express the writers' themes and create mythical atmosphere.This paper holds that Naylor's employment of magical realism in Mama Day plays an extremely important role in conveying the themes and producing the shocking effects.It is also one of the most attractive points deserving a detailed research in the artistic features of this novel,as well as an unexplored research field till now.Naylor's elaborate arrangements,including the mythical setting Willow Springs, mysterious characters along with Miranda's supernatural power,on one hand, celebrate the rich black heritage,and on the other hand,ridicule the rational white world.Besides the artistic presentation of the magical elements in the novel,Naylor also performs her exemplary skills in the mastery of symbolism,which is another characteristic of magical realism.The symbolic meanings of such images as hands, names,chickens,bridge,not only present the richness of black culture,but also deepen the novel's themes and develop the characters' depiction in the book.The narrative method in the novel is another bright point that attracts the reader and critics. In this paper,the strategy of multiple perspectives is decoded with another way called quilt structure to pinpoint the traditional black culture.Other techniques,such as:the juxtaposition of the past and the present,some movie elements and stream of consciousness,also function properly in strengthening the artistic effects of Mama Day.The comprehensive magical realist reading of Mama Day cannot exhaust this novel's charm.In the conclusion part,some other approaches to this book are provided for a further study of it.