SOURCE: Storhoff, Gary. “The Only Voice Is Your Own: Gloria Naylor's Revision of The Tempest.” African American Review 29, no. 1 (spring 1995): 35–45.

In the following essay, Storhoff analyzes how Naylor reinterprets William Shakespeare's The Tempest in her novel Mama Day.

In Gloria Naylor's novel Mama Day, Reema's boy comes from the university to conduct anthropological studies in Willow Springs, the novel's mysterious setting. Attempting to preserve “cultural identities” against “hostile social and political parameters,” he frustrates Willow Springs's residents, for he does not “listen” to the stories they have to tell him. With this character, Naylor introduces the text's central theme, the necessity of establishing narrative authority:

Think about it: ain't nobody really talking to you. We're sitting here in Willow Springs, and you're God-knows-where. It's August 1999—ain't but a slim chance it's the same season where you are. Uh, huh, listen. Really listen this time: the only voice is...