Mama Day - The Tempest

Although The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Mama Day by Gloria Naylor have many similarities, Naylor uses her loose adaptation of the story in order to cast light on many societal and personal issues. Both pieces are written on small islands with little inhabitants and some of the characters do parallel each other like Prospero with Mama Day but the two pieces are very different because I believe Naylor wanted to add her own social views and personal views to parts of a Shakespearean play. I believe that Naylor had societal values in mind when she changed they story of the Tempest to fit the small island of Willow Springs because she wanted to express racial and key societal dilemmas of her era. Firstly Naylor uses Mama Day to represent Prospero but instead of making Mama Day a somewhat hierarchical dictator due to her magical powers she changed Mama Days image to represent a authoritative but collectively respected figure in her own light. Prospero also uses most of his magic to bring revenge for his misfortunes and to spite those who disowned him. Mama Day acts more of a moderator or overseer role on the island and only uses her magic for relative good and for the community.  I think by casting Mama Day in this similar but clearly contrasting way to Prospero was used to show Naylor's thoughts about strong African American individuals. She sought to cast Mama Day in a respected manner to the rest of her counterparts to show her own thoughts about how educated/respected/ or even powerful African Americans have a duty to look out for their community and use their characteristics for good. I think Naylor found Prospero's character representative of oppression and possibly slavery because of his tendency to use his power for no good and his treatment of characters like Caliban. Naylor used Mama Day to flip this idea on its head and to represent a modern African American cast as a authoritative figure.But contrastingly to Prospero, Mama Day uses her power for good as opposed to oppression. The story is very loose to the characters and the plot for much of this reason, because Naylor wanted to show the contrast between a way of oppression and a setting where magic (representative of power) was used for the good of a community rather than the advancement of the elite and the degradation of others. This could also explain why Naylor consistently rejects the idea of the story being based off of The Tempest because she used her own story to cast a negative light on some ideas in The Tempest and would not want its oppressive messages attached to her own contrasting storyline.