Mama Day

Miranda’s treatment of Bernice Duvall is readers’ first up-close look at how exactly Miranda uses her powers. The fact that Miranda relies on natural ingredients for her remedy underscores her respect for the natural order of things and her disdain for the artificial, represented by Berenice’s fertility pills. This section also presents another contrast to Miranda in the form of Dr. Smithfield: an official, licensed doctor who nevertheless seems to have respect for Miranda as a woman of medicine. Again, although these two characters practice different forms of their ritual—in this case, medicine—they have a mutual respect for each other’s form, which reiterates the novel’s theme that there is more than one valid form of ritual.

In these pages, readers further glimpse into the liminality of Willow Springs: it is a place between states, a place between seasons, but also a place between the law. For instance, the deputy who tries to investigate Dr. Buzzard’s moonshine operation learns the hard way that “Willow Springs was one place that’s best left alone” (137). Dr. Buzzard prides himself on being “invisible” to the law as if it were one of his own supernatural powers; however, it is Willow Springs itself that is invisible, with all the perks and drawbacks that come with that. On that note, Naylor continues to foreshadow the “other place,” which has and will continue to remain mysterious to readers for most of the novel’s action. The multiple, vague references to the other place build further on the idea that like people, places can achieve legendary status and mythic power. By keeping the other place cloaked in mystery rather than explicitly describing it, Naylor turns it into the stuff of legend, especially since even Miranda—a woman fully immersed in folklore and the supernatural—clearly seems uncomfortable even discussing it. The other place also provides a way for Naylor to underscore the novel’s motif of crossing over, as it seems inevitable that Bernice will eventually have to cross over to the other place to get what she wants: a baby.

Another recurring element of Mama Day that readers encounter in this section is confirmation bias: the psychological tendency for people to believe only what they want to believe. For example, studies of confirmation bias show that people are more likely to seek out news stories and articles that confirm their opinions and beliefs, while they are also likely to avoid those that challenge their opinions and beliefs. The danger of confirmation bias is that people tend to be unreceptive to information—even if that information is factual—that challenges or even outright counters their beliefs. Readers see this when Miranda tells Abigail, “The mind is a funny thing, Abigail—and a powerful thing at that. Bernice is gonna believe they are what I tell her they are—magic seeds. And the only magic is that what she believes they are, they’re gonna become” (163).

Even George, a character who professes himself to be driven by logic and reason, falls victim to his own confirmation bias, which is a cognitive phenomenon as inevitable as it is illogical. An unwillingness to change one’s mind in light of new information, as George does (even when confronted with evidence he cannot explain), reflects a larger problem of not being able to recognize when it is time for change. The novel will continue to explore this tension between when to allow change versus when to adhere to the status quo.